Number of unsheltered dropped by more than half in this Nevada city after large tent to house its homeless was built
The “Biggest Little City in the World” is earning a new distinction: one of the few cities in the West to get large numbers of homeless off its streets.
The city teamed with Sparks, a neighboring city, and surrounding Washoe County to build a Nevada Cares Campus in 2021 that could accommodate more than 600 people in a giant tent and satellite sleeping pods. Since that year, the number of homeless living on the street has plummeted to 329 this year from 780, according to annual point-in-time counts.
The 58% drop is striking when compared with many other Western cities which have seen their unsheltered homeless populations grow or stagnate since the pandemic, amid soaring drug addiction and a federal appeals-court order that prevents cities in the region from clearing streets without providing enough beds. California has spent about $20 billion over the last five years to combat the problem, yet still has half the nation’s unsheltered homeless.
Once people are off the street and in the tent, the other part of Reno’s approach kicks in: helping them find a job, access other services and move them into permanent housing. Other cities are taking notice.
I wonder how much this has to do with the fact that the Reno-Sparks area has a LOT of undeveloped land with no single family homes or apartments around it.
One of the biggest challenges in my area, the San Francisco Bay Area, is that most people agree that we need more housing and places for homeless people. But, no one wants housing for the homeless next to where they live.
Every neighborhood fights it, and undeveloped land is hard to find. So it’s got to be next to someone.
Seems the answer is lots of small distributed homeless support infrastructure to support the homeless that are already present in their neighborhoods. Still easier said than done though
San Francisco residents will fight any development, not just housing for the homeless.