Reno Street Audio

Our reporters Scott King and Richie Bednarski reach out to Diana, who has been living on the streets on and off since childhood, and Rose, a senior citizen, who recently got evicted, and is also living in a tent in Reno, to find out how they view the 2020 election, whether they will vote, and if they think results make a difference. The two of them also share their survival techniques, with winter...

A sharecropper as a child in a large family, Arkansas-born Earstin Whitten wants to provide and teach others in Reno how to grow healthy food for themselves. Whitten dedicated himself in retirement to help others after three decades working in the insurance industry. Our reporter for our latest #heroesofreno #ourtownreno podcast episode is Richie Bednarski.

The National Affordable Housing Trust has as its tag line Helping Create and Preserve Homes for Those in Need. It’s a non profit low income housing tax credit syndicator. For this episode, our reporter Scott King interviews Lori Little, the president and CEO of the NAHT, and Vice President David Lennon as their  organization joined with two other non profits, the Low Income Investment Fund and the...

With the November elections just weeks away, campaigning is as important now as ever before. A major challenge for this year’s local office candidates, however, is finding creative ways to campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic. One such candidate, Wendy Stolyarov, who is running for the Ward One seat on Sparks City Council, has been conducting her own contact free campaign neighborhood “lit drops....

Kyle Chandler-Isacksen could be considered a visionary jack-of-all trades. We’ve featured him on Our Town Reno previously, helping with community murals, composting and garlic festivals. He also runs the non-profit Be The Change Reno, an urban learning space dedicated to service, sustainability, and community uplift. Now, he’s built a house which has been placed in a community land trust, an econo...

The Village on Sage Street, which offers affordable dorm style living inside large containers, was started in Reno in August 2019 after over 50 truckloads delivered the prefab buildings from a working site in Wyoming. Tenant requirements were loosened after the project launched to accept more lower income senior citizens. The 200 plus unit compound is now reported to be at 100% capacity. Each unit...

The episode starts out with Ray Bacasegua Valdez, the director of the American Indian Movement in Northern Nevada, who was one of over 60 people at a recent support protest in downtown Reno, Nevada, for families of those killed by local police. In the interview, he references Johnny Bonta, a Native American who was killed in 2017 by three police officers in Sparks. We will then hear from the mothe...

"I hope that Our Place brings the message that our neighbors are some of the most creative, resilient, beautiful humans I've ever met. And when we invest in people, we get great results," said Jen Cassady the Our Place director. Shelters take on many different forms, sizes, shapes and models. Here in northern Nevada, a grassroots movement called RISE, the Reno Initiative for Shelter and Equality h...

The parish of Our Lady of The Snows in downtown Reno, including volunteers and Reverend Bob Shorey, are now hosting a food insecurity outreach program in their church parking lot for those in need. This new outreach program which is being paired with other help was recently launched as an expansion effort due to COVID-19 difficulties. This episode with Our Town Reno reporter Scott King goes into s...

"Our Town Reno is a little experimental, so sometimes we just have one voice for a story. But I'm still going into it as a journalist and these folks do not have an incentive to lie or make things up. They are so honest all the time, so people kind of get mad at that. For example, I did a story on a sign in a McDonald's that said you can't be here for more than 30 minutes. I was like, ‘Hmm, I wond...

Arthur was attending a recent Black Lives Matter event in downtown Reno, and as he sometimes does, was watching from a distance at first. Large groups of police congregated on bikes behind him. The Michigan native who is new to Reno says he doesn’t understand why police officers get so little training before entering police forces across the country, sometimes even less than what beauticians go th...

Moriah, 20, already has had a very difficult life story, from being an abused foster kid to a runaway to a pregnant teen who had to give up her child for adoption. While starting to work several hours a week for an organization setting up a new shelter in Reno/Sparks, she has been living in a tent, which gets repeatedly uprooted in city sweeps. Sometimes people living in the encampment are cited,...

In this episode, we go on the streets of Reno with Kristuffer Richmond, who was a Downtown Ambassador, as part of the Downtown Reno Partnership, as COVID-19 hit the Biggest Little City. Before the stay at home orders, during the stay at home orders, and as Reno slowly reemerges, the pursuits of the Partnership, a so-called Business Improvement District, and the work of its ambassadors, have pretty...

