Chilly winter nights put stress on the local homeless population, which continues to grow, leaving hundreds to rely on overnight shelters. But, those shelters are overflowing.
The City hopes to add another permanent overflow shelter within the next two years. A possible future location for that shelter is 250 Sage Street. However, since it could take a couple of years to come to fruition, they're hoping to have a quicker, short-term solution built there within as little as a couple of months.
A tiny home village could be built on the five acres of city-owned property on Sage Street, complete with electricity, a communal kitchen and bathrooms and even security.
The goal is to build about 40 of the homes, which only cost a total of about $3,000 per unit. Although the homes are small, for many of our homeless neighbors, it will be the first time in years that they'll have a roof over their heads.
So, the Reno Tiny Homes Coalition has come forward help the project become a reality more quickly. This week, they launched an online crowdsourcing campaign for whoever has any change to spare, to help.
Neoma Jardon, the City of Reno's Vice Mayor, explains the costs, "Start with $100,000 to get them up and going and then we need about $250,000 beyond that."
Those ongoing costs include case management, electricity, behavioral health assistance and other services that will be provided to the homeless at the tiny home community.
If it all goes according to plan, Jardon says, that village could be a reality within as little as 90 days.
If you'd like to donate, volunteer to help build the tiny homes, or simply learn more about the project, click here. You can also donate by texting Renotinyhome to 71777. Or, if you'd prefer to write a check, you can send it to:
Attn: Pat Cashell 335 Record Street, Reno, NV 89501
(Make sure you write "Tiny Homes" in the memo section.)
