“People come to the park, and offer jobs so i'm getting ready to be picked up right now,” Josh, 33, said when we met him. “It's picking up slowly, but it's picking up, you know. It's gonna be busy later but now it's slow and we are just here hanging out. Payment depends on a person. Sometimes I make a hundred, maybe under 100... it depends on the person and the job itself.”
The Wait for Odd Jobs
Josh says the problem is when he doesn’t get picked up for work, he turns to drinking or weed to pass the time.
“That's a bad thing,” he said. “But hey, I still work and still get my job done and I still get paid. I do anything like construction, moving. I can do yard work and, all that stuff.”
The San Jose native has been in Reno about 15 years, but he says when he can, he prefers to find work in the Biggest Little City, but then sleep outside city limits to avoid trouble.
“Right now, I'm drinking energy drinks but I have … a little bit of an alcohol addiction. I don't know when that's gonna stop. I get in trouble when I have a little bit too much liquor. I get pissed off and … they could take me to jail. I mean it ruins me,” he said.
Avoiding Police and Most Other People
Josh says he tries to keep a low profile and avoid police. He says he’s lived in the woods and growing up he was mostly home schooled. He says he often doesn’t have a phone but that it doesn’t matter as he doesn’t keep in contact with many people, mostly just his grandparents and a cousin.
“I haven't been around people that much,” he said. “And then when I first came out here, I started learning how to, slowly but surely. I found myself in the streets as a result of smoking weed, breaking the law, not giving a damn. Pretty much, it's all good. Just living this day by day.”
He stays alert to avoid problems. “It's not safe out here or anywhere,” he said. “It's like you see in the movies, you know, the people.”
“What's next for me? I wan't to go down there. Under the dirt. I want to rest in peace. Yeah, I've given up, I lost my parents and that’s it … That's how I want to be helped,” he told us.
Feelings of Giving Up
He says he’s tried regular jobs, but doesn’t do well with the money he earns, or ends up finding trouble one way or another.
“The thing with being offered a job is when I get to that, that job, where they get me to the payroll thing and I get paid and then I'm doing good for a minute… then one of those days you mess up and then you just lose everything,” he said.
“And then, when you come back, come out of jail, losing everything, you try to get another job and that takes time. And you don't know if they're going to call you. Technology is also challenging when doing applications online. I hate phones. I hate filling out the applications. I have resumes, but I just don't feel like doing all that. It's a headache,” he said.
He dreams of leaving Reno for good, and going back to California, but says he doesn’t have the money to make that happen yet.