As colder weather descends upon us, George shares with us why he'll never return to the Cares Campus facility, whatever the hardships outside, because of the conditions inside, from dangerous drugs to uncleanliness, to the food they serve, to people with mental breakdowns.
“I’m from a little small town. I went to San Francisco, I lived there 22 years. [Being without housing] it's just hard, man…. You gotta try to survive, you know? So it's hard. Very hard. I find a place where I can, you know, just lay down, camp out.
Sometimes they're pretty rude here sometimes. They want to beat you up and everything. You know what I mean? And they got a shelter out here on Fourth Street and that place it's a mad house. It's like a nightmare. I'm serious. It's filthy dirty.
It shouldn't be a shelter. I'm serious. You got some nutty people in there. And that's one reason I came out here. I said, I'm [not] living in there. I couldn't do it. Yeah. It's just too hard, man. Just filthy man. And the people don't do nothing.
And, I’ll tell you another thing, there's a lot of dope coming through there. It's called fentanyl. It's running these people nuts. I'm telling you it, this, it'll kill you. It's killed a few people [there]. It's a very dangerous drug.
It's going to get really, really cold. This is just a taste of how cold it is early in the morning. It gets pretty cold early in the morning, but that's just a little taste of what's coming. It's going to get really freezing: rain, snow, everything. It's going to be rough. But no, I ain't going [back to the shelter].
The food [there] is atrocious. The food is horrible [that] they serve out there in that shelter. I'm not going back. No matter what happens, I'm not going to that place.
They got the housing, but you gotta wait forever to get on there until someone dies or something.
Might get a spot. But it is just hell man.
Reno, I'll tell you about Reno. It's no place to be homeless … not in Reno. I don’t know why I'm still here, but I am."