Facing a Job Loss, Medical Problems and Racist Reno Landlords
Michelle, a 60-year-old from Las Vegas, came into hard times in 2007, having been diagnosed with a previously undetected neurological birth defect, after having worked as a family law paralegal for four decades.
It also coincided with her arrival in Reno, where her daughter was settling down. “My daughter came here to go to college. The market economy died. I was on the verge of losing my house. I had lost my job. I was experiencing medical issues, and my daughter said ‘why don’t you come here?’”
Michelle had brain surgery, but was no longer able to work and instead started to receive disability payments. But with rising rents, that money, about $1,200 a month, started to stretch thinner.
“My daughter has been in the same place for 11 years and I’ve been in five different places. I also ran into a very racist land management company who took over the apartment that I was living in… They refused to renew my lease even though there was no reason. This is a thing in Nevada … no cause eviction. It’s so unfair. I bounced around a bit more and my daughter finally said, ‘you can’t sleep on my couch anymore’, and she’s 35, she has a life. I got to the point where I was frantic, like on the verge of suicide for having nowhere to live and heard about this place and thought, this is doable.”
Michelle says she was one of the first to move in in August. She says there are problems, such as the not so safe neighborhood, a train that continuously goes by her window and messes up her TV reception, tiny showers, doors from which you can only exit but not enter, a lack of healthy food access and available cooking options, sometimes difficult communications with on site management, high surveillance and frequent police visits, but that overall she is satisfied with her decision to come live here.
Barely Making the Requirement
The Village on Sage Street uses structures typically used by FEMA, mining and construction projects, which in this case were transported from a work camp in Wyoming, according to the Community Foundation of Northern Nevada, the non-profit coordinating the initiative.
At its inception, people had to earn a gross monthly income between $1,320 and $2,735 to qualify to live at the Village. Michelle barely made the minimum requirement, as she gets child support in arrears, in addition to her disability check.
It took a while, she says, to get adjusted to living so close to other people, in such a small room, which she describes as barely bigger than a “jail cell.”
“My first month here, I was crazy,” she remembers. “I felt like a fish out of water, you know, having lived in a $250,000 condo and living in really nice apartments and things like that. I was really depressed, you know, withdrawn. But the people here, all of us are sort of in the same boat, so we kind of pulled one another through those first couple of months. I made it my point to meet everyone to say, ‘welcome here.’”
Michelle has had to come up with new life hacks, such as preparing her toiletry bag with all necessities before going to shared restrooms. Sometimes, she says, items which are supposed to be there aren’t, and she has had discussions with Volunteers of America staff who are the managers here. “There's so many of us, that they can't know in advance how much soap, how much hand towels, how much toilet paper, are needed …. these kinds of things. I think that the feedback that we give them on that is so important because it's not a complaint, it's an observation. We're telling you what we need and what we think would make living here better.”
Seeking Improvements
Since everyone has to pass a background check before being allowed to live here, Michelle says she doesn’t understand why there are so many surveillance cameras and police visits.
“There are cameras everywhere .… Everywhere. So there's a sense of you know, the lack of privacy and I understand that it's a safety issue, I assume. I'm guessing. But we all have our own locks on our doors. We all have our own individual keys. I don't really understand the need for such high surveillance. I don't call it monitoring. It's surveillance. The other thing is that the police are here a lot. Having the police here so much, it’s unsettling. I appreciate when they come through, say hi, you know, we get to know who they are. But … I can't find the need to have so much security. You know, management, they sit at their desk, they have monitors, they sit at their desk and watch us all day. That's all unnerving to a certain degree.”
She says she understands people are doing their job, but she says they shouldn’t forget this is her home. “We need to have that ability to communicate to a degree that we're being heard. And if there's a reason, then you can say, ‘Hey, you know what, this is a safety issue.’ Tell us, give us a reason. We're all adults here. Let us understand that.”
Michelle says sometimes management doesn’t take hygiene issues seriously enough, such as one time when she says another resident dirtied the hallway, and it wasn’t cleaned up for over 24 hours. We couldn’t independently verify this incident, but she showed us pictures of the dirty hallway. She likes the art on the way to her own private room, though, saying that’s a nice, colorful touch.
Welcoming Seniors
Michelle greeted with approval a recent loosening of the requirements to accept more seniors on fixed income. In an email sent out on January 8th, Nick Tscheekar wrote: “The Community Foundation and Volunteers of America have created an income waiver to help seniors who are struggling to find affordable housing. Now, seniors (age 50 or older) who earn at least $771 gross monthly income and can verify that they are on a waitlist for income-restricted housing will qualify to live at the Village.”
