When you walk past the Space Whale in downtown Reno, currently, you will usually find friendly 58-year-old Robert, a Missouri native, now unhoused in Reno, sitting there with his group of friends. I found him there on an arid Saturday afternoon. But this time he was alone. He was sitting there with his back towards the busy main street, his hands clenched tightly on the side pavement in order to provide support to his bent back which perennially hurts due to severe osteoporosis.
Robert has no money and no family, having recently lost a brother he was close to. With nowhere to go, he says his only rescuer from this would be “death.” He was living for a while at the 777 motel on Virginia street doing odd jobs.
“My brother … he passed away a year or so ago and my unemployment ran out … I was working for more or less room and board. But then for the guy that I was working, doing this work for, I got injured,” he said at the start of our interview. Some of his thoughts ramble and are hard to understand. He did pick ups it seems. One time, he was supposed to walk several miles to help the man’s father. “That's when my back got hurt and my ankles are really in bad shape, swelled up. I could hardly walk. And he wanted me to walk all the way down to the CVS pharmacy … but I told him, no, that's all. I went down and prayed…”
He says they communicated by walkie-talkie and that he would also clean rooms at the motel, but that one day, the gig was suddenly up, and he was asked to return the device and turn in his keys.
Robert says he is in the middle of negotiating trying to get another previous job back as an assistant supervisor of porter services on the day shift at the Cal Neva casino but he is unsure if that will succeed. Several volunteer groups like the Reno Burrito Project occasionally visit Robert on their rounds and he enjoys the food and conversations.
There’s also Miami (name changed, in shadow picture above) who came by and handed two cigarettes to Robert while I was speaking to him. Robert had an instant gleam on his face and was happy to see the “good kid” around. Miami himself lives off provisions that the St. Vincent Catholic Charities provides but makes sure he helps Robert and many like him, with whatever little he has.
Robert also mentioned that the recent smoke from California fires was sometimes unbearable. But he said, as a heavy smoker “I can deal with it probably better than most.”
His skin on his arms had several blisters. Robert has heard of the new mega shelter Nevada Cares Campus but doesn’t go. He says it hasn’t been “what it was cracked up to be.” He says he’s heard that in order to reside on the campus, people have to have their own soap, towel and blanket. He says he’s not going to steal those. While there have been issues with blankets and towels not always available at the campus, these are not required for admittance.
My classmate Shelby and I visited Robert the next day to help him with some pillows for his back and some sunscreen and aloe for his flaky skin. We were almost heartbroken to not find him in the same spot, but then he waved at us from a distance.