When Our Town Reno met Erik, the recent widow was acting as a watchdog for his houseless friends at Barbara Bennett Park. He told us he had been traveling for most of his life and that he moved half a year ago from California to Reno, where he’s lived before. He was sleeping in his car, a 2001 Honda Accord. He told us he tries to help out especially when big encampments have been removed in police...

James Henderson, 50, part black and Native American, an ex convict who did 16 years in prison in different spells from Hawaii to San Quentin, says he survived riots and being shot three times. He’s a recent graduate of the local Crossroads recovery program with new hopes for his own future. “I used to brag about it, but I'm not proud of it because it's wasted time,” he said of his prison record. “...

Dressed in a black hooded-sweatshirt and camera in hand, Eric Marks has become a feature of downtown Reno nightlife. But as the owner of Reno Street Photography and as a documentarian, he’s more in the shadows, documenting what he sees to share with the world what life on the streets of Reno is all about. This episode by reporter Scott King looks into challenges and rewards of street photography.

It's people like Tex who get displaced during police sweeps. He's fighting cancer so he avoid large crowds such as what you can find at the shelter. He used to stay at the courthouse but following protests that's not possible anymore. He was recently hit by a car. His cards are down, but Tex, who got his nickname from his Texas base, hasn't stopped fighting, whatever life and the world throws at h...

How does one cope after losing their child who served in the military? Tina Drakulich founded the David J. Drakulich Foundation For Freedom of Expression after losing her own son, David Drakulich. The Reno artist turned soldier died at 22, in January 2008, near Chagali, Afghanistan. At the time, he was a fire support specialist with the 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade...

Jeff Bogue recently moved back with his parents, but is trying to fix up his van to live in it again, for more independence. He believes it should be allowed to sleep in your vehicle amid this affordable housing crisis. “The cops shouldn't always go after the homeless that are not causing problems and just because they’re sleeping,” Bogue said. “[Sleeping] should not be a crime, in my opinion. For...

Many people living on the streets say one place is better than another in terms of services. They aren’t always in the place they prefer. How do services compare? Why does a person without housing end up in one place rather than another? For this episode of the Biggest Little Streets Podcast, reporters Scott King and Lucia Starbuck were at Barbara Bennett Park in downtown Reno. There they met Chri...

Ian was one of the participants in our Share Your Story sessions on Mondays at the downtown Reno library, which had to be stopped due to the library closing as the community tries to stave off the coronavirus pandemic. Ian is proud to have grown up in Reno, but there are a few concerns he’d like to see fixed, including having his Medicare cover all, and not just some of his healthcare costs .  “I...

My name is Luke Keck, and for the last few months I’ve worked as a reporter for Our Town Reno. I moved to Reno when I was 17 and fresh out of high school. I’m 24 now, and I’m getting ready to finish grad school in the next few weeks. I’ve spent seven years in the city, most of them around the University where I went to school, nestled in the suburban neighborhoods around Kings Row. In the summer o...

Clint Koble first ran in 2018 for Northern Nevada’s US Congressional District Two, a seat currently held by Republican Representative Mark Amodei. From his 2018 campaign experience, where he got past a crowded Democratic field, and time serving as the State Executive Director of the USDA’s Nevada Farm Services Agency, Koble believes he is poised and ready to represent Northern Nevada’s constituent...

Eddie Lorton, a developer and frequent local candidate, is now running for the At-Large position on the Reno City Council, with mail-in primaries scheduled for June 9. Lorton says he'll wait until later in the campaign to reveal big detailed plans. He’ll be facing Devon Reese, who was voted in by the Reno City Council in 2019 after the seat was vacated with former councilman David Bobzien’s depart...

Patricia Ackerman, a Democrat, is running for Nevada’s Congressional District 2. The seat is currently held by incumbent Mark Amodei, who has been in Congress nearly 10 years now. First there’s the Democratic Party primary still scheduled for June ninth, in a crowded field. Other notable candidates include Clint Koble and Rick Shepherd. On this episode of The Biggest Little Streets podcast, Ackerm...