In a follow up email, Tscheekar, a Community Engagement Officer at the Foundation, said that as of January 7, there were 128 people living at the Village. “We would consider the Village to be “full” when we reach 90% occupancy, which would be 195 lodgers,” he wrote. “At 90%, lodgers’ rents will cover the operational costs and we would likely need a waitlist at that point for pending move-ins and departures. I predict the senior income waiver will lead to a substantial occupancy increase.”
Some activists have complained that due to stringent requirements, the much touted Village isn’t as filled up as it could be, given the needs of the community. Michelle says it’s “phenomenal” they are opening up this opportunity to older residents. She says she has gone from suicidal to now being “able to exhale,” and that more seniors will be able to benefit from the Village.
Michelle doesn’t have room for many decorations, but she does have a beautiful photo of her mother, who was from Detroit, and who passed away when she was 16. She is very close to her own daughter, whom she shares a car with as well as a “grandkitten.”
A New Lifeline for a new Community
Having a $400 rent has given Michelle an ability to take care of herself more than before.
“I get to see a doctor more often. I need dental work. I have hearing aids that don't work. So these are things that I'm building toward. If I was paying 900, $1,000 a month rent, or like the last place I lived in $1450 a month, I was losing every dime I had plus some to housing. You know, if you have past bills that you're trying to clean up so you can get a clean credit rating to move into a better place or a nicer place or what have you… this will give you that opportunity if you're frugal. I have a storage unit at $200 a month. I have my cell phone, I try to help my daughter out a little here and there. So there's no fun money as we call it.”
She says some of her neighbors became homeless after their rent doubled overnight. Others are making $9 or $10 an hour and can’t afford anything else.
“We have people who are security guards, people who work in the retail industry. We have people who work in hospitality. One of the guys here just got a job with Catholic Services. We have a few people who work at Walmart. Nobody here is a brain surgeon, but for those who can work, we're all actively seeking employment or actively working at the jobs that we are able to do,” she said.
Michelle tries to keep fresh food in her room, but is somewhat frustrated by the lack of options and how difficult it is to eat healthy while living at the Village. Microwaves aren’t allowed in the rooms, while there is no gas or oven cooking on the premises for residents. Healthy supermarkets and restaurants are few and far in between in the Sage street area.
Food Issues
Michelle says she needs hot food to stay healthy and so she spends more than she would like in going to restaurants, since it’s not possible to do anything besides microwaving at the Village. “I just told my daughter recently I need to eat out a little more because I need a hot meal periodically,” she said.
She says visits by volunteer groups would be more than welcome. “A hot meal can change your life … a hot meal can make you warm all over,” she said. “We would appreciate that so much, especially close to the end of the month when you know, your funds are starting to get a little thin.”
She has helped herself. “Not that long ago I went to my daughter’s place and I made a huge pot of chicken noodle soup and a huge pot of red beans and rice. And I just shared it with all my neighbors, because we haven't had hot home cooked food in so long. I had a line at my door and it was, you know, it was really special because it was cold, it was wet and this was a hot meal that someone cooked and it was great.”
Many of the residents have bikes, while others rely on nearby bus stops to go shopping and get to work. A few have cars. Michelle says the car gate works, as it’s supposed to, and stays locked when it’s dark, but she’s not too sure about the walk-in gate, which she thought was supposed to be locked at all times.
A Day in Michelle’s Life at the Village
Now that she is housed, and not constantly worrying about her every day finances, Michelle has settled into a routine. She’s an early bird, who tries to eat a healthy breakfast. She keeps tabs on local news and friends with her phone. She helps her daughter by taking care of her cat. She takes walks, watches television, reads and naps. She goes outside to smoke and talk to her neighbors.
“It's a communal experience, when you have all these people that you've been around for so long, you know their kids now, you know what they do for a living. You know what they don't like to eat, that kind of thing. So you get to know your neighbors. Evening time, I isolate, I come in my room, I have a cup of tea, I relax. My hearing impairment kind of helps me because I don't hear a lot of the extemporaneous noise. You know, there's a lot of the floors that are rather hollow here, so you hear the stomping, that kind of thing. But these are all things that you can live with…”
Her daughter calls and she needs their shared car, so she’s on her way out, but before that, she greets a neighbor who is out for a cigarette. By the looks of it, they both seem on a better, safer “boat” than they used to be on, or at least the waters are calmer now. The horizon they see seems a bit brighter as well, even as a light snow descends around them in the Sierras.