UPDATE: After this was published Lily Baran indicated an anonymous community organization fulfilled the neeed and the mother and son are in line for a spot at Our Place. The community bonded together, she wrote, despite receiving no response from the commissioners the email was addressed to.
A letter Lily Baran wrote to Washoe County Commissioners on May 24th, 2024:
“I am writing to inform you about an acute situation that has transpired this week at my home to shed some light on how the policy you've passed is playing out in some of our vulnerable neighborhoods, like the one I reside in on Elko Avenue between Wells and Valley Rd.
A few days ago someone sent police to do a wellness check on a woman and her 13-year-old living in their car across the street from my house.
They have resided in apartments on this street since August 2014.
Mom has used rental assistance 12 times in the last two years and done everything she is supposed to do, yet she is one of the many good parents caught between services and the ordinance.
I want to emphasize these are my neighbors. She has a job, but after taxes and child support paid to the foster family taking care of her other two older children, and $100 restitution from a charge she got for her other child getting in a physical altercation, she makes $200 a pay period.
The absolute last thing this mother needs is to be put in prison for being homeless, though this was what the judge informed her would happen if she was found homeless, so she didn't report that she was sleeping in the car.
To ensure this mom and incredible child get to stay together and not cause further trauma, they have been staying on my couch the last three nights, and I watch kiddo while mom is at work.
After several CPS visits, the only options given were that I could throw them back out on the street, and maybe they could get a motel but not a guarantee they would get one, that it would be safe, and again not unless I PERSONALLY throw them out.
I know that some of you are also parents, and I, as a mother, cannot live without throwing them back out to live in their car to MAYBE get a motel room for a few nights.
However, I am financially unable to support another family as I am a single mom myself, and I am in between jobs. As the co-board president of RISE, I am well aware Our Place has no openings at all however they are on our very long waiting list, and I have exhausted every resource I know between the city and county.
This ordinance is giving moms with jobs who are not on drugs two options: risk jail and traumatize their kids by getting them taken away or rely on individuals to use their resources to support them.
I am also concerned about a motel being a worse situation. I would like you all to consider using your funds, pooling them together to get this mother and child an adequate hotel or help me help them from my own home with funds for utilities and supplies.
This is just one of the many vulnerable women who have been on my doorstep with nowhere else to turn after this ordinance has passed. I need you to make this right, even if it is just for this one woman and her child. Please call me at any time, day or night, and help your community by mitigating the harm this ordinance has caused.
Individual citizens experiencing poverty themselves should not be the ones catching people we do not have resources at a county or city level to support.”