Week of Dec. 19, 2024

From the editor’s desk

Last fall, we reported on Carson City’s nonprofit shelter system, Night Off the Streets, which provides floor space and sleeping bags for anyone who needs them from November through March. Four of the city’s churches take turns hosting overnight guests for the winter. The group formed in 2017, after four people died of hypothermia sleeping outdoors in Carson City.

This week, on Tuesday, Dec. 17, a similar arrangement began in Reno. The Reno Initiative for Shelter & Equality (RISE), along with four churches, launched the Good Neighbors Warming Center, where women, families and single fathers with children can stay between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The rotation began at St. Thomas Aquinas Cathedral on West Second Street. Our Town Reno—one of the University of Nevada, Reno’s student news outlets—was there to get a first-hand look. 

The shelter program opened less than a week after the Reno City Council moved to expand bans on camping, sitting and lying down from being in effect just downtown to citywide. (The Reno Gazette-Journal posted more detail on that last week.)

Three other Reno churches—Reno First United Methodist Church, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd—will take turns hosting the Good Neighbors Warming Center, one week at a time, through March 10.

“According to the Washoe County Medical Examiner’s Office, last year, five homeless men and women died due to weather exposure or hypothermia,” KTVN Channel 2 reported on Tuesday.

Organizers of the Good Neighbors Warming Centers are seeking volunteers, donations of cash and supplies, and people to host hot beverages and breakfast outside for shelter guests, who must exit at 6 a.m. To donate or inquire, email goodneighborsreno@gmail.com.

Take care,

—Kris Vagner, managing editor