Transition from Record Street and the Reno Events Center to Our Place Begins

A Staggered Opening with COVID-19 Delays

Aside from construction and renovation delays, the opening of Our Place, the new Washoe County shelter for women, families and seniors, has been complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The campus transitioned to RISE staff on May 1st, but initially they told us they were only able to accept five residents.

“[The launch date] has been somewhat of a moving target,” Castro said. “But we hope to start accepting new residents soon. We do have a quarantine room for them to where they'll have to stay for the first couple of weeks before they're kind of released into their own shared space.”

By May 15th, however, the process of transitioning women and families staying at the Reno Event Center and Community Assistance Center campus on Record street to the Our Place campus started. Only single men will remain at the CAC.

“There's a push to basically move the residents from the Reno Events Center back to the CAC relatively soon, and a lot of that does hinge on Our Place opening up,” Castro said at the time of our interview. “So once we can relocate the families and the women from the Reno Event Center, that should give the Volunteers of America (who operate the CAC) … enough room for social distancing to move back over to the CAC.”

Quarantine measures are being taken for new residents to keep everyone safe.

A Still Unfinished Unit for Women and Extra Precautions

One specific challenge brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak, however, is the fact that the building designated for women won’t be completed until August. Washoe County says it is purchasing modulars in the interim, to help facilitate the transition of women from the Reno Events Center to the Our Place campus in a way that still enables social distancing practices.

“[The outbreak] has been really challenging for us but thankfully, the buildings on the campus are laid out where each individual gets their own rooms and bathrooms that do complement the social distancing guidelines,” Amber Howell, the Washoe County Human Services Agency Director said. “But we thought this still would be a good time, even though the building won't be ready at Our Place, that we would offer to provide the women that are at the Reno Events Center shelter and housing at the Our Place campus. So everybody sort of relocates to the campus around the same time.”

Given that the COVID-19 outbreak is still ongoing, precautions will still be in place to ensure the safety of the residents being admitted to the Our Place campus.

“We have a couple of different housing options if someone is presumptive or tests positive,” Howell said. “We have a contract with Well Care where we can house individuals with their own rooms so that they can be provided a safe place to heal and get better if they are exposed to [COVID-19].”

An Ongoing Partnership with Well Care to Help the COVID affected

The partnership with Well Care, which provides local health care for those without shelter, including those affected by COVID-19, will be a continuation of what’s been instituted at the CAC.

“When the Health District becomes aware of an individual who is presumptive, positive, or is having symptoms, there's a referral that is sent to the housing branch,” Howell said. “They get all of their medical records and medical needs and then they have to consult with Well Care to just go over any unique needs or criteria for that individual. Then they are placed there for 14 days or longer until they have a solid after-care plan.”

Castro is second from left with other RISE members at a recent community meal.

New Services such as Transportation, Gardens

As the official launch of the Our Place campus approaches, Castro is excited for the new opportunities the RISE staff will be able to provide the residents.

“For RISE staff, we're there to basically support our residents and our guests to make them feel welcome,” Castro said. “There is going to be food service on the property and a transportation service that we're providing so that people can get to appointments and things of that nature. In addition to the daycare on-site, I’m really excited about that.”

Castro recently had the opportunity to tour the campus for himself. Although a majority of the campus is still a construction site, he sees great potential for the campus once they officially open.

“[The campus] is really beautiful, frankly,” Castro said. “For me, I just pictured a lot of laughter and joy in it, and it made me really happy.”

RISE, however, is still searching for community groups and organizations to partner with to create even more opportunities for residents on the campus. It’s all part of maximizing the potential the Our Place campus can have for a client-centered approach in serving the houseless community in Reno.

“There's a lot of land [on the campus],” Castro said. “So we hope to have gardens and have areas where people can do art therapy, music therapy, and garden therapy. There's also an area for service animals so people don't have to abandon their companion animals, so we're really excited about that as well. It's just going to be much more flexible than we've seen in the past.”

Our Place, A Name with History that Strives for Better

Even the name, Our Place, signifies an approach to do better by acknowledging the past. The NNAHMS campus is now named in honor of William Place, the first resident that passed away in the early 1900s when it was a state mental health campus. 

“[William Place’s] story is really interesting and sad about how we used to address individuals that were experiencing mental health,” Howell explained. “They would go to this campus where they would finish out their life and eventually pass away. There was, at the time, archaic treatment methods that were used to try and cure individuals from mental health issues. So William Place was the first individual that passed away on the campus. What's important about that is that it's named in his honor and a promise that we can do better when people are experiencing mental health issues.”

Our Place, Howell said, will strive to be much different than what Place had to experience.

“We want to have this campus be a place of support and safety,” Howell said. “We want to revitalize the campus to do better for individuals so that they can heal. So we just thought it was important to have something symbolic [about the name] as we’re reopening the campus and giving it a new path forward and a new way of helping individuals who need help.”

RISE used to hold regular community meals at the downtown shelter, such as above until they were moved to a new location, on 4th street, which is not too far from Our Place.

Ongoing Advocacy for Safe Camps

Despite its work with Our Place, RISE says it will also continue to host community dinners at the 1905 East Fourth Street rest stop and advocating for a safe camp initiative.

“We're really excited that the opening of Our Place will essentially double the capacity of services here in town as far as emergency shelter goes,” Castro said. “But given the pandemic and with unemployment on the rise, we're still going to see camps popping up all over town. There's still gonna be a lot of new people that are new to being outside. So the initiative for a safe camp is still very necessary and the community dinners will still be occurring because there are still people out there that need to eat.”

Reporting by Scott King as part of an Our Town Reno series on Our Place.

Part 1 of our series can be read here:

http://www.ourtownreno.com/our-stories-1/2020/5/18/rise-creating-a-new-place-for-women-families-and-seniors-without-shelter