“Working on the Inside … for Reno’s Image”
It’s the day after the Election, with results still uncertain in Nevada, but a clear blue sky overhead. Byron is part of a small crew with trash bags going around tent encampments picking up litter and making the surrounding areas cleaner. Newcomers who join the cleanup crew are encouraged to do so with gift cards, and a weekly lunch with plenty of tips and motivation from local homeless advocate and coordinator of the River Stewards program Grant Denton.
Byron has been inspired now to do his part on a regular basis as well. “I have pride in where I live,” he said. “My area is clean. I talk with my neighbors and we kind of got all on the same page and kept all our areas very clean now.”
He understands people who aren’t homeless and aren’t living along the river complain about the trash, but he hopes this program will help.
“I know that you know, all this garbage out here, it looks really, really bad for our community, but I'm working on the inside to try to change that for you guys, just for our image and for Reno's image, Nevada's image,” he said.
Grant Denton, formerly homeless himself, coordinates the program and also helps with the cleanup.
Grant Denton, the Coordinator
Grant Denton, well known locally already for his Karma Box project of neighborhood donations, and morning workouts for women in recovery, draws from his past Las Vegas experiences with homelessness and drug addiction.
As yellow and orange leaves floated down the river, this week, we wound our way through the willows and rocks. As we pass tents, Denton stops to talk with the person inside and offers them a trash bag and the opportunity to join his crew. The River Stewards program, which is only in its fourth week, empowers the homeless population with the opportunity to give back to the greater community. They have already collected and disposed of over 350 bags of trash. Denton has a group of four regular homeless workers who come out five days a week to clean up trash left behind by the homeless community.
As we step over crumbling concrete and loose rocks, Denton explains the difference between what he calls a camp and a site. Camps are single tents with one or two people whereas a site in his lexicon is several camps in one area, a hyper-local community. When the culture and social dynamics shift, sometimes people will suddenly abandon the site, leaving everything behind. We are heading to one of these locations Denton had identified previously.
“We'll get four volunteers,” Denton explains as a volunteer picks up trash nearby, “and have them come out and help us clean up the river for four hours a day.” He then gives them a $50 gift card for them to use for food, clothing, or other essentials. At the end of each week, Denton takes the group out to eat at a local restaurant giving them a sense of what life is like outside of the homelessness bubble.
The River Stewards program is funded through a grant from the Truckee River Fund, which is financed through water service fees.
A Grant Funded Program to Lead by Example
Denton says he wants to also help shift the culture around trash the homeless have, by regularly handing out trash bags and encouraging people to place them near a road when full. He has a donated golf cart he uses to collect bags of trash. “It is no different than bringing the trash bin to the curb on trash day,” he said.
Leading by example, his morning workers “are mirroring the behavior that we want, that any community would want.”
We reach the site to be cleaned and the volunteers immediately spread out and start picking up trash. There are two tents that are still occupied, one by a lady in her fifties who offers to help and takes a bag from Denton.
“Meet them where they’re at,” he says, “and then challenge them.”
Denton understands an obstacle he faces is understanding current dynamics which for people without stable shelter can change from day to day, even hour to hour. He understands homeless people can be service resistant, meaning that they may not want any outside help or have no trust remaining for any outsider.
“This group shows up, they understand the impact they have,” Denton says as he picks up a plastic bottle and places it into a large trash bag.
“This program carries so much value. They’re living on the river in a tent, but they have purpose. That’s what is important,” Denton said.
Consistency is the Key
Pulling from his own experiences in rehab, he knows that in order to really change an individual you have to be consistent. “That's paramount in anybody changing their habits,” he says, “when I was a drug addict the reason I kept relapsing was because heroin always showed up for me, heroin is very, very consistent. Alcohol does exactly what it's supposed to do.” Utilizing this idea of consistency, Denton has his regular workers show up every day and has already seen improvements.
Denton also views the River Stewards as a stigma reduction program. When the public sees the homeless cleaning up the river, the dialogue changes, he says, and Denton wants them to be seen not as a liability, but rather as potential assets for the community. When this dialogue changes, and the stigma is reduced, Denton believes we will be moving in the right direction.
He’s also trying to find housing for some of his regulars in a low-income housing complex in Sparks. That would be a dream for Byron.
“You want to be established again, just like, you know, in days past where you had a nice car,” he said. “What I think that really caused a lot of his homelessness is high rent. The rates are so high, it's doubled, you know, people with fixed incomes only get 700 bucks, you know, and how can I survive? And we just have to learn as a group of people, you know, just to live a little bit more respectfully clean, fully, you know, to get everything accomplished,” he said of his goals, keeping his faith in God and in his country.