Reno Street Audio

We've heard of mutual aid groups and community gardens, so why not combine the two? Patricia Curtis-Ostler is one of the volunteers for a new initiative in a sideyard in downtown Reno. She explains why she’s helping as she does with so many groups in the community. We’ll also hear from Michael Carson, a coordinator of this project. He’ll explain his plan to grow crops for those in need.

This is a podcast rundown of a stop the sweeps protest today June 7th, 2021 in Reno when protestors faced off against police. I’m Nico Colombant the coordinator for the Our Town Reno multimedia initiative.

As people chanted, outreach workers started arriving first, speaking to people unhoused laying on the grass at Believe Plaza. I interrupted Erika Minaberry doing a Facebook Live to ask about her insights with tensions rising. Then the police arrived. They had issued a notice for the advocates to vacate by noon. Lily Baran and others explained it was a free speech vigil protest and not a camping situation. At first police and a city official said they wanted to offer resources to those camping in the Believe Plaza area. Tensions rose at the protest site as advocates for the unhoused weren’t sure what police would do next.

After talking separately with Lily Baran, one officer said he would be back the next day during his early shift. The crowd taunted police as they left while Baran and then Ilya Arbatman, another advocate, gave us their observations on the quickly unfolding situation.

Wraith is mad an encampment at N Edison and Mill Street is next on the sweeps list in Reno, following the opening of new mega shelter the Nevada Cares Campus. It’s broiling hot and it’s only June second. People here are tired of journalists and cameras. Advocates were hoping they could make this a legal safe camp until the official safe camp opens at the new Nevada Cares Campus but the City of Reno cars and police vehicles are already here and notices have been handed out. There’s been a petition getting hundreds of signatures to stop the sweeps, angry words at the City Council meeting, and a new Occupy protest in downtown Reno, but the sweeps aren't stopping, so Wraith is busy getting people and their possessions into different vehicles.

At the beginning of summer last year, protests were erupting across the country over a range of issues, including police violence and conditions at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. Helen Miranda and Ashley Solano decided they needed to do something about it. Being friends since their sophomore year of high school, the two decided to start Project UNITY, a group aimed at organizing protests and activism in the Reno area.

Solano was born and raised in Reno, while Miranda moved here from Los Angeles when she was eight years old. Disappointed in the lack of local action, Miranda and Solano took it upon themselves to create the change they wanted to see, even if it was just the two of them. Since then, they have organized protests against inadequate immigration facilities, sex trafficking, and police brutality. They have also hosted donation drives for Reno’s houseless community. Listen to their accomplishments and aspirations in this Our Town Reno episode with reporter Rachel Jackson.

When we interviewed him, Carl, an Illinois native, had been living in the tent city in Reno for about a month. “We're all sick, we're all struggling. You know, we're all struggling. I mean, you do get some bad seeds up in here, but you know what, we're all pretty much in the same boat.” As notices were handed out up and down railroad tracks in Reno, Carl sat down in an outdoor couch to have a cigarette and share his story with Richard Bednarski.

As a University of Nevada, Reno graduate student, Alex Muñoz, originally from Barcelona, Spain, plans to study the geography of the developing Governor’s Bowl Park homeless shelter. With a background in cinema and global studies, Muñoz wants his work to have an impact on the community. Muñoz has also implanted himself in the local community’s outreach efforts addressing the needs of our houseless neighbors. He is one of the three members behind Laundry to the People and has helped with the Reno Burrito Project. Our reporters for this episode are Gracie Gordon and Richard Bednarski.

Since early February, the Reno Gastro Project, whose stated mission “is to support the local economy while feeding community members facing hunger”, has been purchasing restaurant meals at full price for those most in need.

In nearly three months, they have already raised about $16,000 dollars. Susan Abele, the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Nevada State Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, along with three of her co-workers, had this vision in helping our neighbors in need. On a recent morning, she sat down with Our Town Reno reporter Richard Bednarski at the local restaurant, Lili’s Restaurant and Bar, over a cup of coffee.

