ON A sunny morning, downtown Reno is mostly empty, save for a handful of tourists. Two women speaking Spanish ogle diamonds in one of many pawn shops; a Chinese couple snaps photos under the city’s archway with its inscription, “The biggest little city in the world”. Residents avoid the area for fear that it is unsafe, says Boyd Cox, an affable veteran who owns a large antique shop downtown. Mr Cox sometimes finds homeless people sleeping under the overhang at the entrance. “When I recently asked one friend—a retired fireman—to stop by the store for a visit, he shook his head and said: ‘No, no, I don’t go downtown.’”
Although homelessness is hard to measure, available statistics suggest that Reno’s homeless population is on the rise even as America’s homeless population as a whole is declining. In 2011, 879 people lived on Reno’s streets, in shelters and in transitional housing. By January 2017 that number had increased to 1,106, meaning about 32 of...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2xlPYzI
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