Ladies and gentlemen, it's nine o'clock.

We're gonna call this meeting to order.

Uh I don't have a gavel, so I can't gavel it in.

Uh maybe they don't trust me with a gavel.

Mayor Mayor Lawson, do you travel with your gavel?

Do you have it with you?

Can I okay very well?

More of them in my desk at the other place.

Very well.

Nice to know.

Maybe we can borrow a spare here.

Oh there we go.

We're starting.

Uh start with a flag salute.

Uh I'd like to ask Mr.

Michael Large to uh lead us in the pledge.

Thank you.

Indivisible public liberty agents.

Could we have a roll call, please?

Chair Clark, Washoe County.

Present.

Alexis Hill, Washoe County.

Here.

Ed Lawson, City of Sparks.

Kathleen Taylor, City of Reno.

Here.

Diane Vanderwell, City of Reno.

Or City of Sparks.

Here.

Brandy Anderson, City of Reno.

Here.

Representing the district attorney's office, Mike Large.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Very good, thank you.

We'll start off with the public comment.

Do we have anyone signed in?

Yes, we do.

First up, Paul White.

Followed by Tammy Holt still.

Thank you.

I'll be speaking in a few minutes one about the proposal on how to choose my group.

There we go.

There we go.

I'm Paul White with Education Crusade.

I'll be speaking in a few minutes on an agenda item for what's needs to go on over Kier's campus.

But I thought you might want to know an update if you've been staying with the news with uh the mayor's race in LA and also President Trump's comments on uh what do we do about this out of control homeless issue nationwide.

And uh presidents being extremely strong, that there's just no evidence to find that the kind of program that runs at CARES campus is accomplishing anything, and other than employing people.

And uh I'll be speaking to that in detail, but it's something you'd want to look up if you haven't seen it.

Uh one of the candidates over there in LA, Spencer Pratt, who's uh writing at the top for the position.

And um, they're saying the same thing that LA is just they're losing their town, and it doesn't have to be that way.

So um anyhow, I look forward to uh to sharing with you a plan we have for what could be done differently over uh over with cares and for all our people who are homeless and vagrant, and uh I'll be back in a few minutes.

Next up, Tammy Holt still, followed by Lawrence Dodson.

Tammy Holt still for the record, also Washoe County candidate for Washoe County District Five.

Um there's two things to this that I want to talk about.

Number one, this affects me personally as a mom.

I have a son who's been at that campus for over two years, and all he has to do is check in with his social worker.

There's no accountability.

He's ADHD, he has depression, he's self-medicating.

And I have worked with him many times.

My family has worked with him many times, and we finally had to say no more.

Now he's been there, and it's not helping.

The other issue is I am very disappointed in our DA's office because there is a precedent out there that is 2000 from 2015, San Francisco versus Nevada, where Nevada shipped 1,500 citizens over to San Francisco.

That was settled for 400,000.

There is a precedent out there that we should not be paying, we the taxpayers, your stakeholders, should not have to be paying for California residents.

I understand a hand up, but a handout for another state on our backs when we need police.

We don't have any.

So there's an issue that needs to be taken care of instead of wasting our money.

Thank you.

Next up, Lord Lawrence Dotson, followed by Pastor Pepe Gonzalez.

Good morning.

My name is Lawrence Dotson.

I'm a founding member of ABLE, the advisory board for lived experience for the Washoe County Continuum of Care.

I hold a seat on the Northern Nevada CLC Leadership Council.

And I've been to Washington, DC, representing this community.

I'm here because CARES campus saved my life.

And I'll be real with you.

I hear a lot of criticism about that place.

But most of the people talking have never spent a single night there.

I have.

I actually took the time to figure out what I needed.

She made sure I didn't fall through the cracks.

That connection led me to stable housing, and stable housing gave me the ground to build on.

Everything I've built since then, Able, Washington, all of it.

That all traces back to August doing her job and to CARES campus doing its job right.

Don't let the noise drown out what's actually working.

And I'll leave you with one ask.

If you decide to include a person with lived experience on CHEP, on CHAP, uh give them full voting rights, not an advisory role, a real vote.

Because lived experience is expertise.

Thank you.

Pastor Pepe Gonzalez, followed by Pam Dar.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Pastor Pepe.

I'm with the Victory Iowa's church there in Sparks, right there on uh Glendale between McCarran and Rock.

And we have a uh Christian program, it's called the Victory Arbor International.

We have rehab homes.

We have a 70% success rate.

And uh we've tried working there at the care center.

We we did uh a lot of work around cleaning it up, giving people haircuts and stuff like that.

And then they one day they just asked us to stop doing it, and we're doing it for free.

Um, I want to just make it known that there are programs that really, really work.

We have a 70% success rate.

Nobody has a 70% success rate.

And I believe that that's a true I attribute all that to uh accountability.

Uh I believe also in God, I think God changes people's lives, you changed mine.

At one time I used to do drugs with my mom.

We did burglaries together.

Uh, they said I was never gonna change, but 45 years ago, I went into one of these programs.

God changed my life.

Now I'm a pastor of a church, I'm a chaplain for the Reno Police Department, and uh it works.

And so I would like to just bring that out to you uh this morning that there are things that really, really do work.

I've heard a lot about it.

I've never seen it, I was never been allowed to go in there, but we were able to go on the front and work with a lot of people, and we still do that today.

We still try to go out there and uh talk to people, pray with people, let them know that there's a better way.

I have so many testimonies of men and women whose lives have been changed, ex-gang members, ex-drag addicts, ex-herin addicts, ex-prostites, women that were sex trafficked that at one time felt no hope, no, they had no future, but uh they came into one of our programs, God got a hold of them, got changed their life.

Now they're uh they're they're uh teachers.

We have people that are business owners now, and that's the kind of results that I think needs to happen there at the CARES campus.

I don't normally come to things like this and talk about uh anything unless it's about our church.

But I'm really one of the things that we do as a church is we're really concerned about our community.

We love helping our community.

We always want to be involved in uh being a part of helping the community, and I believe that we can help the community this way, and uh, I hope we get a chance to do that.

Amen.

God bless you.

Next up, Pam Darr, followed by Deanna Hoover.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here.

Um this weekend I started listening to things that are happening in Los Angeles.

I'm original Valley Girl, and it was wonderful growing up down there, but it's gone downhill real quick.

Spencer Pratt has been a breath of fresh air.

For him to straight up say what needs to be done, it was good to hear.

We're done.

I'm done trying to park in a place, making sure there's not somebody out there that's gonna try to hurt me because they're everywhere.

Um, he's gonna take the stance.

You either demand treatment or you leave.

You hear stories that they got the help they needed and they turn their lives around.

Letting them stay on the street to hurt somebody, grab an axe, iron stone parking center.

Um, and hurts, I don't want to die that way.

You don't, I've been stared down, waiting in my car for the gym to open and thinking that guy would have beat me to death if I was outside my car.

I'm done with it.

Either take the treatment or you leave.

We need to get results, we need to demand results.

We want clean streets.

We want to go down to the Broadway series in Reno, and don't feel like it's you're gonna scratch your skin, it's so dirty and icky out there.

We have a beautiful town.

Let's keep it that way.

I'm done.

We're done.

I just want to share that with you.

When I was leaving the gym this morning, I couldn't park where I normally park.

And I made a comment where's my car?

And the young girl sweeping up in front of the my favorite muffin.

She goes, Yeah, around here, you gotta watch where you park, all kinds of things come out of the shadows.

And City of Sparks does a great job, but it's too much to stay on top of.

It really is.

You guys are awesome.

I'm not insulting anybody.

It's just the way things are now.

We have to do more.

We have to not have them on the streets.

We have to take them off.

No excuses.

Off.

You're on drugs, off.

And do what you got to do.

Get them the help.

If we're gonna spend the money we're spending, we want results from everybody, and we want to enjoy our lives in this town and be safe.

Thank you.

I appreciate you guys being here.

You sit on boards, please pass it, put it on the agenda.

And let's get down to business.

Girls shouldn't be afraid to go somewhere in this town.

This is a young girl.

It's not a party thing.

It's not our thing, it's not a D thing is we want to feel safe.

Thank you.

Bye.

Next up, Deanna Hover, followed by Taylor Bauk.

Hello, good morning.

Uh, my name is Deanna, and I'm here to share my story.

Um, in 2023, I found myself alone with my three-month-old living in a shelter.

In that time, I was given an exuberant amount of resources, and I found myself living my life again.

I've gotten stable housing.

I had an incredible caseworker.

His name was Nick, and I will forever owe him everything.

I find myself getting financial guidance on how to get back on my feet.

I was given um a grant to get back into stable housing with my son.

In that time I graduated my program after five months.

I didn't even need the full year of guidance, which was incredible.

Um, these services changed lives.

I wasn't the only one.

There was multiple women in my program that I was with.

Those women, we found a community, and you know, we take turns helping get to daycare, getting to work.

We found this incredible bond, which I wouldn't have found if I went through these services alone or even without services, right?

I I was facing living in my car with a three-month-old, and I had someone reach out and say, We have services to help you.

And I just want to say thank you for continuing to provide those.

It's genuinely life-changing.

I've had so many blessings since then.

You know, what are we in?

Three years later.

I'm looking at moving out of my apartment that I started in.

I have a new car, got a new job.

Everything has changed miraculously for me and my son.

So again, I wanted to say thank you because without these services, I don't know where we would be.

Next up, Taylor Balk, followed by Tim McGivney.

Okay, good morning.

Um, my name is Taylor Bauk.

I have studied at UNR, but now I am a remote graduate student at USC for social work.

I work locally with individuals experiencing homelessness, and I also bring lived experience with homelessness myself.

Um I am here today because I believe one of the most important gaps in our homelessness response is not only housing, but what happens as people try to move from crisis to stability.

There are people in our community who are trying to navigate shelter, health care, housing, employment, recovery, while carrying trauma, shame, isolation, and the belief that society has already rejected them.

When somebody feels like they do not matter, it becomes much harder to keep showing up, keep applying themselves, keep attending appointments, keep looking for work, and keep and keep fighting for a future they might not believe is even possible anymore.

That is why I'm asking the board to consider expanding peer mentorship or lived experience support within homelessness response systems.

People who have lived experience with homelessness and have found a path forward can offer something systems cannot.

Trust, credibility, and hope.

They can help individuals navigate fragmented services, understand what steps come next, and feel less alone while trying to rebuild rebuild their lives.

I also want to speak directly to the role of this board, Chab is tasked with providing input and recommendations on homelessness issues across the region.

And it includes elected representatives from Reno Sparks, Washoe County, uh Able, which someone's here today from ABLE.

The exists to bring the voices of people who have lived experience with homelessness into policy and system improvement work.

Both structures matter significantly, but from the outside, it is not clear that these voices are consistently connected to the board's decision-making process.

If the board is serious about sustainable solutions, then lived experience cannot be an occasional input.

It has to be built into the process.

I urge this board to create a clear, consistent mechanism for lived experience input at the CHAP meetings, which you're voting on today, and to explore peer mentorship as a part of the county's broader stabilization strategy.

I also urge board members to be physically present in places where people are struggling, not only in this room, but CARES campus, our place, youth homelessness training events, um, outreach events, community spaces where people are already telling us what they need.

People experiencing homelessness are still constituents.

And as elected officials, they're your constituents.

They are still members of this community, and they're members of your community.

Thank you.

Next up, Tim McGivney, followed by Bob Chandester.

Hey, I'm Tim McGivney.

Um I didn't write anything out, but I just wanted to say that the CARES campus needs to change to get to be able to really help people.

I hear some of the people saying that it has helped them, and it can, but it would help a lot more if we could clear out the people who aren't ready by requiring sobriety.

Of course, that needs to be step one is to require sobriety when we're accepting government funds and government funding, the low barrier, no barrier approach uh just allows people who are still using to be all over those places.

Um I have guys that I work with that are in the Sage Street homes that were clean going in there, but since it's a party every night and everybody's using because there's no requirement for sobriety, they're now relapsing and using again.

