A Safe Place to Sleep and Find New Direction
Diaz Dixon greets Eddy House’s young residents with a warm smile, a friendly gesture, and the youth return the kindness and make playful jokes that he needs to hit the gym. On Jan. 30, under his leadership, the Eddy House transitioned from its small and quaint home on 6th street to a large, 24-hour shelter for youth ages 18 to 24 who don’t have stable housing on Willow street.
"It's really important because these young people come to us from different situations,” he said. “A number of them have had a really rough time maybe for five, six years, and they've been couch surfing, or wandering around in the streets and they haven't had a chance to have a place for stability. So, we're giving them at least the stability part: in a place to sleep that's safe, and that you can eat, and shower," Dixon said. "We're tapping into the other pieces to help increase their own awareness, so that they can figure out why they got here, and then start game planning as to what they want to do moving forward."
The Eddy House now has 23 beds available in their community living facility, where youth can stay up to six months. Eddy House also has 20 drop in beds (above), where individuals sign in to sleep in nightly. When we did our interview, Dixon said the community living beds haven’t filled up yet, despite local needs.
Intern Help and Yoga Classes
In addition to a safe place to sleep, Eddy House’s new facility is also home to three interns from the School of Social Work and three interns from Counseling and Educational Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno, to provide mental health services. Eddy House focuses on physical wellbeing too.
Eddy House has yoga classes, helped nearly 20 youth enroll in Medicaid, and has a dental hygienist who volunteers their time once a month.
"These particular individuals have been beat up for a while,” Diaz said of the overall needs. “We never know how much that they've gone through. We want to be the first place that gives them a feeling of hope. When they can walk through the door and feel comfortable, as comfortable as possible in that moment, at least we can keep them. We want to be able to keep them in these doors and let them know that inside these walls that there's a lot of work to be done and we're going to be walking alongside them, helping them get those things accomplished,” Dixon said.
The longer term arrangement for beds has a cozier feel and colorful trunks for personal possessions.
The Importance of Nonprofits
According to government statistics, there are roughly 3,000 students in Washoe County School District without stable shelter. He said Eddy House also helps students in college facing homelessness. He said there are about 50 students at Truckee Meadows Community College living on the streets and that number triples at UNR. Dixon said youth living on the streets are a vulnerable population.
"Oftentimes if you're younger living on the streets, you're a target, you're in jeopardy or in danger of being trafficked. Oftentimes some of the older and more chronically homeless individuals will seek them out. When you're younger, you tend to be a little more vulnerable, and impressionable, and can find yourselves in some really tough situations," Dixon said.
Dixon is a strong advocate for nonprofits. Before Eddy House, Dixon ran STEP2 for fourteen years, a nonprofit that assists women and families struggling with substance use disorders. He said he’s always wanted to make a difference in his community and it became clear that Eddy House was the place he wanted to be.
"When we have people who are struggling or suffering, you got to have organizations and entities who are willing to pick them up. At the same time, those individuals have to be ready to put the work in. But nonprofits are critical to maintaining that stability. People don't go into nonprofits to get rich and nor do the people who are utilizing their nonprofit services," Dixon said. "Nonprofits are important to help, and to educate, and to also increase awareness [of] the health of the particular community."