“We’ve been raising money to buy meals from local restaurants at full price and provide the people in need,” said Abele as the chatter from early morning diners and wait staff filled the air. She moved here in 2004 from Idaho and was recently inspired by a friend’s Facebook post about a similar project happening in Spokane, WA. Abele wanted to not only bring food to people who need it but also support the local restaurant scene as well. The initial campaign is focused on providing meals for the Eddy House, which helps youth without stable shelter. “Our goal is to provide two weeks of meals to the at-risk youth that they serve,” said Abele, as the waitress brought us each a cup of coffee.

Officially launched on February third, the Reno Gastro Project is a licensed non-profit with the State of Nevada. They have also applied for 501(c) 3 status with the U.S. government and their application is pending. Once this happens, all donations will be tax-deductible.

“We’ve supported over 20 local restaurants already,” explained Abele “and our goal is to support each one at a $1,000 a restaurant.” To date, the Reno Gastro Project has supported over 20 local restaurants. This includes Cherry Bomb Catering, who squeezed them in during a busy sold-out Easter Sunday in order to provide an Easter Brunch for the women at Casa de Vida. Other big players have been Two Chicks and Ijji Noodle House. More on this ingenious program in this episode, as part of a series here about Heroes of Reno.

Sana Sana says he's working to bridge the gap between dehumanization and injustices to land and water through hip hop, illustration, and direct action. “I was pretty much born an artist, but I feel like I didn’t really start coming into my own,” said Sana Sana, a local Reno visual and hip hop artist “until I dedicated my art to saying something that was meaningful to the people and for the land.”

He does not believe art and activism are independent of one another. He goes by Sana, which is Spanish for heal as his chosen name because of the song mothers from his community sing to their kids when they get hurt, sana sana colita de rana.

Originally from Milwaukee, Sana Sana came to Reno about fifteen years ago. His artwork is based in illustration, having worked as a tattoo artist for fifteen years. As the pandemic wore on, he chose to leave a local shop. It was an opportunity to break out on his own and focus more on his work and be selective about whom he tattoos.

Sana Sana draws heavily on his ancestry for not just inspiration but also to live up to who he is. His family goes back to the people of central Mexico where he says poetry is the highest form of expression. “When something moves me to say something, that’s when I create,” he said “that can be either an illustration or it can be a song.” His mother’s side is Coahuilteca, an Indigenous group from southern Texas and his father’s side is Purépecha, a group of people living in Michoacán, located in central Mexico.

Listen to the episode for more with reporter Richard Bednarski, including song clips.

On an early morning by the Wells Avenue bridge, downtown Reno ambassadors roam around on Segways; cops respond to disturbance calls, and two women attempt to clean out their tents in hopes of making the area feel more like home. Ahead of a new Cares campus, this is where people living in tents are being allowed to stay, but that may all change soon, with sweeps being threatened, and police refusing to hire more social workers, despite pleas from advocates.

Shannon Moore, 32, has lived in Reno for 30 years and has been homeless for the past six years. Moore feels invisible because of her current state of living. To her, being a woman and homeless comes with severe challenges.

“I can't even take a shower now,” she said. “You know, like they have two different men's shelters for men to do whatever they want all day long, be drunk on beer and all that. And they can take showers. The women’s shelter is all the way (across town). And when you get there, you can't get in and take a shower, not unless you have a bed there and the bed wait is like a month.”

Patches, 63, a woman at the Wells Ave. camp originally from Carson City expressed how becoming homeless in Reno has required her to change how she sees the world. Patches explains the world is all about love, but often times being a woman without stable shelter, she says people seem to take her for granted.

Our reporters for this episode are Gracie Gordon and Rachel Jackson.

With temperatures rising and skies clearing, activist Lily Baran started her day tending to a batch of strawberry seedlings she received from a farm in Dayton, Nevada. Her son Oliver and her dog Champagne are close behind, dodging wasps here and there. Once frost is a threat of the past, the seedlings can be put into the ground to bloom and grow into red delicious berries. For now, they are one of the first batches of seedlings grown by the Hampton House Community Garden Project.

Baran, a Reno citizen of almost eight years, partnered with Black Wall Street Reno about two months ago to start the project.

“I think I've always loved gardening, but, in my work and organizing and activism have really wanted to find a way after such a traumatic year for everyone, but especially for Black and Indigenous people, to try to find a way that we can have a space where we're restoring and healing and taking care of each other and ourselves and our communities.”

Our reporter for this episode is Rachel Jackson.