Um so I'm not saying the services aren't helping some people, but let's clear out the people who aren't ready.

And we can't do that if we're accepting the federal funds.

Um we need to listen to Paul White, I believe, with his approach to get the CARES campus into the hands of a church coalition to where we can actually do some good for people.

Um when I was out on the streets using and dealing, uh, the first thing I would tell you is all the things that were keeping me to be able to continue doing that were working.

So I think we need to be careful with who we're listening to as far as what helps and what doesn't when we're seeking people who are still on the streets and homeless.

If they're still using, they're gonna be having a distorted view of what they think will help them.

Um again, sobriety needs to be step one so we can have clear-minded people making decisions and helping people to change their lives around.

Um, that's what helped me is when I was finally up against enough consequences and arrested enough times to um actually want to make a change, and that was in sobriety, not with just a program that would come alongside me and give me housing or give me resources and allow me to keep using and telling me it wasn't my fault.

Um that's all thank you.

Next up, Bob Chedester, followed by Georgetie, good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to express my opinion on the serious homeless crisis in Reno.

Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to express my opinion on the serious homeless crisis in Reno.

My name is Bob Chittister, and my wife and I moved to Sparks eight years ago.

We came here with high expectations, and shortly realized Reno area far exceeded those expectations.

Over these last eight years, we've seen the homeless crisis get exceedingly worse with no solution or improvement in sight.

In case you think I have no empathy for homeless people, I offer the following.

My wife claims her brother was as smart as of the four kids.

I know how smart my wife is, how smart her oldest sister is, and her younger sister is probably all average intelligence.

She has a serious case of TDS.

Michael was an excellent mechanic and certified welder, but hadn't worked for years at either occupation.

He was a very personable man.

He worked out an interesting arrangement with the Fremont police.

They told him he could live there as long as he moved his truck to a different parking space every three days.

The commuters who left their cars parked there all day knew and liked him because his presence discouraged vandalism and theft.

If on a rare occasion there was a problem, Michael would immediately alert the police and they would take care of this situation.

For serious medical issues, Michael would go to Washington Community Hospital, which was very close to the Amtrak.

No station, no charge.

We tried several times to get him good jobs in his profession, but he just was not interested.

Michael is the typical vagrant by choice, a term I believe Paul White may have coined from his extensive experience with working to solve the homeless problem in several major cities.

When I heard at least two busloads of homeless people were sent from Sacramento and dropped off here in Reno, I decided to get involved with the issue.

As if we don't have enough homegrown homeless in Reno, it's long past time to try a new approach.

But we need your help to make it happen.

Thank you for the time.

Next up, Eddie George, followed by Drew Rebar.

Good morning.

Sorry about that.

I had eye surgery this morning, so everybody's a little blurry here.

My name is George Eddie Lorton runner for Reno Mayor.

And I would like to say I'm here mainly to observe today.

I know what we're doing now doesn't seem to be working.

We've thrown hundreds of millions of dollars at this thing, and there's more homeless than there has been for years.

And they're parking in business owners' doorways.

It's not good for the community, but I know it's a tough issue.

I realize that.

So I hope we can come up with maybe some new solutions.

The current ones don't seem to be working as we spend more and more money.

And as I said 12 years ago, it was a county's responsibility to place and pay for this thing, and Reno took it on, so now kind of Reno and we're stuck with it.

And but it's number one calls of service for our police and fire.

And now, as of a few years ago, the county's paying just like I said 12 years ago, which is great, but we're stuck with the issue.

So I hope we can, you know, I believe in a hand up, not a handout.

And if people are willing to help themselves, that's what we're supposed to be here for.

But for those that aren't willing to help themselves, then you're wasting time on that.

But there's every life worth saving and stuff like that, but we should really give the help and zero in on those that want the help.

So thank you for your time.

I appreciate it.

And thanks for being on this board.

I know you make good decisions.

Thank you.

Next up, Drew Rebar, followed by Trisha Creedon.

Hi there, Drew Rebar, candidate for Nevada Assembly District 40.

My my perspective comes from uh East Fourth Street.

I ran a business there for decades, closed down, got rid of it.

I was after the Reno Police Department would never respond to calls.

But my perspective goes back to the late 1960s.

Goes back to before Circus Circus was there.

Remember my gr there used to be a department store over there where the circus circuses and grandma'd go over there, go shoe shopping.

And the circus circus got built and she'd go take her therapy there on her slot machines.

And East Fourth Street's changed a lot in that period of time.

My uncle ran businesses down there.

And what I see is the government is uh created these problems, I believe.

So what the government's done is created programs that have made life more expensive for people, penalized people, put people in these positions where homes are now unaffordable in our communities.

That's the homeless problem.

Unaffordable homes.

I don't mean housing, I mean homes for people.

That's a problem we need to solve.

This this other problem we've got down there on East Fourth Street is a drug problem.

Let's be honest about what it is.

It's not a homeless problem.

It's people deciding that they they'd rather do drugs than go to work and take care of their families and take care of their responsibilities.

So this problem needs to be broken up into into different sections, I believe.

One section, how do we make it so people can afford to live in our community again?

What are the what are the regulations that are created about a hundred thousand dollars in soft costs from government to the home builders?

So we got 20% tax essentially against homes by the government.

That's kind of dumb.

And then we got the, like I said, the drug, the whole drug problem.

Here we are using tax dollars to give out drug needles and drug supplies and all this other good stuff so people can stay high instead of enforcing the laws and helping these people.

We need to increase social services, and I think we can do all of this with the tax budget and the money that we've currently got because as one of the people up on this on this board has said before, it's not an income problem.

Washoe County for one is bringing more money it's ever brought in before.

Sure are good at spending more than we're bringing in, aren't we, though?

So those are the things that we need to talk about.

Those are the things that we need to do is splitting this problem into the the different problems that it truly is, managing those problems and ultimately taking government out of it because I think government's what's created it, especially like the city of Reno.

You got kind of a police state going on over in Reno.

You got Reno PD making up $31.50 fees to make the price of towing cars, the homeless 10% higher than it used to be.

It'll increase everybody's insurance rates too.

But hey, the Reno City Commission, they don't give a shit.

They'll just let the Reno police do it.

Y'all have a nice day.

Next up, Tricia Creedon, followed by Melanie Denny.

Hi, everybody.

Um good morning.

My name is Tricia Creedon.

Um, I know everybody's happy to see me.

I don't want to be here either.

I have to say that every time I come in, I have a little less hope than before.

Thank you for that.

I hope everybody's Mother's Day was great.

Mine was pretty quiet, and I have to say thank you for that as well.

Um, I used to get I was used to be pretty spoiled and showered with thoughtful gifts, homemade's cards and photo albums.

Not in a little bit now.

She would have been here.

I thank you guys for that too.

I looked for her.

But after sweeps, it's kind of hard to find people.

I'm a grandma.

So know that this is not just affecting me.

Yesterday was pretty quiet for a few people.

I want to start by saying that I realize that you're here to add members, but I think that being that you guys are all on the board that decides budgets for your area.

I should all step down immediately.

It is clear conflict of interests that you guys make decisions on casinos and the people because of yours choosing the casinos every time.

Second, this is a county board, so why are we paying attention to city lines?

Your hope team, which I will remind everybody, or just sheriff deputies in a different uniform or sweeping them from one city to the next and then back again.

This should not be a thing for Sparks to tell somebody to get out of Sparks if they don't have a home.

If you guys don't allow for homes, there shouldn't be sweeps.

Not that you're gonna listen, but when you have cops involved involved, they're gonna treat people like criminals.

Not that you're gonna listen, but when you have cops involved involved, they're gonna treat people like criminals, and that's because that's what cops do.

Get social services and listen to people.

They have been talking to you.

I'd like to know when you all leave here what you do when you run into people that are on the corner with signs.

Um do you know that these are people with hopes and dreams?

Do you know that she was in a stable spot enough that I could talk to her?

She was starting to get level-headed.

I almost had her there, and you guys swept her.

Thanks for that.

Melanie Detty, followed by Bruce Parks.

You just turn it off.

I don't think I know how to turn this on.

Maybe I do.

Okay.

Melanie Denny, thank you for hearing me today.

I'm here again to ask that you direct staff to work with the community to put together a comprehensive plan of how to deal with our homeless and affordability crisis that is happening right now.

I'm especially concerned with the changes in the federal budget that is coming.

Um, we have historically relied on federal funds to combine with the little bit of local funds that we have to actually address these issues right now.

CDBG home funds are not in the current federal budget.

We depend heavily on those sources of revenue to build affordable housing.

They have also changed the continuum of care funds to focus on transitional housing and support service only programs at the expense of permanent supportive housing programs, of which we have many functioning in our community that are providing a critical resource without that revenue.

Where is it gonna come from?

Um, and so I'm extremely concerned, and we have time to make a plan around this as a community to identify those sources of revenue to replace out those federal ones.

I suggest we get busy and do it.

Thank you.

Next up, Bruce Parks, followed by Phil McKay.

Just like to tell you all, I find it absolutely reprehensible that we allow our citizens to live in some of the conditions that we are allowing.

I've spent thousands of hours in homeless camps all over the country.

It's a crime against humanity.

It really is.

We allow people to live in conditions that we wouldn't allow our pets to live in, but that's okay.

We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the I don't care campus, and I call it that because that's exactly what it is.

How do you measure success with these folks?

There's only one true measurement.

These people are all potentially contributing taxpaying members of our community, but no, we're gonna enable their poor life choices and their poor behavior.

That's what we do with the I don't care campus.

There's only one measurement for success.

That person that was living as a homeless person, doing the chemical of their choice, whatever, is now clean, sober, and a productive member of our community.

That's the only measure for success.

How many success stories has the I don't care campus produced?

Zero.

Zero, not a single one.

You heard a fella come down here and tell you he used to live that lifestyle.

He doesn't anymore.

Why?

Well, because he received the motivation to make him turn his life around.

What was that motivation?

The laws were enforced.

That's how you fix this problem.

Anything short of that is just enabling.

And that's what we've been doing for a long time.

For years, we've been enabling poor life choices, poor behavior that would get me arrested.

Taxpayers deserve better.

Our elected representatives have failed us for years.

They have failed us.

This is not this big complicated problem that everybody tries to make it out to be.

It is not.

There are very simple solutions, but you have to have the backbone to implement them.

The proposal that you're going to hear from Paul White will incorporate those measures necessary to motivate these people to turn their lives around.

What we're doing with the I don't care campus is a miserable failure.

And has been for years.

Zero success stories.

Zero.

We the community deserve better.

Next up, Phil McKay, followed by Joni Hammond.

Good morning.

Thank you so much for the opportunity and thank you for the work that you guys are doing on this.

As a pastor who believes my Bible and the Bible teaches that you know, all human life has value because we've been created in God's image.

I have a heart and a care for homeless people.

That's where the law has to kick in.

The law becomes a teacher that can lead them in the right direction.

But for those that do want the help, I think that we can we can improve the way that we're doing that at the CARES campus.

But all of that to say that, you know, we we we uh are uh looking for solutions.

We want to work with you guys and help uh as much as we can as a pastor speaking on behalf of our church.

We would be interested in supporting this uh proposal from education crusade that Paul White is putting forward this morning.

And uh what what I think it really uh supplies that is needed is the accountability in uh folks' lives, uh offering a plan of accountability that that they can easily uh define, easily uh uh live up to and uh that will uh improve their their conditions of living.

And it also deals with the heart.

I believe there's a moral spiritual component to uh uh this that needs to be addressed, and um that's where uh you know the the good news of Jesus Christ and uh the the principles of righteousness that come from the word of God can really make a difference in in people's lives.

Not that we would be forcing religion on them, but uh we would be uh helping them to address that moral spiritual side of this issue as well, and I think that's a very important part of this.

And so uh thank you for for for listening to me this morning.

Joni Hammond, followed by Clifford Thomas.

Good morning, Chair and dignitaries.

I'm Joni Hammond.

All of us here today care about the homeless.

