Smiling, Jennifer gets off her bike that is pulling an overpacked trailer filled with the necessities of her life. She goes over to the bench along the Reno Riverwalk where her partner, James, is sitting next to his own overloaded bike and trailer. She hands him a cup filled with soda she has gotten from a nearby fast-food restaurant for free after asking a manager.
James and Jennifer have been together on the streets in Reno for 14 months, or, as Jennifer laughs, “in street time that’s like 300 years. When you live inside you go to your jobs, you might see each other an hour or two a day. We’re with each other 24 hours a day.”
James got out of prison two years ago and met Jennifer, who moved here from California, fourteen months ago. They have been inseparable ever since, preferring to live in the rough outside rather than in a tent or shelter.
“I worked with the Red Cross in New York after 9/11, driving workers around, helping feed first responders. I’ve had hard jobs, I’m a good worker, " James says emphatically.
“Then I went to prison. And I will never contribute to America again. I think of my life out here on the streets as a living protest. I was kept as a slave in prison. I worked all sorts of jobs, got paid next to nothing. I even worked out there on the wild horse ranch, since I had experience in ranch work. I saw a lot of abuse there- of prisoners and horses. And think of all those prisoners who work on the fire crews, they get paid so little guarding our lives. When I left prison after all those years they gave me 38 dollars.”
He continues, obviously impassioned. “You know the Thirteenth Amendment? It bans slavery, except for prisoners. Maybe if you have an amendment against slavery there shouldn’t be a caveat to enslave prisoners.”
Jennifer opens her bright daisy printed bag to show the blister packs of Narcan that they always carry with them for emergencies. James tells of the time he used CPR for five minutes on someone who had overdosed on Fentanyl. “I learned it in the Red Cross. We’ve brought more than one person back to life with this,” he says, pointing into the bag of nasal sprays.
Jennifer gives him a hug as he continues. “Theoretically, the homeless shelter is a good idea, but you have to remember that a lot of the people on the streets have been to the penitentiary or jail. So, they get out and maybe were in a gang- I wasn’t, I was just an old guy, and you go in the shelter and it looks the same. Putting all the people in one place will never work. It’s violence waiting to happen.”
When asked about the possibility of living in one of the pods that Washoe County also has for the unhoused at the Cares Campus, he says he likes living outside and that small spaces and dormitories bring back too many memories of prison.
Jennifer, who, like James, is 43, says she tries to take care of “her guy” and others on the street, too. She is a mother figure to many of those who she checks on daily. Both of them identify themselves as “bad alcoholics” and the only other drug they use now is a little marijuana.
“We could die from withdrawal, “says James. Jennifer often finds herself alone in the middle of the night going to find alcohol. “I was chased by a guy outside of the liquor store at two the other morning,” she says with a small quaver. “The guys are gross out here when you are by yourself. Men all think I’m a prostitute and I am not.”
James says he would really like to go to medical detox to try and get off alcohol, but he worries about leaving his bike and his trailer with just Jennifer watching them. He has used drugs in the past, but both say the big drug on the street in Reno now is Fentanyl, which they both hate.
Living without a tent is not easy, but they both prefer it. “As soon as you have a tent up the cops can get you for camping,” James explains. This was Jennifer’s first winter sleeping rough and she has grown to like it. She does wish there was a place to take a shower and misses some of the razed motels where friends who could offer her one used to live.
There are local businesses where they can wash up and use toilets, and when they can’t find one, they both insist they would never use the sidewalk as they have sometimes seen others do. “The outside is our home,” Jennifer says. “Honestly, we save pizza boxes and bags to poop in if we have to, then throw it in the trash.”
They have a routine for food and there is a constant search to find money for the alcohol they need. "Tuesdays and Saturdays the hippies feed us. Thursdays it’s the church. Sundays we sometimes find the burrito people. We can get our EBT [Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) is an electronic system that allows a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participant to pay for food using SNAP benefits] refilled at the welfare office.”
James says that the best outreach in Reno is the VA. “I’m not a vet, but say there’s just one vet in a group- they help everyone. Those guys get it.”
Jennifer again leans into James’s neck. “We try to take care of each other and love each other. That’s all we can really do, right? “