A Few Ideas We Suggest Should Be Tried As Soon as Possible
There are projects here in Reno that get lots of drawn out media attention to help the poorly sheltered in our community amid an accessible housing crisis: the Village on Sage Street and the Hope Springs tiny home village come to mind, to name a couple. Now these are great projects, but their delays to get going and reliance on slow fundraising efforts and refinancing indicate these may just remain experimental and not duplicable.
Such projects also rely on large numbers of not always motivated external staff and hi-tech security, which alienates some who don’t want to perpetually feel like a “client” or a “bridge” project or worse, like an “aided inmate,” all quotes we’ve recorded during our reporting.
There is also a dominant political narrative in our community to meld everything together: recovery, food aid, mental health resources, job training and possible access to future housing, to name a few. But if getting someone housed is the goal shouldn’t that be the main priority? Nothing wrong with considering the whole, but do we not mostly treat mental health or recovery exclusive of housing components for the more affluent?
Lots of money has been available with the CARES Act to address houselessness, which is why we at Our Town Reno would like to suggest a few other ideas to pursue. These would all be easy to implement, some cheap, others more costly, but all of them doable if there was political will. Some might fail but some might succeed. If an also needed overnight camping ordinance were to be passed, these could immediately help hundreds people currently living in precarious situations. Lots of attention seems to be given to food programs for the poor in our community, but much less on housing.
City-Sanctioned Safe Camping
While this idea has long been talked about, and there is maybe going to be a section for it at the new Governor’s Bowl shelter location, to be called the Nevada Cares Campus, why hasn’t it happened sooner? Why hasn’t it happened yet? Why can’t it happen elsewhere on other plots of city-owned unused land with a low barrier of entry? Why don’t we try it out and see what works, what doesn’t work, rather than just talking about it for years and years?
Residents themselves could be hired for some of the safe camp jobs, and there could be gardening spaces as well as creative spaces. There could also be a nightly fee, as many we’ve interviewed sleeping in tents along the river and railroad tracks say they would be willing to pay for added safety.
We could have a government-sanctioned safe camp for just Veterans for example, as has been the case recently at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration campus, in Brentwood. That camp has been designated as a "Care Treatment Rehabilitation Service" program, or "CTRS" in official federal acronym language.
Wouldn’t this be better than unsanctioned camps which regularly get swept up by police when they become too big and lead to possessions being thrown out, poverty being criminalized and communities of friends being uprooted?
Safe Overnight Parking Lots
Many people still own a vehicle but don’t have enough money to afford rent. Rather than finding out of the way places to park, create trash, and use the outdoors as their toilet, wouldn’t it be better to have safe parking lots with basic amenities for them to park and spend the night?
Again a nominal fee could be charged in exchange for safety and legality. There could be one person working an overnight shift, and large church parking lots could be used. Many people experiencing homelessness for the first time do so initially in their vehicle. Some safe parking programs also include an intake component by a social worker to have a conversation to see if any immediate help or resources can be provided. Trash cans, portable toilets and shower trucks could also be on location.
Homeless Huts
In Oregon, the Community Supported Shelters (CSS) non-profit has come up with structures called Conestoga Huts which seem like a good solution to go inside a safe camp or to add to a tiny home village. This also begs the question, why in Reno there aren’t more non profits focused solely on housing.
These lockable huts give a resident 60 square feet of indoor living space, enough to keep possessions safe and dry and to have a comfortable sleep. The Conestoga name comes from the historical Conestoga Wagon. These cost about $2,500 to build, a quarter of the price than the most basic tiny home, while being much more durable and tidier than tents. There could also be a nightly fee.
Reviving “Flophouses”, or Creating Bunkhouses, Hostels and Micro Apartments
The term flophouse has a derogatory sound to it, but for years, in the early decades of the 20th century, the flophouse were like the motels of the 80s onward now getting bulldozed away, a place for people without the means to sleep anywhere else, in transition, on a day to day, week to week or month to month budget. Some had kitchens and dining halls, and you could pay for one night. Flophouses were often in downtown areas, making them convenient for people getting around on foot. Now the name flophouse is bad for marketing obviously, so why not build new ones which look like log cabins, and call them bunkhouses? These could go for $10-$20 a night. We could also have hostels with several people per room for artists or young travelers. Why always go for the high end of everything with new projects?
Or rather than tearing down some of the historical mansions which were already used for voucher recovery housing programs, why didn’t we improve those? Another possible name for rented out rooms which feels less derogatory is micro apartments or SROs, single room occupancy.
City-Owned Motels
Speaking of motels, what about the city, rather than complaining about them, buying some, renovating them and then using rooms to house homeless families? In the early months of the pandemic, California used this approach as part of Project Roomkey, a joint state and federal program that leased more than 15-thousand hotel rooms for the homeless. Oregon has a similar endeavor called Project Turnkey. In Reno, this would be much cheaper than building anything from scratch and we could also preserve some of the iconic structures and signs the motels give to our city landscape rather than tearing them down.
Granny Pods
Not least but last, because this failed here in 2018 after years of discussions is to revive the idea of granny pods. For reasons we still don’t understand backyard accommodations which could house a family member or rented out for cheap, making it a win win for several parties, was shot down by a combination of politicians, rich home owners and affordable housing developers. Accessory dwelling units, also known as ADUs, or in-law suites, are very divisive here and elsewhere, but why not legalize them and give them a shot? Don’t we have an inventory shortage? Vancouver and Toronto to the north have several thousands of them now, also calling them Laneway and Carriage houses and even has preservationist tours and glitzy realtor videos to show some of them off. There seems to be the sense we need to preserve the “character” of neighborhoods, but we just can’t sweep the unhoused away, or pretend they don’t exist. Due to low wages and Social Security benefits, combined with higher and higher prices for housing, the unhoused are us.
Our Town Reno reporting, January 2021
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