There are existing examples in our community of successfully working with the homeless.

The CARES campus is not one of them.

Half of the county sheriff's office time is spent responding to the CARES campus.

So if something happens at my house and I need the sheriff's office, they're probably at the CARES campus and I'll be ignored.

Many of the people that reside at the CARES campus came by bus, came by who knows how, and they aren't even residents, or perhaps they are now because they live here, but they weren't residents of Washoe County.

But this campus has been talked about throughout the United States.

Uh you can go there, do whatever you want, you get your free room, you get free board, you get drugs, who cares?

300 million spent, federal, state, county, and local money.

You know, I don't want my taxpayers.

Wait.

Taxpayers' money wasted.

Putting more money into a failing system isn't going to help.

Let's put the public money that we're spending into a system that Paul White will recommend later in the agenda.

Let's put our money into something that can be successful.

Next up, Clifford Thomas, followed by Petty Crace.

Uh okay.

Um I used to be one of the people that was in uh Kerr's campus.

I don't need I need lasted a week.

And the reason being is that the VOAs that's that work there, it's a lot of contradictions.

You know, they they have you sign a waiver.

The waiver says that if you if we mop the floor and forget to put the sign, wet floor and you break your leg, we're not responsible.

If uh it's cleanup day and your clothes get put on by another staff member and they pick it up and throw it away because it shouldn't be on the bed, they're not responsible.

Your bike gets taken, it's not responsible.

You know, a lot of these homeless people are addicted to the lifestyle, I could say.

And what I mean by that is they do what they want when they want, how they want.

That has to stop.

You know, um, you have a lot of people that also, a lot of schizophrenics.

And they come out here from everywhere.

And that's causing a big problem.

It's not just the homelesses and they're homeless.

You know, um, everybody has a great solution.

Let's see what works and what's simple and how we can make this a better community.

Thank you.

Excuse me, Trista Gomez.

My name is Teddy Craig.

I'm founder of Catfish Kickstarter program.

I work with homeless, I work with inmates getting out of prison, helping them find a job, a place to stay.

I sent um a little flyer up there for all of y'all to get.

I don't know if y'all got it or not.

This is just my little business thing.

I was homeless.

I stayed out on the street.

Uh drugged out, I was drugged out.

Okay.

Victory Outreach is what saved me.

Okay.

I'm here today because I went down to the I'm the whistleblower for the buses to bring it in from California.

Hi.

I said I was there.

I seen the two white buses bring in from California.

Uh, down at the uh library.

I took pictures, homeless going down there.

Um, ain't no kids in here, right?

Masturbating on this on the thing, my kids running around, and I went to the lady and she says, Oh, they're not allowed down there today, right?

Here, we ought to march out there.

Uh I was down there the other day trying to get in since the VOA got it, and the VOA tells me that, well, we have a three-day waiting list, and I'm gonna go hang out over at the other little center and get in there.

Well, while I'm standing there, all of a sudden this dude falls out and goes out.

They go over and hit him with an epi pen.

He ODs fitting all.

I got pictures of the ambulance leaving because they wouldn't let me take no pictures while I was standing there.

Do you know that it took 12 minutes for the ambulance to get there?

What if something happened at one of your houses?

I bet you couldn't get an ambulance there in 12 minutes.

But they are so close to there that stuff is constantly happening.

So they sort of constantly cruise around the neighborhood, because you can go down there right now, and I bet you count to 50, and the ambulance will cruise by just because they know that it's so much going on down there.

It's overdoses and stuff going down there.

I'm I'm out there trying to do what I can to help.

I work with homeless people.

I got one in Washington right now.

Thank God, he's doing marvelous.

He comes from down there.

Cliff that was just here.

He comes from down there.

Me, I come from down there.

My brother died down there on fit and all because these people got that all up in the building.

I'm not coming here to tell y'all that, oh, the care campus is all of that.

No, it's not.

It's dangerous.

You go in there, you're gonna get your stuff stolen.

You know, I mean, it it came in with a good idea, but they love your money.

I'm like, hey, they love your money.

Walk by there and see the staff's cars.

They've got them big pretty cars, and they almost pay for it, but don't worry about their cars.

Look at their children's cars.

You know, I mean, the money y'all giving.

Hey, I got a uh uh I work with the homeless, I work with people getting out of prison.

Can I have some for real?

I need it.

I'm doing it all on my own.

Each one of y'all have my flyer up there.

Thank you.

And hey, consider what Paul is saying.

We need to bring them churches in there because I'm a graduate from Victory Outreach.

And this look at me now.

I got a business.

Trista Gomez, followed by Catherine Uriardi.

Good morning, Trista Gomez.

There is a lot of need, and there has always been a need for homeless services, people getting people comprehensive services.

We used to call them wraparound services.

And there was a limit to what that did and how that was handled.

And let me just give you just gonna go over just some numbers.

You know, I love numbers, big big numbers lover.

Numbers tell us where our priorities lie, and that's why I'm a real lover of numbers.

I also can't see out of one eye, so just help me, you know, give me a second.

Uh, we do 44 million in spending for the homeless and unhoused.

The county is 27 million dollars in deficit.

There's about a thousand people that can be served between cares in our place for permanent supportive housing.

If you average that out, it's about 40,000 per person for the year.

That's a lower income salary.

There's no resident requirement.

People can come and from other areas for service.

While it's reported that 16% of people are from the out of the area, I've asked how these residents are quantified, and I don't have that answer yet.

There's no sobriety requirement at any time, no matter how long you're there, and you can stay there as long as you'd like.

There's no monetary contribution requirement.

We don't check in on their social security, we don't look at what income they we have, they don't they don't contribute at all.

There's no requirement.

There's no age requirement.

So I watched some 70-year-old ladies there.

I think that we should be helping those ladies.

There's a lot of ladies in there at our place that was a lot younger, and a lot of people at CARES that are a lot younger.

There's no age requirement.

There's no work requirement.

There's no limit on the amount of time that you can spend there.

And from what I can find, it's one of the costliest homeless problem homeless programs in America per capita, cost, and size.

It includes housing, power, water sewer, garbage cleaning, yard maintenance resource, and most mills.

Most people will spend about $1,500 a month on these costs in a shared apartment, and they don't have the luxury of having their apartment cleaned.

Meanwhile, in Washoe County, Northern Nevada, college students and many residents are paying over 50% just for rent, not including utilities and food.

And families are putting regular bills on credit cards.

People are having to maintain sobriety in bills in order to live in their houses and with their families.

People struggle to get to work in a city with a lack of infrastructure and high gas prices.

Groceries are getting higher and higher.

Long-term folks are moving out of the area due to cost.

And have we asked the residents is this justice?

Is this equity?

These programs have a high percentage of waste fraud and abuse.

What are the long-term measurable outcomes?

Can they can't just be safety because your pit count just keeps going up?

How do you define program success and what model are you using to do this programming?

Next up, Catherine Yarte, followed by Victoria Meyer.

A little taller than Trista.

Catherine Yarte for the record.

Um, Trista actually hit on most of the points that I wanted to make as far as the numbers go, but I do want to share some of my personal experience.

On a recent tour at the CARES campus, um, I was informed that they will be putting in a DMV kiosk there to immediately print driver's licenses.

That's going to make people instantaneous residents.

There's no residency requirement.

How are we ensuring that Washoe County taxpayers are not going to be responsible for out-of-state homelessness?

I personally am trying to research the CARES campus, found it advertised in Utah and several other states.

So, how are we going to ensure that we as Washoe County residents are only being responsible for fellow Washoe County residents?

That's not a burden that should be shouldered by the taxpayers of Washoe County.

And putting a DMV kiosk within that facility to instantaneously provide driver's licenses and residency to those new participants is not in the best interest of Washer County taxpayers.

I also recently participated in a ride along with Reno PD on a Friday evening.

I can't share anything about that.

It's an open investigation.

However, I will say that going to the CARES campus to follow an active lead on a violent crime was met with absolute resistance from everyone that worked there.

It took seven law enforcement officers' presence to get a question answered.

It took bringing the sheriff down, um, the sergeant on call.

And they were met with nothing but hostility and resistance.

That's not fair to the victim of that crime, and that's not fair to the rest of the Washoe County residents who are relying on this very limited pool of officers to provide for their safety.

This has to be done better.

And I have been addressing that both in conversations with the assistant county manager with the CARES campus leadership staff with Reno PD and with the sheriff.

Those things are conversations are currently happening, and hopefully it is just a training issue.

But if it is, it needs to be addressed.

And it speaks to a deeper systemic problem within the CARES campus leadership itself.

The lack of respect for police has to be addressed.

And I do have more, but I will leave it at that.

Next up, Victoria Meyer.

Good morning, uh, Victoria Meyer, for the record.

And I'm just here in support of uh the coalition of churches, the transfer of the CARES campus to this uh proposed idea.

I think that there's uh a growing homeless population problem in that uh the CARES campus isn't it doing its job, all the money that's being spent uh doesn't seem to be going into helping these folks get back to um a successful lifestyle, and it appears to be a lot of problems on the campus.

And I also have become aware of a housing project across the street.

Uh my husband has the data on that, but apparently there was uh something like 300 million spent on this project.

It comes out to 300 and some thousand dollars per door, a 29 unit uh complex across the street that's being paid for with our tax dollars is going to uh be housing for the homeless population, if I understand that correctly.

So we're just adding to the taxpayer burden and not achieving any results, apparently.

Um these folks, uh, many of them uh need far more services than are being offered uh at the CARES campus.

And I think that uh in the past, private uh private enterprises have done a much better job than government uh at helping people give them what they need and making rules and having them uh find their way through this process without just having some place to sleep and and uh all these problems that are apparently occurring at the CARES campus.

It's uh it's just a tremendous waste of not only money, but more importantly, human lives.

Uh and we can do better than this, and certainly our churches in this uh county are more than willing to step up to uh help alleviate this problem.

I hope you'll consider Paul White's uh recommendations here and and let's take this out of the uh bureaucracy and put it in the hands of the private community, which is where it will be far superior to deal with.

Thank you.

No other public comments.

Thank you.

Thank you for all the comments, please.

Um thanks for coming out this morning.

We're gonna move on to item five.

Item four is approval of minutes of the March 16th, 2026 community homeless advisory board meeting.

Happy to make a motion, Mr.

Chair, after you take public comment.

Second.

Second, okay.

We'll we'll vote on that now.

I sorry, Mr.

Chairman.

Do we have any public comment on that?

We do not.

Item five is discussion and possible action to make a recommendation to each of the governing bodies, including the Washoe County Board of County Commissioners, the Reno City Council, and Sparks City Council to adopt new resolutions to modify respectively resolution, the three resolutions to provide for additional members of the community homeless advisory board, including but not necessarily limited to individuals with lived experiences to be identified as having or not having voting rights on the cap.

Open that up for discussion.

Do you have any comments uh from council member Taylor?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I'm not sure if I understand the full intent of this, but I was wondering what the board thinks about letting Washoe County take the lead on the representative for this as um it would encompass Reno and Sparks.

That's what we've done on other regional boards when we needed an alternate member in this capacity, is um having the jurisdiction take the lead.

That'd be my recommendation.

Any other comments?

I support that as well.

That's the direction that this board is going to take any other comments.

Comments?

That sounds great.

So uh bring it back to the county commissions.

So the the initial thought was to have each of the municipalities involved to have have representatives from their particular part of the county, and so that was the reason.

Uh I mean the county can obviously uh if we wanted to and you agree, we can appoint people to do that.

But we thought it would be important to have community members from each of the municipalities.

So that was the intent of that.

So again, um, is the the thought process or I I think I need a clarified vision of what this looks like um officially, but are you thinking about just having one member from each municipality?

Are you considering a full lived experience subcommittee?

Or I don't know what the full vision is.

I'm open to any version of your vision.

I just um I think it would be helpful to have it um fleshed out a little bit more succinctly so that we can make those decisions.

But what I think council member Taylor is saying is we are open to um the county commission's guidance on what that looks like officially.

