On Jan. 11, Lily Baran posted on Facebook asking if anyone would accept $10,000 to open their building as a warming center to provide unhoused people with a roof during winter nights.
Baran is co-board president of the Reno Initiative for Shelter Equality (RISE), community engagement manager for Planned Parenthood, and a candidate for the Reno City Council.
“Citizens of the city are getting together to do this,” she told the RN&R. Baran and her peers are following in the footsteps of groups like Night Off the Streets (NOTS)—the nonprofit made up of four Carson City churches that operates pop-up warming shelters—as well as Family Mutual Soup Aid and Food Not Bombs, which host outdoor potlucks in Reno for anyone who may need a meal, and do so without government support.
“Over the last several years, people have been asking at city and county meetings for contingency plans for when shelters are full,” Baran said. “In that amount of time, we’ve spent almost $100 million of federal funds on solving this crisis.”
Baran lives near downtown, where she regularly sees unhoused people outside on the coldest nights of the year. She said that even with the Nevada Cares Campus and other resources, many people still need shelter.
“It’s not time to point fingers at where the Cares Campus is and all of the things that they’ve done,” Baran said. “It’s time to be very real about the reality that there are still hundreds of people who are outside, and they’re dying in multitudes, and we need other options.”
The funding for a pop-up shelter, Baran said, will come from RISE and community donations. Anyone who’d like to participate or donate can call her at 707-596-0510.
—Kris Vagner