Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
I think about gentrification all the time. As citizens of this fine little burg, how do we improve our quality of life without ruining the flavor of the city? Or, worse yet, driving up rents and providing no support services?
For those of us who have lived here for decades, it’s undeniable that, overall, things are much better around here than they were circa 2008, when the bottom fell out of the economy, and people were losing jobs, homes and businesses left and right.
Things are much better now—for most of us. But it seems like some people get to enjoy all the nice, shiny new microbreweries, yoga studios, farm-to-table restaurants, bands that sound like Tame Impala, and dudes with cool hair—while other people get left outside, shivering in the utterly unpredictable weather.
Take a look at this week’s cover story, “A hidden population,” written by our intern, Nisha Sridharan. It’s a profile of the Eddy House, a local nonprofit organization that tries to help homeless young people. There are a couple of key ideas in the story that are worth reiterating. Number one: There is such a gaping, disconnected chasm in our community that a beer garden could open up in downtown Reno and unwittingly use the same name as a local nonprofit organization that helps homeless kids.
That’s no to rag on The Eddy, the beer garden. It’s not my speed, because I’m not a yuppie, but I don’t wish them any ill will. I will say that if I found out that my beer garden had accidentally swiped the name of a struggling local nonprofit, I’d throw them a fundraiser right quick.
And that brings me to the second idea worth reiterating from Nisha’s story: The support services for under-served populations in this city are still woefully inadequate. The young people who take advantage of The Eddy House have to get turned away at night, when they often need help the most.
It’s great that business is booming around here, but let’s not leave anybody behind.