Certainly.

So that's why we're here.

Have this discussion to see what your appetite is for for how it could be uh how we could work this for everyone.

So I don't want at a later time have someone say uh we didn't have a voice in that, and I didn't want somebody who lives in Spark saying uh the county pick somebody from the county.

So I'm trying to open this up so we have uh some some input from people who have actually uh lived the homeless life in in different parts of the county.

So that was the whole intent is to have some have some input from really subject matter experts.

Uh I don't think any of us here on the board of have uh slept along the river uh voluntarily and uh and live that life.

So the whole idea was to get some involvement.

I think we had some support from the the audience about that.

We've had several people that uh sounded like they might be interested in being involved in that.

So it's uh again it's open to this body.

I am just one member of this body, and uh wanted to see if there's uh an appetite for it.

Do I have a comment there?

Yes, please.

Mayor Lawson.

Um, yeah, I think we we established this board through an MOU, so I believe we got to go back to all the entities anyways to modify it.

So uh we're gonna have to we're gonna have to from legal.

This is we're gonna have to modify all the resolutions that create the board and to redo the modify regardless.

If so, if the idea is that Washoe County makes a rec makes a recommendation in regard to this or has a staff presentation to this board identifying what we're gonna do at a next at a future meeting, then we would need to have once there is an agreement go take it back to the three different boards and modify the resolutions.

Yeah, so I think that's the idea that I I think is the right way to do it is let's figure it out and bring it back to this board, figure out what it is.

We agree on it or don't agree, and then take it to the uh various uh other local entities for a passage.

Sure, sure.

And I agree with that.

I don't want to get ahead of ourselves.

I I just want to see if there's uh the appetite for it on the board now.

If anybody wants to go forward with this, if so, then we'll take it.

I think it's a I think it's a great idea.

Okay.

You have my support.

So we're so we're in agreement.

We'll vote on it, but uh, we're in agreement that that's a way that we're leaning as a body to invite each municipality to explore this and see if they want to participate in a further uh opportunity to share uh the board uh with each of the communities.

Is that correct?

For for sake of clarity for the open meeting law, what I would recommend is that we uh put an item on it and the next agenda, essentially having staff do a presentation identifying here is what we're going to do in the future with whether it's one member with lived experience or one member from each each sub political subdivision, giving you a variety of recommendations and seeing how the board wants to proceed at that point.

So we'll have options and people then then can make a decision.

But and and for today, we're we're agreeing that it's something that we would like to look at further.

Yes, okay, very well.

So look for a motion there.

Public comment on this.

There is no public comment.

Okay.

I'll make a motion to bring it back to the board.

I'll second.

Very well.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.

Move on now to uh item six.

Presentation by uh Mr.

White.

He's representing education crusade.

Uh before I start, Mr.

Chairman, I had a question just um clarifying the remarks I've got maybe exceed the seven minutes by 40 seconds if that would be acceptable.

Very well.

Thank you.

I'm Paul White with Education Crusade with a proposal for transforming the CARES program, and it's simple.

First, the commissioners would cancel all contracts with the CARES contractors and their employees.

They would also cancel all existing federal grants whose restrictions prevent the enforcement of necessary rules.

Next, the commissioners would deed over all the CARES property and buildings to a nonprofit coalition of local churches that we would organize.

Finally, our church coalition would assume full responsibility for establishing operating and funding a private nonprofit homeless program similar to the gospel mission and victory outreach.

The county would have no responsibility for funding or supervising the new homeless program that our coalition would create.

That's it.

That's our proposal.

And in the next few minutes, I'll explain why you want to accept this proposal before the CARES program completely implodes and takes our county and possibly your reputations with it.

You want to accept this proposal because six years, 300 million dollars, and thousands of clients later, the CARES model has never had one genuine success story.

This is defined as someone who's clean and sober, employed, living independently without government subsidies, and this claim is validated recently by the most highest profile person in the CARES program for the last ever since it opened.

The same person who said that when he was on the street, if he had come to a program like CARES, he would have gone to prison or been dead.

Similar to victory outreach and gospel mission.

Many clients have said, quote, I have felt safer in prison than I do living on the CARES campus.

Our church coalition program would allow no violence, drugs or alcohol, and with drug test clients.

Those are four things that do not happen now.

You want to accept our proposal because during the past seven years of county oversight, the homeless vagrant population has exploded.

This one percent of our population has become the most criminal element in our county by far, responsible for anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of all the crime in our county.

They've virtually taken over emergency police and fire services.

It dangerously limits access to public safety services by the other 99% of our population.

A typical day recently was five separate police calls and six ambulance calls at 2,000 apiece, which are typically used to avoid being thrown out of there.

They claim a health emergency, come back later, and they don't get thrown out.

CARES clients have turned downtown into an abandoned, criminally dangerous ghetto.

And our church coalition reverse every bit of that.

So how did our commissioners allow the CARES program to get so out of control?

Because the employees, the commissioners have trusted to provide accurate program information, have betrayed them, withheld the truth, and blatantly lied regarding the damaging mess that CARES has been since the day it opened.

A few examples.

Two years later, I'm still waiting.

She unequivocally stated in a recent meeting with me in the face of a mountain of unarguable and damning evidence to the contrary.

Quote, I think the CARES program is great.

And this is why the commissioners have no idea how out of control and ineffective the CARES program is.

And this is why the only solution to this disaster is to completely remove not only the program, but everyone connected with it.

Then our church coalition could replace it with the only effective program model that has ever existed, a program similar to the gospel mission and victory outreach.

And I would add my experience with homelessness with dealing with the homeless programs all over the country started 53 years ago.

The CARES program is a complete failure because it essentially has no enforced rules.

Respectful behavior, regular drug testing, employment, daily sk life skills classes, including Bible study.

Clients would never leave the premises unsupervised to wander the community.

No more maid and laundry service for CARES clients.

Did you know they don't even clean up after themselves or do their own laundry?

They would clean and maintain the facility themselves and would pay for it.

A maximum stay limit would be enforced.

It was supposed to be 60 days initially.

The longest person I've known over there was five years.

Downtown would be revitalized.

Under our proposal, our church coalition would implement a proven model that genuinely helps homeless vagrants.

Washoe County's quality of life would improve because our communities would be safer and cleaner.

And millions of taxpayers' dollars, and more importantly, hundreds of destitute human lives would be saved every year.

Everyone would win.

Personal accountability for staff and clients, much of the fentanyl used in there by clients is sold to them by staff.

I don't know if you're aware of that either.

And most of all, loving our clients, again, I've done this a long time.

Loving our clients enough to make them do the right thing.

It says immediately CARES campus homeless population would decrease by 60 to 70 percent within the first few weeks and continue to drop.

Um I'm just needing an explanation.

How can I say that?

Yeah, some numbers are not working out in my head.

Sure, I'd love to.

Uh yeah, this the proposal said that the number of uh 60 to 70 percent, maybe 90 percent even of uh homelessness would stop.

The estimate, Mayor, is um that of the people on the street, again, 53 years of working with people on the street, the sum total I've found who are legitimately homeless.

In other words, taking every resource available and still couldn't get off the street.

53 late years later, that number is zero.

The estimate is that 90 to 95 percent of the people on the street.

It's a drug issue that they don't want to.

It's vagrant rather than homeless.

In other words, vagrant being someone who's usually on drugs, breaking the law, doesn't want to work, and moves around all the time.

The actual person who says, I just had a horribly uh critical situation come up in my life and I want help.

That person get help gets help immediately.

And so what you would have is as soon as you had rules, it's it's why uh the gospel mission or victory outreach have a relative handful of guys down there of uh which they all help almost.

And uh a handful, 30 or 40, and why the CARES campus has a thousand because there's no rules.

And of course, if you know you're down there, you're struggling with drugs and stuff, you don't want to do this.

So because we'd enforce those rules, they'd find those rules and they would immediately self-deport.

Meaning that they would leave the CARES campus or leave the area.

They'd leave the CURES campus to start with, and then people have asked me and said, Well, gosh, what are we gonna do?

Put that 800, 900 people out on the streets in uh Reno.

Well, of course not.

We we've passed three separate laws in the past couple of years that prevent that.

And so then it's time for Sheriff Baylam and RPD and the courts to step up and enforce the law and do what you've done in Sparks.

If you've never stood there on the banks behind the parking lot at GSR and looked at Reno's side and Mayor Lawson's side, you should.

And when I saw it first, I called him right away a few years ago, and he said, Well, we enforced the law.

And so that's what would happen.

They wouldn't be there.

It would then be on the police to do what they're hired to do.

And any that wanted to correct themselves could come back and be in a good program.

Most of them would leave.

Uh I'm just gonna ask that you get a hold of me and let's talk more in detail about that.

I'd I'd love to.

And same interesting concept.

Same with any of you.

Any other questions?

Questions.

I want to thank the chairman for making this possible.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

Excuse me.

Can I say something real fast, please?

We're gonna move on to the public comment.

Uh supportive uh housing action plan update from Northern Nevada, uh, Brooke Page Corporation for Supportive Housing.

It's a non-action item.

You'll be able to use public comment at the end of the meeting, please.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Clark, or good morning, rather, and members of the committee.

Um I have a presentation today that I'll be presenting.

Thank you for the opportunity to be with you all today.

Can you all see them that presentation?

I'm having a difficult time hearing hearing what she's saying, and I don't know if anybody else is.

Can you all hear me?

Speak up a little bit, turn or turn up your volume a little bit.

Maybe we can have some volume control here.

Okay, how about now?

A little bit better.

Is that better?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Um, so to that um morning.

Um, it's good to be back with you all and to discuss support of housing and northern Nevada.

Today I'm going to provide an update on the action planning that's been happening to address the need in northern Nevada.

And uh, for those who may not know me, my name is Brooke Page.

I'm the managing director with the corporation for supportive housing.

I'm a Nevada native, um, and I work across systems uh throughout the state of Nevada, helping to ensure that we've got the resources and the funding to address the need for housing for people with complex need.

And today I'll be presenting on behalf of the working group of the Northern Nevada Continuum of Care and the work that's been happening to address supportive housing across the state.

But also in our organization, the Corporation for Supportive Housing, we have been around for 35 years researching the evidence of supportive housing and the effectiveness of why this intervention is the most effective intervention to address the needs of people with complex needs and housing.

And this information it comes the last time I was with you all was in May of 2024.

We were really grounding the work and the data through the supportive housing needs assessment and the business case that we presented back in 2024.

And at that point, the question was do we need to invest in supportive housing and does it make sense?

And where the data reflected at that time how cost, how the cost of allowing someone to go in and out of the emergency room eight times, costs the same as somebody being in jail for four months, costs the exact same as housing somebody in a permanent housing situation for one year with wraparound services and operating subsidies to keep them stably housed.

So this was a really important data.

The needs assessment provided us with the information that we needed to focus as a community to be strategic.

And this information, so we shifted from should we be doing this to now how do we actually build and sustain a supportive housing ecosystem that can scale across northern Nevada, especially considering new state investments that have been made at the state level for supportive housing.

And so what has been happening over the past year, we've had multiple listening sessions, and most recently there have been conversations regionally, including a regional work group that has been discussing ways that we can align across jurisdictions, across community partners to ensure that there's a coordinated effort to address how to build the housing that's needed for people with complex needs.

And a few things that are really clear.

Supportive housing, it is a regional priority.

And things that have come up from these conversations also is that the community is committed to serving people who have the highest level of need.

That supportive housing is intended to target the folks with the highest level of need.

And importantly, we're aligning on what supportive housing actually is and what quality looks like.

It's a really important that we understand and have that definition.

And that last point, it really matters because building an effective homeless response system, it requires a range of interventions, things like emergency shelter, outreach, interim housing models, they all play an important role.

But what we're focusing on today is what's actually ends someone's homelessness situation, especially people with the highest complex needs, um, and how we build that type of ecosystem in the community to scale it.

Um so that distinction is really important.

So we know that you know multiple interventions are important.

