As the heat faded and light winds moved some smoke out of the area, local community member Jessica Castro parked her car outside the CARES Campus on a recent early evening. A line of unhoused people began forming outside the security gate as people knew what was inside Castro’s trunk.
“I would say we hand out at least 160 waters a day,” said Castro as she took a break from hurriedly passing out waters and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Conversations from the line of people filled the air. She has been coming down to the emergency homeless shelter two to three times a week since police sweeps of encampments around town began back in June.
The line of people patiently waiting quickly grew to over 40 individuals and would eventually swell to nearly 100. Some in wheelchairs, others with pets, and all looking for cold water, something several said is not regularly provided at the CARES campus.
On this day, Castro has two people helping her, but sometimes it is only her. Bill Sims has been helping her for almost two months. “People were protesting at the Believe sign and through that I got connected with Jessica,” explained Sims about how he started helping Castro soon after the police sweeps began earlier this summer.
Sims believes the largest challenge facing Castro is the amount of need people have while staying at the compound. “But I am glad they are lining up to actually get hydrated and get fed,” said Sims. He believes helping out unhoused people should not fall on a small subset of people. “If we had more of the community out here helping our unhoused neighbors then we would be able to help them more.”
Within a half-hour all the food that Jessica Castro brought was gone and she called a friend to bring more. In the meantime, she gave anyone who needed it a cold bottle of water, hygiene kits, toothbrushes, and feminine hygiene supplies.
“As you see they’re my friends at this point, I know them, they come talk to me, I see them three times a week at this point, they are very welcoming,” Castro said. The supplies are funded with help from the community. “Because I do it on such a large scale all of the time, I’ve had to fund quite a bit of it myself,” she said.
Castro identified red tape as her biggest hurdle to being able to provide cold water and food to people staying at the CARES Campus. “Whether it be the security staff trying to shut me down, whether it be the VOA staff not wanting me here, making it uncomfortable for me,” said Castro, “or the cops constantly circling like sharks.” Despite these many hurdles, Castro pushes ahead. “They know that I’m here, they know that I care, they know that I'm going to be here again in a couple of days, regardless.” The smiles and joy she she's in their eyes is the most rewarding part of the work she is doing.
“I think they’re trying to do a good job here...the mental health of people here needs to be addressed more,” explained Robert Barbor. His arms were full of water, fruit, and sandwiches for him and his partner, who waited inside the CARES Campus. He has been staying here for about two weeks after getting kicked out of his apartment due to what he said were minor lease violations.
Recently kicked out from his last apartment, Robert Barbor is an example of someone sleeping at the compound and being helped by Castro.
While he has been placed on a waiting list he fears this could be a long predicament. The average rent in Reno recently went up to about $1600 a month. And under the general rule of spending a third of your income on housing, a person would have to make about $30 an hour to afford that. It’s also out of reach for those on senior or disability social security, or those working for much lower wages.
Barbor recently started working at the Silver Legacy and is grateful to have a place to shower. “The biggest struggle I think is the food and being able to sleep at night,” Barbor said about staying at the CARES Campus. He also talked about people getting personal belongings stolen and that more security would help.
“People that come and drop food off are definitely awesome,” he said.
Jessica Castro, a local auditor at a call center, who was previously unhoused herself, got her start helping out with the unhoused community when she joined a local group, Puff Puff Pass the Love. She credits them for getting her to take her experience as being unhoused herself, and paying it forward now that she is rebounding from past trauma.
“Every single person turned away from me,” Castro said about her own homeless experience, and going through traumatic events she has detailed bravely at recent City Council meetings and on her own social media posts. “Not one person looked at me and said ‘are you okay, what can I do for you?’”
“I am not going to judge somebody if they are actively doing drugs,” Castro said, pointing back to her own experiences. She has lived on the streets and understands why people resort to drugs and sex work to survive. She explained how some unhoused people will also purposely place garbage around their camp to make it look less valuable in order to protect themselves and belongings.
“When your whole existence is basically just surviving, you understand a lot more,” she said.
In the short time Castro has been working with the unhoused community, she has become friends with many of them. She knows their first names and seems to know something about everyone. When passing out water she makes sure to have a conversation with each person, to make the transaction human and compassionate.
Castro says those staying at the CARES campus are constantly surrounded by a hostile environment and most of the workers make people feel uncomfortable. “I could go on and on, there is so much they’re facing and they are being swept to a place that is not taking care of them,” Castro said. She has brought forward these complaints at many city council meetings and on her own social media, working on different projects to try as best she can to make conditions inside the campus more comfortable, such as having simple entertainment such as books and board games.
“Unfortunately, most of the city doesn’t see the things that I see,” Castro said.