Reno Street Audio

Black Wall Street Reno is a nonprofit organization spearheaded by its two founders Donald Griffin and Romar Tolliver, going stronger and stronger in its second year of existence. Both men hope that their organization can be one that steers local teens away from the adversity that they faced as youths and young men. “This organization is to provide preventative measures for teens,” Tolliver said du...

JP Harvey has been spending what time she can spare, between school and raising three kids, to help the unhoused locally. From rolling burritos to hand delivering jackets and boots, she has grand plans to make the world a better place. Listen to her as she details her involvement in a new group called Helping Hands Loving Hearts with reporter Richard Bednarski.

Reno Food Systems is an urban farm located on the corner of Mayberry drive and McCarran boulevard. Everything from fruit to fresh vegetables to medicinal and culinary herbs are produced on the lot during the growing season. Everything is grown organically and with sustainability in mind. “We have workshops, we have volunteers, we have interns,” said Lyndsey Langsdale, the farm manager. “We also do...

Dr. Sherilyn Duckworth is the founder of A Friend of Mind, empowering youth through yoga, education, and mental health advocacy. She also wants to help in Reno where she just arrived with the unhoused, as in 2021 there were four reported suicides in Washoe County among people living without stable shelter.

Catherine Schofield interviews fellow student reporter Richard Bednarski who looks back on reporting about the unhoused for 18 months during the pandemic and worsening affordability in Reno with motels being destroyed and more and more luxury apartments popping up.

Catherine Schofield hosts and reports for this episode from the Believe Plaza in downtown Reno where a new young group of volunteers has started a new regular Tuesday night outreach event. Some of the first people they helped were recently resettled Afghan refugees who have also struggled with the affordable housing crisis.

Savannah, a university student, thought she had found the perfect apartment, near the downtown hotel where she works full time, below $1,000 per month with everything included, even if that's about half of what she makes. But that was until a public notice sign went up, and there were indications her apartment building was being bought up by Jacobs Entertainment, just like the neighboring motels....

Karen Foster, the reverend at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern Nevada, gives day in and day out, including during the giving season. Amid an affordable housing crisis, this religious leader has a plea for developers, as she tries to spread compassion and empathy. Our reporter for this episode is Richard Bednarski.

Non-binary lesbian Rachel Jackson recently started Pride of 775, a multimedia project to highlight and share queer experiences in Reno. On this episode with reporter Catherine Schofield we talk about how Pride of 775 started, what Rachel plans to do for the project, and we both share some of our experiences of being queer in Reno.

What's it like having a tent village right behind your classes? Bailey Shepard shares his thoughts and interviews a couple staying there, hoping to get into rehab housing soon. Richard Bednarski interviews another tent occupant who has done lots of jail time and has had a hard time figuring out his economic footing. The tent village has had notices to evacuate but parts have remained in an area ri...

It was a cold, windy, and cloudy fall day. Puddles of water marked the Believe plaza in the normal random manner. Yellow and red leaves stuck to the aged concrete. A lone skateboard practiced through the puddles. Near the crumbling Space Whale, a small group of unhoused community members took a rest and shared conversations. Bill Sims, a longtime Reno resident and advocate for the unhoused came to...

Our older residents have been lonely during the pandemic, while some of our kids have been struggling in school. What better program than to pair the two together in a win win program. Seniors in Service has been doing just that. They have a foster grandparents program that pairs senior citizens with students in local schools. Half mentorship and half companionship, this program benefits not just...

As part of our heroes of Reno and sheroes of Reno series, Catherine Schofield highlights the work of Jane Dunn a leader of the Reno Posse and how and why they do outreach to neighbors in need.

Richard Bednarski interviews local lawyer Ken Stover who became a lawyer to protect the Earth and now defends activists, from Black Lives Matter to the anti-sweeps movement.

Kathleen Lang got caught up in recent sweeps while living at a tent city in Reno. She’s now in housing in a dorm style room inside containers at the Village on Sage Street but her long time partner Doug is dead. In this episode, she recounts his final weeks and the weeks leading up to his death. She can't forgive herself for not being there with him at the end of his journey, but she was dealing w...

The Truckee River is looking frighteningly low toward the end of 2021. Our guest for this episode is environmental storyteller and Truckee River expert Kelsey Fitzgerald. She is a graduate of the Reynolds School of Journalism who earned her Master’s degree here in 2015 and started the website truckeeriverguide.org/ The website is a citizen interactive field guide to plants and wildlife along the m...

Jake Maynard explains why he joined the anti-sweeps movement in Reno, Nevada, while we go into our archives, a profile of Joane, over 70 and fending for herself. Can't we do better as a society to help the most vulnerable among us?

What happens when you've lost almost all hope while living on the streets? Why is it that in certain situations it's so difficult to climb that hill again and get back into the job market? Our Town Reno reporters speak to Robert and Ace, the first saying he's waiting for death, and the second from our archives suicidal while unhoused. Our neighbors without stable shelter deserve our close attentio...

Contracted private operator Keolis, transportation and city officials have expressed disappointment and frustration bus drivers are back on strike amid ongoing efforts to get a better collective bargaining agreement. Little media attention is given to who these bus drivers are exactly and what led them to pursue the job in the first place. Our reporter Richard Bednarski went to the picket line thi...

Too many of our neighbors have had their relatives killed by local law enforcement in situations which could have easily avoided death. At a recent rally, Our Town Reno reporters Gracie Gordon and Rachel Jackson met with the daughter and sister of Johnny Bonta who was killed at the age of 43 by Sparks police four years ago.

In this episode with Richard Bednarski, we look into getting more details on what’s going on at the Nevada Cares Campus and the overall local government plan to help the unhoused. Our guest is Washoe County Commissioner Alexis Hill. She speaks to us as the county is taking over leadership in helping the unhoused regionally from the city of Reno after months and months of negotiations to make that...

Being elderly in normal times can lead to acute loneliness. In this new normal of a still surging pandemic and terrible air quality, the loneliness has grown exponentially. Our guest with reporter Richard Bednarski for this week’s podcast episode is Hannah Sweeney, the program director for Seniors in Service. The northern Nevada non profit has been growing a program that combats isolation by givin...

In this bonus episode, we look into the plight of evacuees from the Caldor Fire on the California Nevada border. Despite efforts by firefighters, hundreds of homes have already been destroyed. Reporter Richard Bednarski catches up with evacuees now staying at the Reno Sparks Convention Center amid this climate change crisis we are experiencing full on right now, from bad air quality for those arou...

Jessica Castro was unhoused herself and went through devastating trauma but has rebounded. She’s now a powerhouse advocate for those struggling in Reno and northern Nevava, on social media, at City Council meetings and outside the new Nevada Cares campus. She works as a local auditor at a call center, but when she’s off work you’ll usually find her helping others. Several times a week, she distrib...

Our guest on this episode is Anthony Shafton, a Chicago native, independent scholar and current Reno resident. He’s an author who has written several books including The Nevada They Knew, Robert Caples, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, a double biography about Nevada’s prominent modern painter and novelist of the 20th century. Recently Shafton wrote an oped for Our Town Reno about public art in Reno and...