What we're talking about is ending the homelessness for folks with complex needs.

And so, as of uh part of a recent convening, um, we spent time grounding on the state of the definition of how we're all communicating about what does supportive housing mean.

We also spent time pushing through the quality that needs to be embedded in the housing to ensure that there's the right services that are gonna support folks that have complex needs in housing.

Um, and um ensuring that you know we're also ensuring that we're focusing on the target population that needs this particular intervention.

This is not for everyone.

Um so ensuring that we identify what other interventions are available in the ecosystem and in the community is also important.

Um, but for supportive housing, ensuring that we're focusing on the target population that needs this intervention.

Um, and a big distinction came up, it's not about high volume.

Um, this is not light touch services.

This is not services that can necessarily be provided from folks who are not trained and understand the evidence-based service provision that's required to deliver quality supportive services.

For this population, we're talking about this is lower case load size ratios are critical.

More intensive supports and wraparounds are critical.

And on site, highly coordinated services are really important because at the end of the day, without the quality services, it determines whether or not someone is going to stay stably housed and be able to thrive in their housing and achieve their goals.

And so what has happened since the supportive housing needs assessment and the business case that led to the action plan was released.

So we're starting to see real movement from planning actually into implementation.

There is a growing pipeline of supportive housing developments that are taking place across the region, which is really exciting and is something that is a testament to the coordination that's happening with the jurisdictional partners, the developers, service providers, property managers in our service community, the Northern Nevada Continuum of Care, all of that is coordinated effort to ensure that we're actually seeing units be built.

We're also seeing an increase in alignment across jurisdictional partners between Washoe County, the City of Reno, the housing authority, as well as state partners are all coming to the table to talk about solutions and the effectiveness of this intervention.

We're also talking about the efforts to align funding and tools and incentives.

There was discussion earlier this morning about the funding climate and the uncertainty of that, and seeing jurisdictional partners talk about that and understanding how to solution and prioritize resources to address what actually works and what evidence-based research proves is really important.

And seeing dollars from home funding being prioritized, as well as the regional housing authority talking about their moving to work flexibility that they can use to really address the need.

All of that is now happening because of a coordinated and concerted effort to address the action plan.

And so we're no longer talking about supportive housing in theory.

We're now starting to think less about individual projects and more about the coordinated system that everybody plays in that role in order to see it happen.

And so one of the most important shifts right now is the work underway to formalize a regional supportive housing systems alignment.

And so what we're working towards next is formal agreements across partners that would align on shared definitions that would set expectations around the target populations that need to be prioritized for housing and the referral pathways of how those folks will actually get access to those housing units.

We're actually talking about creating consistency and tenant selection plans.

So we're not excluding folks from housing, but creating the tenant selection prioritization that gets people actually housed and beginning to coordinate how funding decisions get made across jurisdictions and across systems.

Because right now we still largely fund and develop projects individually.

And we are now working as a community to start thinking about what does that look like coordinated across systems.

Where we're aligning timing, we're aligning priorities and funding announcements are going out, possibly coordinated together, focusing on a particular type of housing and a particular type of population.

And one of these things we're continuing to reinforce as a region is the distinction between short-term interventions that manage homelessness and then long-term solutions that actually resolve homelessness.

And both have a place in the community, but they are not interchangeably interchangeable.

And as we move into the next phase of this work, there are a few priorities that we're really focusing on.

Again, formalizing the coordinated process and the strategy to create a system, moving from concept to agreement to implementation, aligning on quality and accountability, not just building units, but ensuring that housing stability outcomes that has come up a lot today, ensuring that we're tracking those outcomes, we're able to speak to how many people are being stably housed for how long and the lives that are being changed with folks in housing.

Also braiding funding across systems, especially our housing and our healthcare system.

There's so many folks that have complex needs that Medicaid to be paying for a lot of these services and wraparound supports by identifying how we can coordinate and align those fund sources.

Also strengthening the provider ecosystem through training and capacity building with shared standards, shared building of the workforce.

So that way, this workforce has a livable wage to do this really important work in our community.

And also, we've also aligned that supportive housing should be prioritized for the people who are least likely to exit homelessness on their own and who are the highest users of the crisis system that if we don't intervene and support those folks, those are the folks that we're going to see most likely on the street.

So in closing, um the action plan is no longer just a planning document.

It's becoming a shared implementation roadmap.

And Chav's role in this moment is critical in aligning policy, helping to align investment and expectations across jurisdictions, because ultimately the goal is not to better manage homelessness, it's to end it for the people who are experiencing it the longest and with the greatest challenges.

And supportive housing is the foundation to that effort.

So I thank you all for the time, and I will pause for questions.

Yes.

Questions from uh Vice Chair.

Thank you.

Uh, Ms.

Page, thank you for helping us through this process.

I'm really excited uh about having a plan, which I think you heard from the public commenter is something that is could the community is concerned about long-term federal funds and where we're gonna lie with this.

Um for the state, are you also working on what other communities in the state need as well?

Because we know that the county, let's be real, we don't have the resources anymore to build permanent supportive housing.

We have land and we have a willing county who wants to support it and uh work with partners to get it online.

And as you know, we have about 200 units that we'll have um in on the CARES campus uh here very soon.

But I was curious uh what your thought is on um making sure that we have one message when we go to the state legislature for these resources, since we can't raise uh the revenues ourselves.

Yes, thank you so much, um Commissioner Hill.

Really important question.

And I think the state is listening and understands the importance of this issue.

It's the reason why the state passed assembling bill 310 in the 2023 legislative session that created the Nevada Supportive Housing Development Fund, um, and then went back in 2025 and refunded that particular program with AB Nevada Supportive Valley Development Account, um, which now added additional resources because the state understands the importance of this housing intervention.

So I think to your question, continuing to ensure that the community is coordinated and aligned around this priority is really important.

Um the state seeing that the local jurisdictions and local community are also on board um advocating for the same type of resources and understanding the effectiveness of these resources to address the need.

Um, that alignment is really important.

So we're all kind of rowing in the same direction, um, coordinated around the same priorities, allow for the argument for the state to continue to fund this really important intervention.

I think if there was disjointedness, I think they would probably question if that would be effective.

Um, I think continuing with these regional conversations, having a regional table that cares about this issue, um, and it's not saying put all the resources to this intervention, but I think identifying what the local regional um communities can do and can coordinate, um, because that speaks volumes, and I think it helps to leverage and braid those additional state dollars and federal dollars that can help address those needs.

Right.

But just as a follow-up, uh I agree with you that we need to uh be clear as a region that we still need those um case workers that we've received those grants from.

And I agree that that has been amazing and why we were able to staff the permanent supportive housing units of those 50 units that we have on the CARES campus.

But as far as capital is concerned, that's um the next piece.

And I know we'll need additional resources for case workers as we get more units online, but the county literally does not have the capital to build the these properties.

So permanent supportive housing.

And so uh I think that um and I I guess going back to that question of you know, do you know if this is a priority for um southern Nevada and our partners in southern Nevada, so we can all come together saying we not only do we need the the continuing support of case workers once we get a permanent supportive housing built, but we need to build it.

The reason we were able to build those 50 units was from the uh Nevada, what was it?

The infrastructure bank helped us build those units or it will or potentially it was that home means Nevada project.

I one of those both federal funds that supported those projects uh which are no longer in existence.

So knowing that we need 1100 units, I'm assuming in Las Vegas they need significantly more.

Um just is there a regional push on that front as well or statewide push.

Thank you for the follow-up.

Um I definitely can say we have um created information that I hope will be public um soon that will show that there is absolutely a need for this to be a statewide conversation to prioritize capital development uh for supportive housing.

Um I don't want to speak on behalf of Southern Nevada, but I do know that there's a need.

Um, but I definitely think that there's an important opportunity for us to bring the cross community conversation around this issue together because more voice is definitely a more powerful voice to make that argument and to have uh data that is backed by uh research, backed by actual folks that have experienced homelessness and have gone through our homeless response system that we can use to support that argument, I think is an important uh data point that we can help support the narrative and make the argument for capital resources to build supportive housing.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Any other questions, comments?

Yes, Brandy Anderson for the record.

Thank you for this um presentation, Ms.

Page.

Um this is the first time that I've heard about the corporation for supportive housing and preparing for this meeting.

So I was happy to um be prepared for your presentation, hear what you are encouraging us to stay focused on.

And I wanted to ask you my research over the winter and things that were happening in northern Nevada and talking with the different organizations that are touching our most vulnerable populations and specifically the populations that have complicated various, you know, um conditions around their um being unhoused.

Specifically, I'm talking about women over 50 that have disabilities.

So the reason I'm bringing this up is that in um this is a growing population that needs additional support that is a smaller, you know, it needs to be smaller groups of people, a lot more wraparound services and permanent supportive environments so that once we can get them into a state of care, they have consistency and longevity in that space.

So, with um the conversations that are going around not only preparing for um our legislative session, getting to know all of the folks like yourself that are working on these solutions as a state, how can we prioritize this one population, women over 50 with disabilities, not only in the um permanent supportive space, but also creating some inertia around them specifically in northern Nevada.

Um, thank you for the question.

Um I I do believe this is an important opportunity for us to, you know, supportive housing is intended for for people with um complex needs in our hardest to serve population.

Um and I also think it's important for for us to not necessarily put one population over another in terms of um trying to justify who needs like a scarcity mindset around who needs housing more than somebody else.

Um but I do know that there's populations that have uh certain needs that are different than others.

Um older adults is a very important population.

It's a growing homelessness population across the state, um, and something that we have to plan for and be intentional about.

Um so I do think it's important for us to develop coalition around older adults and figure out how we create that ecosystem for housing that is dedicated to that population.

Um, what I also know is we tend to build housing for um seniors at a higher rate than we are building housing for maybe single adults um that that need this level of intervention.

Um and we we build veteran housing at a higher rate than we may build housing for single adults that need this intervention.

So although it's really important for us to understand the distinctions, what is the data showing us and where is our need the most?

How do we kind of prioritize?

It's not saying don't do this other kind of housing, but how do we ensure that we are creating the system and the ecosystem, which I believe Northern Nevada is currently doing with the regional plan and the and the conversations to at least start building?

We need to get these units off the ground.

We need to start um somewhere so we can at least create the inventory that we need, and then we can you know kind of identify how we prioritize the folks that that need the housing.

Um, because without it, they'll die on the street.

So um is that did I answer your question?

I appreciate you broadening my my horizons for the community at large that um needs this housing.

This is just what I've been hearing over the winter is that the highest number of people that have been going to our warming shelters, um, which have been churches in the region that have been willing to open up and invite our the the community in that it's a need, that in the morning at 6 a.m., it's usually women with disabilities that don't have anywhere to go that are being shepherded to their next round of services.

So the permit supporting landing space for that population is just something that's been on my heart this year, and that's why I wanted to ask for that.

So thank you for um all of your information.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions, comments.

Thank you so much for your report, Ms.

Page.

Very good information.

Have a great day.

Thanks for sharing that.

Thank you.

We'll move on to uh the next item.

Uh housing update, Reno Housing Authority, uh Hope Landing uh purpose built permanent supportive housing.

Uh it's a non-action item.

Good morning, Chair Clark and members of the board.

My name is JD Clippenstein.

I'm a deputy executive director at the Reno Housing Authority, and I'm really excited to share a bit about our um, we actually are broke ground, we're breaking ground on this project this month, uh, Hope Landing, and uh really building off of the presentation you just heard from Brooke and all the good work that CSH has been doing at the state level to bring more permanent supportive housing into our community.

And this is absolutely an example uh of that plan already being put into action.

So a little bit of background.

Hope landing is 15 units of permanent supportive housing.

Uh it all of them will have project-based vouchers to ensure deep affordability for folks exiting homelessness.

It's being developed on a lot, an info lot that RHA has owned for quite some time.

Uh, one thing to highlight we had to get a master plan amendment to up zone this slot, uh added cost to the project.

So, as we're thinking about ways to support permanent supportive housing, uh, doing denser infill projects that are closer to resources and infrastructure is a really key thing to think through on the permit supportive housing front.

The total development costs for this was 7.8 million.

And as I said, construction started.

We issued NTP last week.

We're having a groundbreaking on May 29th, and we are anticipating it being in operation in late spring of 2027.

Uh just a little breakdown on the team.

RHJ is serving as the developer owner and operator of this property.

Uh, we're we have an MOU with volunteers of America who will be providing the the deep level of services needed for this permit supportive housing.

And then our architect on this project is H and K and our CMAR contractor is core construction.

It really takes a ton of folks to bring this stuff together.

Permanent supportive housing is a priority for the housing authority.

We dipped our toes with Dick Scott Manor last year.

It's 12 or in 2024, rather, it's 12 units of supportive housing for veterans.

So they all have HUD dash vouchers.

Those services are provided by the VA.

And then this is our second permanent supportive housing project that we're doing some work around.

And I'm really happy to say we've made strides to incorporate more of the best practices in terms of both design and operations.

So I figured I'd show you the funding lasagna.

Commissioner Hill, I think you might uh appreciate the capital stack of the question you had.

So uh this uh here's just kind of uh a basic breakdown of our sources and uses on this project.

So we secured around 2.4 million in state funding through two different uh programs administered by the Nevada Housing Division for the capital stack.

Uh the rest of it is RHA funds.

So over 75% of this project is being funded, the hard cost is being funded directly by RHA.

Some of that using our moving to work flexibility, which Brooke mentioned earlier, we're able to bring some resources in that uh we otherwise wouldn't be able to.

Uh and then we're also deferring some of our fee to get that fee paid out over time to make sure that we can get this project across the finish line.

The hard cost is about 6.1.

I wish there was a cheaper way to build infill projects a little bit more expensive on the per unit cost and construction costs have increased 40% in the last three or four years.

So we are uh we have some headwinds against us about making these projects pencil, but we got there.

And I really want to draw all your attention to the supportive service funding that we secured.

So this is outside of the capital stack for the actual construction.

Uh we were awarded about 300,000 from the home consortium for some Home Mart funding and also over 1.8 million from the supportive housing development fund, which which Ms.

Paige mentioned uh previously.

And this is to ensure that we can provide really deep um both affordability and uh high touch services for the individuals who will end up living here.

And I must want to walk through a little bit of the design so you can see just a couple of renderings, um, both the exterior and the um an interior shot here.

Uh we were really thoughtful on what's the color scheme, what what kinds of um trauma informed design can we bring into this space, knowing that folks are gonna want to feel a sense of safety, they're gonna want to feel a sense of uh independence at the same time.

So we tried to account for that in our design.

A couple of things I will highlight.

Uh all of the 15 units, they're all kind of a really open floor plan, one bedroom unit.

We have a central courtyard uh that was designed to create shared outdoor space for like gardening or other kinds of programming.

And we also have two secured entrances on the um on the both the kind of the north and south side of the property, right?

We wanted folks to feel like they could come and go, but we also want them to know that uh they're safe where they're at um as they start to make that transition out of survival mode, really of experiencing chronic homelessness.

We have built uh two office spaces as well as a community space, an indoor community space that has laundry facilities and restrooms for community programming.

This site will have 24 hours, 24 hour staff.

Um, in addition to a full-time case manager, there will be uh essentially four full-time employees.

So that this there's always a staff member on site.

And um, a couple other things I wanted to draw your space to uh or draw your attention to is uh we it's a solar ready design.

So we're still actively pursuing uh funding for the project.

Uh Chair Taylor or our chair Taylor from the Reno Housing Authority wants to make sure we keep look uh turning any stone to find funding for the project.

And assuming that we find some more funding, we'll be able to put solar panels on top to greatly offset the operating expenses on the utilities fronts here.

So these are all thoughtful parts of the design that we um put in to building permanent supportive housing.

It's not just find someplace and put someone in it.

It's really being thoughtful about what we develop so that folks are set up to be successful in the programs can operate well.

Uh a little bit of insight and how kind of how it's gonna look on the day-to-day.

So RHA will operate as the property manager and will administer the project-based vouchers that are assigned to each unit.

Uh, we will also be taking tenant referrals from the continuum of care's community housing list.

So this is the the COC, the members of the COC through their coordinated entry process.

Uh, they do an assessment, they identify the folks that have the highest need, and we will be taking referrals directly from that list.

So, really leaning into the regional approach to um solving homelessness.

And then on the VOA side, uh, through the funding that we secured through the supportive housing development fund, VOA will be having we'll have a full-time case manager with that lower one to 15 client ratio that we're looking at for best practice and permanent supportive housing.

We're also able to have a quarter-time uh therapist uh to provide some mental health services there.

And we will have four full-time support staff that will provide uh 24 hour coverage.

We're looking for those to possibly be kind of peer specialists, folks with some lived experience, folks who um are able to um work effectively with uh you know their their friends and uh folks who have come out of homelessness with them.

All in all, this is really designed to be very low barrier permanent supportive housing.

We're we're all in on the best practices that Brooke and her team have brought in and are really trying to build the plan around.

So I'm excited to hear about the updates that they're having at the planning level and RHA and our partners.

We weren't willing to wait for the plan to be done to get rolling on implementing this.

We know it's the right thing to do.

And with that, I'm happy to uh it's my contact info.

If you want to nerd out on capital stacks and development, I'll do that all day.

If you have other questions, I'd be happy to answer them now or in a follow-up.

Thank you for your report.

Do we have any questions, comments from any of the board members?

I just have a comment.

Very well.

I just appreciate Councilmember Taylor's leadership on RHA.

Thank you so much.

And I think the projects that you and the team are doing, JD, are incredible.

We're really lucky to have your leadership in the community.

I wish we just had more of you and more resources so you could get help us get more of this housing uh built for our community members because I'm sure you're seeing it that we don't have we we don't have enough units for the people that need them.

And uh I was just curious.

I've spoken to your executive director a lot about this, but isn't Reno Housing Authority one of the few housing authorities that doesn't receive funding from local governments as well in the state.

Yeah, uh this is this is true.

Most housing authorities around the country receive local and state funding for operations and uh the housing authority here in Washoe County as well as the two other housing authorities in the state, we received no direct funding from local jurisdictions or the state.

We're primarily funded through pet federal pass-through.

Right.

So think of what we could do if we actually invested in you on the state level and um and how you could be helping us ensure that people get the help that they need and can live in dignity.

So I'll absolutely take more resources.

More of me might get complicated, but more resources.

Well, and I'm wondering if that's like a statewide um initiative that we should look at as a region of how do we support our housing authorities?

They're doing the work, they know what they're doing.

You know, as far as what we're doing in Incline, we're uh trying to support a way for the Reno Housing Authority to help with workforce housing of a property that um we own in Incline.

So they are an incredible resource for us, and I just wish that they had the resources that they need to really help people who are suffering right now, like the women that you're talking about, which my church does the same shelter, that warming shelter, and um so many of them need that housing today.

So I'm I'm wondering if that's like a statewide approach that we look at as well.

But thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Any other questions, comments?

Um, Mr.

Chair, I would just say thank you for the for the nice words, but it really is the team at Reno Housing Authority.

We have an exceptional team.

We have an exceptional leadership team, and they do great work.

And I think if we get out of the way and give them the resources, they will continue to do that.

You don't have to laugh.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Taylor.

Thank you again for your report.

Yeah, thank you.

We'll move on to uh item nine housing update from uh Juliana Glock with Volunteers of America on Highway 40.

It's a non-action item.

Good morning, Juliana Glock for the record.

I am super excited to be here today to share an overview of our new highway 40 project, which is permanent supportive housing here in Reno.

And I also want to say that we are super excited to partner with the housing authority on their upcoming project as well.

This is it's great that we're bringing all this permanent supportive housing into our community.

So highway 40, this project is gonna provide access to stable service-enriched housing that helps vulnerable residents achieve long-term stability and reduce the cycle of homelessness.

How the project started, um early early support from the city of Reno and private contributions helped move the project from concept to reality.

The funding we received from the city of Reno and the donations helped us purchase the motel and launch the project.

We purchased the motel early in 2023 and started moving forward.

Once the project was funded and purchased, it moved through the design, procurement, permitting, and construction phases.

In April of 2024, we hired Forum Gray as the architect.

We released a RFP in January of 2025 for the general contractor.

In February of 2025, Metcalf was hired as both the construction manager and general contractor.

In May of 2025, we received permitting and construction began.

And I'm excited to say last month, construction was completely completed.

So the home means Nevada Initiative and Nevada attainable housing account investments were essential to moving this project forward through the development and construction.

The total construction cost ended up being about six point close to 6.9 million dollars, which that funding came from again the state of Nevada Nevada Housing Division through HMI and Nevada Attainable Housing Account dollars.

In addition to the purchase and construction funding, the project also received funding to support the resident services.

So just in June, we were awarded close to 1.5 million from the supportive housing development funds.

Those were the funds that Brooke was also talking about.

We'll be able to we'll have case management as well as well as peer support on site at the property.

This slide, I just wanted to share some pictures for with everybody.

These images show the completed project.

These are the interior of the units.

There's also a manager's unit, so that we'll have a live-in staff member living there.

It also includes shared community space that supports daily living and connections.

The residents will have access to a full kitchen, a food pantry, um laundry area, and then community space that we can host groups, events, classes, things like that.

The residents will be referred through the coordinated entry system, which will help ensure that the placement is aligned with the community needs.

Again, going back to what Brooke was talking about, those with the highest need.

This housing is intended for people experiencing homelessness, living with a disability, and are at or below 50% AMI.

Each of the units will be fully furnished.

They're designed for single occupancy, and pets will be allowed.

These images show the interior of the community space and the rooms now that they've all been furnished.

Lastly, projects like these depend on strong partnerships across government entities and the community.

We want to acknowledge the funders and the project partners who helped make Highway 40 possible, starting with the state of Nevada, the Nevada Housing Division, the City of Reno, Triandis, Travis Sandifer with Washoe County, Grace Church, Metcalf Construction, Forum Gray Studio, 5050 design.

They did all the furniture, which they were awesome, and Hoover Consulting.

And that's it.

So if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Questions.

Hi, good morning.

Thank you for the presentation.

What is the average square footage of the studio units and also the one bedroom units?

So there's a variety of layouts, um, and I don't have the exact square footage with me, but the average is around, I believe four to five hundred square feet.

Great.

And then just a follow-up on the kitchen.

Is that a centralized kitchen?

So each unit doesn't have a kitchen, they have to go to a centralized shared kitchen.

No, each unit has its own kitchen, and then there's also a centralized kitchen.

So each unit does have its own, and then there's also the full kitchen in the community room.

Great, thank you.

You're welcome.

Yes.

Any other questions, comments?

Yes.

So this um this is intended to be permanent, so long-term for the residents.

Do you have any estimate on how quickly we'll be able to have Highway 40 filled with its long-term residents?

Well, we are quickly moving forward.

We are currently hiring for the positions, the employees.

Um, once those positions are hired, we are we think we'll probably start housing people in June.

And what kind of positions are you hiring for at Highway 40?

We are currently hiring for a community administrative assistant, so who will work in the leasing office, uh maintenance technician, a case manager, and a peer support specialist.

Okay, thank you.

Yes.

This is good news for our community.

Yes.

Vice Chair Hill.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

And I just commend you and the VOA team.

I know this was a tremendous lift, and I know that when you were digging into the motel that you found so much more that you had to fix and rehab and invest in.

And I also commend the city of Reno for their leadership and getting these units invested in.

So thank you so much for investing in permanent supportive housing.

This is going to be incredible, and uh just can't wait until residents start moving in.

And thank you for your hard work on behalf of this community.

I know you've been dedicated on with our most vulnerable community members for decades.

So thank you just personally for all the work that you do for us and this community.

Thank you, Councilwoman Hill.

Any other comments, questions?

Thank you for your update, uh Ms.

Glock.

Great work.

Great.

Thank you.

Building looks very nice.

Thank you.

Move on to item uh 10 housing update from accessible space inc, non-action item.

Unfortunately, they had to cancel.

They are traveling today for their grand opening tomorrow.

Very well.

We'll move on to item 11.

Item 11 is uh Penny Adams, Volunteers of America telling us uh telling the story of our place through data.

Good morning, Chair Commissioners, and members of the community homeless advisory board.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

My name is Penny Adams, and I'm the director at our place for VOA.

Today I would like to briefly share the story of our place through both data and the daily operations happening every day to support women and families experiencing homelessness in our community.

The data presented today is based on the homeless management information system HMIS, along with program highlights and outcomes reflected throughout the presentation.

To begin, I would like to provide a brief overview of our place and the services provided on campus.

Everyday individuals arrive seeking safety and stability during some of the most difficult moments of their lives to support these services.

The campus operates across multiple areas designed to meet different needs.

The next slide provides an overview of the campus layout and service locations.

Each area of the campus plays an important role in supporting women and families during their time at our place.

Operating a campus of this size requires collaboration 24 hours a day.

As shown on the slide, VOA shelter operation provides frontline staffing, housing and homeless service provides case management, mental health counseling, along with several additional support services.

Allied security maintains a 24-hour security presence.

I also want to recognize and thank the staff working across the campus every day.

No single department can operate this campus alone.

It truly takes everyone working together.

These homes provide a safe and stable environment for families during difficult times.

In addition to family sheltering, the campus also supports women through several shelter programs.

The women's shelter provides shelter for 158 women, increasing to 182 clients during winter overflow operations.

The next slide reflects the number of individuals served throughout the year.

Between July 1st, 2025 and March 31st, 2026, our place served 1,400 1,044 individuals in emergency shelter, 363 families in shelter, 120 clients through Hope Home, and 82 clients through Joy Home.

These numbers reflected the growing need for shelter services within our community and the importance of maintaining accessible shelter options for women and families.

That growing need became especially visible during winter season.

The winter overflow program operated from December 1st, 2025 through May 1st, 2026, serving 546 clients.

Overflow operates operations became critical during this time, and additional women had access to shelter.

The following slide highlights the core services utilized throughout the campus.

In addition to sheltering, our place delivered over 80,000 direct services between July 1st, 2025 and March 31st, 2026.

Most importantly, 188 individuals exited to permit housing.

As shown on this slide, the highest demographic utilizing services at our place was clients age 55 and older.

The data continues to show the homelessness impact individuals across many different stages of life.

The community resource fair was held on March 11th, 2026, providing services directly on campus for easier access.

14 community partners participated, connecting 77 clients to healthcare housing, recovery, and additional community resources.

I would also like to thank all the community partners who participated and collaborated with us to support women and families on the campus.

One of the greatest successes from this event was two women were successfully housed as a direct result of connecting connections made during the resource fair.

The program operates nightly from 8 p.m.

to 6 a.m.

and includes six designated parking spots outside the welcome center.

And it's depicted in this picture here.

The safe parking program includes background checks, overnight wellness checks, and is monitored by BOA staff and allied security.

As shown on this slide with the vehicles, the safe parking program served seven individuals, totaling five men and two women.

Although the program is small, it could have continued to demonstrate meaningful impact at community needs.

Although the safe parking program officially began as a pilot program in December 15th, 2025, the first individual did not begin using this until January 2026.

Between January and March 2026, safe parking was utilized for a total of 32 nights, an average stay of one to two nights.

The average age of the individuals utilizing the program was 47 years old.

Due to the success of the pilot program and the continued community need, the safe parking program will continue beyond the original pilot period ending May 15, 2026.

One individual accessing safe parking had recently secured employment while living in their vehicle and needed a safe place to stay overnight while waiting for their first paycheck.

Through safe parking, the individual was able to access showers, laundry, meals, and safely report to work each day while continuing to work towards housing stability.

Safe parking provided the short-term stability needed to remain employed and continue progressing towards long-term housing stability.

At its core, our place is about safety, dignity, collaboration, and opportunity.

Every meal served, every wellness check completed, and every housing conversation reflects the combined efforts of VOA, shelter operations, housing and homeless service, allied security, community partners, and staff working together 24 hours a day to support women and families in our community.

Thank you again for the opportunity to share the story of our place with you today.

I would be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions, comments from the staff, the body here.

Thank you for the presentation.

I am really interested in learning more about the safe parking program and how the pilot went.

So since the decision has been made to continue, it's not a pilot anymore, it's going to continue.

What other resources or what things do you think that we've learned or we should know about successfully operating that opportunity and potentially growing it throughout the community, not necessarily just at our place, but potentially in other areas in the community where it's closer to where people work and where they can temporarily find safe harbor to I don't want anybody having to live in their car, but if we can provide people with this these types of opportunities that are transitional to get into their first or second paycheck and be able to find and secure housing, what can what can we do before next winter to prepare to make this this program expand if necessary?

And I think the one I think the one thing is that we're looking at is that we haven't seen like I just did some of the data just recently for this month.

We just had three night stays, so people stayed for three nights, and that was it.

So the average stay is one to two nights.

So just getting the word out in the community.

And then the other thing is that I feel that the six parking spots, like as soon as they get full, then I think we could search that.

But first, I think the pilot to see obviously it's not going to be a pilot anymore, but just um seeing how that's gonna go to get those full first two, and then we can look at expanding.

And um I think that would be great to do.

So I'm hearing you say commit to making sure that the six spaces that we have get utilized every night, learn from there, and then potentially expand.

Right.

And some of the success stories, even some people coming recently.

I just learned like sobriety was one thing they could stay in their car and stay sober that way, right?

And access laundry and feel safe and secure.

So I think wait, we'll wait until we fill the six and then look at how we can expand more.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions, comments?

Thank you, Ms.

Adams, for your report.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Move on to item 12.

Uh that's uh street reach providing health care to people who are where they are.

Jane Fox, Megan Komlowski, Lassie, Austin Daly, and uh the Larson with the Larson Institute for Health and Impact.

Thank you.

I'm Jane Fox.

So you get me today.

Okay.

Uh I am the director of the Larson Institute at the School of Public Health here at UNR.

And um, I'm here to talk to you about our new project, Street Reach.

Um, and as you said, providing health care to people where they are.

So Street Reach is a collaborative UNR effort between the School of Public Health and the Orbis School of Nursing, um, and many community partners to provide street health care to people who are unsheltered.

As you know, I mean, I don't need to tell you about all the statistics on our um our community uh 2023 data.

Um 39% of the 1760 people uh experienced unsheltered homelessness, which means of course they're living on the street, sidewalk, or other non-sheltered living spaces.

Clinical care options um have been limited to existing clinics, uh, and there has not been consistent coordinated medical care provided on the street.

National data show us that there's a huge need for wound care.

There are higher rates of blood-borne viruses, such as HIV hepatitis B and C.

There's a high prevalence of hypertension, chronic lung disease, and diabetes.

And of course, as we all know, there's a significantly higher rates of emergency department um usage.

Many of the folks um that um we have encountered and that we're heard about nationally, have experienced traumatic brain injuries, um, up to 30% diagnosed with severe mental illness, and of course, drug or overdose is the leading cause of death.

So we heard this call to action in our community and uh decided that we would deliver compassionate low-barrier street care, uh, which would include wound care, blood-borne virus testing, and then linkage to community care to reduce health harms, advanced dignity, dignity, equity, and access.

Now we realize that linking folks to community care is a challenge.

Um, many folks, if they wanted to be receiving care in four walls, they would be.

It's very easy to walk into Northern Nevada Hopes and or CHA to get treatment.

Um, this is what we have now, and we do have some uh movement and thoughts about expanding um to do additional work out on the street.

So we are really built for continuity.

Um, this is a committed UNR effort, and it's designed as a street health infrastructure, not time limited.

Um, we are committed to providing our consistent services, including nurse-led wound care and street-based clinical engagement.

Um, right now we have funding from Gilead Sciences to support all of our bloodborne virus testing and linkage to care.

And the Orbis School of Nursing has very graciously given us the service component of two faculty nurses to be working out on the street with us.

So we integrate faculty practice, and in the future, we will have supervised learner experiences, so that we will be strengthening the regional workforce, and we are structured for continuity, adaptability, and long-term community partnership.

So what does it look like?

Our team, as I said, consists of two Orvis faculty practice nurses.

We have a project coordinator that is funded through our Gilead Sciences grant.

We have a phlebotomist also funded from our Gilead Sciences grant, and a community health worker that is a shared funding position with some state dollars, and then also from Gilead.

We are working right now three afternoons.

One afternoon, we have an office at the Village on Stage, which is on Mondays, and then two afternoons, we are feet in the street surrounding the CARES campus, really that two block radius on each side.

We go out with wagons and with backpacks.

I think there's some photos coming up.

And then these are our key community partners.

And I really want to highlight that we have a recently signed MOU with Washoe County and are working on an MOA as well, so that we can do extended services in partnership with Washoe County.

So this is our timeline.

Let me just say this was our timeline.

When we initiate initiated this work, we figured okay, the first six months, we're gonna have a small project team and a small geographic coverage area.

This was really recommended to us by our three national experts that helped us design this project.

We would do these limited offerings of uh wound care, bloodborne virus testing.

We would start to integrate medical residents, and then offer hygiene kits, our CAN drug test strips, etc.

Um, but as I'm sure you all know, um Washoe County transferred a mobile clinic to Orvis School of Nursing just a couple weeks ago.

And so our kind of first six months will now include figuring out how to integrate that into our service component as well.

Our second six months, which really aligns well with the academic year, is we want to pilot a health workforce training for students.

Um this will include public health students, nursing students, and PA students, and then we went to we want to expand our offerings and the team, and our hope in expansion the expansion of our offerings will include a prescribing provider so that we can have someone out there who is able to do advanced wound care and also start doing some chronic disease management for our folks that are unsheltered.

And then the third month, the third six months is really we're looking to expand the geography, which now, if we have a mobile unit that we can access, some of that geography, I think will be now moving into probably the last end of this first six months.

So early learnings and successes.

Uh we took all of March as our soft launch, and really we spent the entire month out there making friends on the street.

We had conversations with over 250 individuals, and we ourselves then really identified the need for wound care as well as the interest from folks to receive testing for HIV, hepatitis B and C.

April, which was just a few weeks ago, um, was our first full month.

So last month we interacted with 172 people.

72 of them received services from our team, 41 blood draws for HIV, hepatitis B and C.

We identified five past hepatitis C infections and five active, which is a 12% positivity rate.

Um we provided 18 wound care treatments, and then for those results, we linked uh we referred two folks to hepatitis C care within one week, and then we referred one person who was interested in HIV prep with within one week as well.

We're still working on the others.

Uh certainly we have a scope of work, which is blood-borne virus testing and wound care.

We're doing so much more, and um we're not we're we're not beyond doing so much more.

We recognize that there's huge need out there, and um, we'll do whatever it takes to serve the folks that we are meeting with.

So nursing assessments, we did six.

Um we had two um clients who came to us, actually, they their friends and said, Man, we're really tired of using meth and alcohol.

Will you help us get into outpatient treatment?

And we did.

They're still there doing well.

Um, we've been linking folks to primary care.

Um, we had a gentleman that we linked over to ROC for orthopedic care.

Um, we've had a few women that we have linked into women's health over at Renowned Women's Health on uh Rhyland.

Uh with our partnership with VOA, we've been offered able to offer showers to folks, laundry, we provide clothing.

Um we've been doing some advocacy with uh Senator Rosen to help get um folks the documents that they need.

And for everyone, we offer food, water, and socks.

So I would love to take questions.

Thank you for your important questions, comments.

I'm so happy to have you here.

I've been begging to have you come and present everywhere that I sit on a board.

Keep it going.

Thank you for coming.

And thank you to Serene, who's in the audience who originally, she's a friend and a family member who also was the first to tell me about this street reach program and the incredible work that you're doing for our community.

I'm wondering, um, are you accompanied by law enforcement at all when you're out?

No, we um we have a relationship with uh city of Reno.

We contact them every morning that we go out to say, hey, what's what's the temperature out on the street?

Is there anything we need to know about?

Um, so we certainly kind of have an ability to fast track if we need to need help, but we have not um we have not needed it thus far.

That's really um good to hear.

We've heard a lot in the community about um the fact that we don't need enforcement for a lot of the things that are happening out not only in our unhoused population, but just people that are having a tough time in our community and aren't necessarily unhoused, but are finding themselves in circumstances that are not ideal, healthy or safe.

Um so the fact that you're able to work within the community and feel safe is really important, and I think that needs to be a headline here.

Um, I want to know how did you how have you recruited specifically the people that are coming out and helping you do this work?

My staff, your staff and your students.

Yeah, let me let me actually back up.

It has been we have been remarkably welcomed out on the street.

Um, we do have very strict safety protocols within our team.

Um, I'm happy to share those at um, you know, at a later time.

Um, but anyone can call a safety problem and and we all know what to do.

Um, so how did I recruit folks?

Man, like half sheer luck and just being out and seeing someone and thinking, you need to be on my team.

And so our project coordinator, Natalie Davidson, um, has worked in the community for years, and she knows it's remarkable.

Everything and everybody.

So I could text her, and I was you know, sitting there, I was like, hey, what percentage of clients have we seen that are women?

She's like, 37.

Okay, great.

You know, if I if I text her and say, hey, we've got this person, do we, you know, how can we get them into service?

She can rattle off two or three services and has a direct line to whoever that person is to get them into services.

She's the one who's been so incredibly successful to get folks into intensive outpatient um treatment.

Um, we've had three um folks that we've worked with that we've gotten housed and employed.

Um, and it's again, it's her, it's her tenacity.

And um, she calls herself a professional friend maker, and she truly is a professional friend maker and knows all sorts of folks.

Um the woman who is our community health worker um has lived experience, um, also has just this amazing heart for doing the work.

Um, I don't think you can put people out into this um sort of job without having some sort of passion to do the work.

And our phlebotomist, as um Dean Ying Ling says, goes where no phlebotomist has ever gone before and um and is out there.

She's 22, 23 and wants to go to med school.

And every to every day that we work with her, we're like, man, we are changing through the trajectory of a soon-to-be med student.

Um, and so it's really, I think we look for passion and we look for folks that are open to do the work and also open to go above and beyond.

That's amazing.

So, what I'm hearing is passion, communication, and awareness.

100%.

We need more of it.

We need more connection um within all of the different um organizations and um departments that support our community.

I would like to know.

Um, I'm probably running out of time here, but I would like to know in the short term what we can do to help you, what other things that you are finding, what other medications, what other talent, what other support you are finding that we can we can potentially gather for you and support the work that you're doing in the community.

I think that this is a missing piece that we can start building the care portion of what we're doing and meet us at the enforcement level so that we can find a better balance there.

So thank you for your passion and the fact that you have gathered an amazing amount um you know group of humans that want to go out and care for humans that are having probably the worst day of their lives.

So thank you for that.

It's an investment in the health and well-being of our community overall.

Yeah, happy to send you a list of what else you could be doing for us, or I can tell you right now.

Right now when you have a microphone.

Syphilis testing, seriously.

It is it is in my opinion, criminal that we are not doing STI testing out on the street, particularly when we have one of the highest rates of syphilis in this in this country.

Um, so so syphilis testing one, two.

Um we've been gently working on conversations um with the um through actually our county hope team, who has been amazing.

They come to our table all the time.

We have conversations with them.

But I think we have to talk about sweeps, and we have to talk about not just the impact on certainly the individuals that get swept, they're not going away.

They literally are moving to another place and then coming back.

So the the effort is really for naught.

Um, and then what happens is when you sweep someone's stuff, they don't have an ID, they don't have their insurance card, they don't all of these things, which then suck our community resources to work with them again to get their ID, to get their their Medicaid card, to get all of these things.

So we're we're wasting resources in so many ways.

Um, that we we I think if we could sit down and have some sort of facilitated conversation about what to do about the sweeps and how to reserve someone's items so that we are not wasting our time on the outside um trying to get those items back for them.

So those are the kind of the two off of my off the top of my head.

There's you know, a lot more, I think foundational and infrastructure stuff that we could be working on to be providing these services.

Um we've already got great relationships with Renown.

We're really pushing that UNR partnership, which has been fantastic.

And I think we're gonna you're gonna hear some really great things in the future about that relationship um with them as well.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions, comments?

I just have a comment.

Thank you so much for coming.

And I we had this presentation at City of Sparks, and so thank you so much.

And I want to thank Austin Daly because he brought this to my attention, and so I kept hammering as to when it was going to come out.

So, and you are blessed to have Natalie Davidson, she's a personal friend.

So I am so happy that you got her because yes, she does not stop it now.

So talk about serendipity definitely yes, yeah, yes.

So thank you all for your support.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you, Ms.

Fox.

I think that uh you're doing great work there.

I think it takes special crew to do what you're doing, and uh thank you for good work.

I'd like to have a personal meeting with you if I could and talk about some things that maybe the county could help you with there as well.

Thank you.

Thank you for good work.

That brings us to uh item uh 13 board members' announcements, reports, updates include requests for future board agenda items is our as our group dwindles here.

Does anyone have uh requests for information, agenda items, any of those type of things?

Chairman Clark, I would like an assessment and a presentation on heat-related um shelter opportunities, strategies.

I hear that we have um a super El Nino forming in the Pacific Ocean, which is being we're being told that this is going to be one of the hottest summers and wildest weather patterns we're gonna have seen maybe in the last decade.

And I think as a community, we need to be as prepared to shelter as we are in the winter for these heat-related conditions this summer.

So uh discussion or information about cooling centers and so correct.

Yeah, but how are our preparedness for that?

Very well.

Chair Clark, I would like uh presentation or some data on low barrier shelters and what their successes are and what their um speed bumps are and have it compared to how the carers campus has been running the last six years.

Thank you.

That should be some good information.

Anything from uh council member Taylor?

Nothing.

Very good.

Uh my request, uh, I'll be quick.

Um I uh one of the uh public speakers, Pastor Pepe said that his group was stopped from uh doing anything at the the CARES campus with helping folks, and I want to find out a little bit more about that.

He also said he wasn't not given a tour of the CARES campus.

I'd like to find out a little bit more about that.

Uh I'd like to find out about uh tours uh of the CARES campus for interested parties.

Uh, we certainly want to maintain the dignity of the residents there.

We don't want to have that as a just a constant flow of folks through going through, but I like to find out about tours and then who is authorized to give tours of the CARES campus.

And um those are my requests.

Thank you.

I think we'll open it up now to uh public comment.

Is that final public comment?

First up, we have Tammy Holt still, followed by Teddy Craig's Tammy Holt still for the record.

I wasn't gonna speak this time, but a little um Chair Hill brought up something, or Vice Chair Hill brought up something that was interesting about wanting the county to assist more.

One of the things that I think the county can do to think outside the box, even the city of Reno and the city of Sparks, is your abandoned warehouses, your empty warehouses.

Why can't we start looking outside the box and creating the law?

Because you guys do really good at creating laws and using those warehouses to create lofts and in that kind of thing, like they did in New York in other places.

They're there, they're available, they're empty.

I know they're owned by somebody, but there's laws that allowed them to do certain things.

Why can't we do something to create the law to change it around so that we can use them to our benefit instead of them being a blight?

And it'll help the community all the way around.

Thank you.

Next up, Teddy Craig, followed by Trista Gomez.

I have two.

One is um N RP, not real people.

When you look up any paperwork on a care campus, and you see something that says NRP that died, NRP, that means not real people.

My friend was not a real people, and he died at care campus from hit no.

And that's what they put on this on this thing.

Not real people.

And I'm also here because I'm Cap Fish Kickstarter program.

I think all the other flyers, I work with inmates when they get out of prison, help them find jobs and place to stay.

Uh I did 22 and a half years myself.

I got out five years ago, March 4th, right at COVID, March 9th, the whole United States is closed.

And but God bless me, I went, I got my CDL.

I'd ride a white shuttle buses around town.

I've got a little business started where I work with inmates as they get out.

Um, I've had quite a few.

I got three graduates this January, and I feel good about that.

I got two more in the program now.

Also, I do art shows for incarcerated inmates.

Those that's in prison right now, they send the art.

I show up at various art things.

I got a house full of art, and all proceeds go back to the inmate.

Courtesy of one of the wardens, she gave me a paper and put a memo out there where the money can go right back on their books.

So they get paid for what it takes a little load off the family and all of that.

And if I'm here because I'll first I'm gonna tell about the NRPs, they're not real people.

That's why I wanted to come back up, but then it opened up an opportunity to say that I need help.

Um I've done this, I've been in this over a year.

I am licensed in the state of Nevada for my uh Kickstarter.

If you know of anyone who has any funding or want to look into it, want to ask any questions.

pay for it it takes a little load off the family and all of that and if I'm here because I'll first I want to tell about the NRPs that not real people that's why I wanted to come back up but then it opened up our opportunity to say that I need help I'm I've done this I've been in this over a year I am licensed in the state of Nevada for my uh Kickstarter if you know of anyone who has any funding or want to look into it want to ask any questions uh each one of y'all should have paper up there I mean my phone numbers on there you can call I buy the white shoulder buses for Tesla I mean uh Burlington gave me 750 dollars can you imagine after 20 years in prison you come out and you get real clothing I mean brand new clothing used to see the look on some of their faces some of cry because they didn't spend out of time in there and it feels good to see them get jobs for interviews get clothes for you know it that's that's you know encouraging to me so um I'm just throwing it out there that if you know anyone or any program or company I don't know what to do I know how to run this program and make sure that I can help these people because I've been there I was homeless I've been in prison I still would uh down on care campus all the time so I'm just opening up the door my phone numbers on the paper and find contact me and thank y'all for your time not real people next up Tristan Gomez okay so I talked to you about numbers and now I'm gonna talk about some solutions possible solutions I've been around long enough in some of these fields that I've watched these pendulums swing back and forth hard they've they swing back and forth hard and that's an issue and I would hope for balance budget can budget consideration should be going to less visible and working disenfranchised residents that are quiet they're not able to come here people don't notice them the hopes team is a good resource and allows for accountability and community interest and safety safe parking with boundaries that's a good I that's a great resource I love this federal money tied to housing first programs could be used in a section of existing homeless services infrastructures to not lose those benefits and not have that philosophy have to ride through that entire program we used to use our RSGM Catholic charities these other services um but they were never enough and instead of growing trusted and accountable resources the entire landscape shifted and the models changed completely to a high cost and what would be what many would consider an unaccountable services I'm not gonna make friends on either side of this from today but I grew up in an economically challenged home did social work in the field supervised in that field own a small business worked in outreach and collaboration capacity formally inside of a church and with other churches and was the director of a nonprofit income based non-federally funded uh preschool center that worked with low-income families this is a really important issue to me limitations of the church are that they are fragmented approach to from church to church and the lack of professional experience and resources the benefits are an incredibly passionate volunteer base and incorporate and coordinated parishioner resources gathering limitations of government only service providers are that they're incredibly costly that RHA thing that we just saw that'll probably be a million dollars just in personnel costs um the resources that used to take into consideration a cost burden a large portion of the population that don't have oh wait I missed something those are costly services they also cannot often redirect or reconsider programming government services rarely shrink they often grow and it's really hard to get those government employees and government programs to to do anything other than stay on the trajectory that they've already been on which is all all also costly accountability justice and equity are important and would build public trust age sobriety work and time requirements would be great steps in bringing balance the state does not have additional resources to put toward this they are struggling with personnel cost and infrastructure costs and we can do a lot within the existing system and resources that we have in order to change and if make these resources more efficient no more signed in thank you that'll um any comments any further comments from any of the board members all right that will be the end of our meeting at uh 1134 thank you