Carano talks about homeless in downtown

Downtown Reno determines the city's overall image for many locals and tourists. Yet, it continues to struggle with its identity, homelessness, blight and beleaguered development after the recession.

At the Reimagine Reno focus groups that started in July, the city of Reno solicited feedback to rewrite its out-of-date master plan. Developers like Bernie Carter, Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority President Chris Baum, Eldorado Resorts Inc. executive Cindy Carano, architects and downtown residents shared troubling stories and voiced their concerns at the Sept. 17 group. Their feedback point to a larger issue:

Downtown needs serious investment and an active revival in order to remake a new image for the city.

And so a sudden burst of enthusiasm from engaged community members is beginning to create movement. Cindy Carano, executive director of hotel operations at the Eldorado, attended the focus group and talked freely about the issues facing downtown.

The Carano family is firmly entrenched in Reno's history since Don Carano started the Eldorado in 1973. Cindy Carano and her siblings, Gary Carano, Glenn Carano, Gene Carano and Gregg Carano run the Eldorado and Silver Legacy and soon will have a controlling stake in the Circus Circus.

During our interview, Carano sat comfortably while speaking softly and deliberately. She holds a pleasant smile and her eyes remain engaged throughout the hour-long conversation.

Above all, Carano doesn't mince words.

Cindy Carano: We do have a homeless issue. But we also have tremendous services — but maybe not enough. I think one of the main things we need to revitalize downtown is residents, and for residents to do their commerce downtown. Some shopping. Some basic services. The culture and the restaurants is why they're here now, but we need to give them their amenities. I know the Post Office group (a retail development on Virginia Street and the Truckee River) is looking at doing that.

Mike Higdon: Right, there's a certain population density required for even small-scale grocery stores in an area.

Carano: That's what they're thinking. Bernie Carter (developer of the Post Office) was very interested in the walkability of downtown at the focus group. In fact, most of the group wanted it to be walkable. They want to make sure they're not panhandled along the way. They want to feel safe and secure along the way.

I sit on the Downtown Maintenance District Advisory Committee appointed by the city council. I chaired it for three years. I just gave up my chairmanship to residents of the Montage Condominiums. That group works with (city of Reno) Public Works (responsible for maintenance) and we've made a few dents in what Public Works is concentrating on. And basically we (the Eldorado) subsidize them (Public Works). The money we pay is based on the valued assessment of the building. When the values went down, the money went down. So we started adding our own people to their crews. Then the money went back up, their crews went back up. So we pulled our person. Part of that is almost charity work because we keep our own sidewalks clean, but maybe the tattoo parlor or little T-shirt place doesn't really care about their sidewalk and we do. We care about what their sidewalks look like. So we've been using our money to clean up their sidewalks.

Higdon: This is something that came up a lot in the first group of the downtown focus group I was in. Everyone in the group came up with "cleanliness" as something important to them, so they underlined it four times. Then we talked about blight and beggars. One woman who lives in Riverwalk Towers talked about being assaulted (This is threatening or giving the feeling of intention to do harm in Nevada) by five people while she walks her dog to the park every morning.

Carano: So I walked back from the meeting at night, 7 or 7:30 p.m. and I saw three panhandlers. Nobody asked me for money but three were out there in the three blocks I walked. I had a guest here from Arizona for the Arizona game and she said she took a walk to the river and the homeless are all over the river.

Higdon: All over the bridge?

Carano: All up the path toward Reno High. She said, 'You really have a problem.' I said that's not OK because we do have beautiful facilities for the homeless and people don't take advantage of it for one reason or another.

Higdon: The city counted the homeless in January. About 120 are considered chronically homeless, meaning they don't go to the shelter and they live on the street.

Carano: I went to a town hall about the homeless about a month ago. It's a problem. But it's probably not worse here than it is anywhere else in larger cities, we're just a smaller city. But we have a lot of services. But we also have a lot of visitors and a bigger population for them to ask. And we have beautiful weather.

Higdon: Numbers-wise, we're pretty low relative to cities our size (though Nevada is among the highest due to Las Vegas). But at least anecdotally it's concentrated in downtown.

Carano: So why would they go out of downtown? They won't. This is where the people are they can ask for help, money and food. So I know they're thinking of moving the homeless shelter out to Galletti Way. That's an option for the men anyway. We have a shelter out on Valley Road and we bus them out and bus them back just to sleep out there. I know it 's something the mayor and city council and Volunteers of America are looking at.

Rick Murdock, vice president of sales and marketing, walked into the Eldorado conference room where Carano and I were sitting. Murdock is a tall, white-haired businessman. His demeanor is casual and he oscillates from leaning back in his chair to lurching forward excitedly. He's an animated conversationalist.

He quickly caught up and had more to add.

Rick Murdock: I had a gentleman coming through our airport who inquired about doing a Canadian tourist charter program: Meaning he'd fly planes from Vancouver to Reno. He came by himself, rented a car, drove all around the area, all the way to Lake Tahoe. First thing he said when he saw me, he goes:

'I love the fact that I can go to the tri-properties without going outdoors. But why would I want to go outdoors with your homeless and drug peddlers?'

That's exactly what he said. As a city, Cindy and I talk about, you have the shelters next to your main street. You've got some of the motels that maybe aren't as nice as they used to be doing monthlies and a crowd coming from this way and the homeless coming from that way and they converge on downtown. You've got charitable people feeding people in the park. The problem is you're feeding them and tourists are going down there seeing that. You've got a cross section of people and families and then you've got men abusing the system.

Carano: With all these new people coming to town (for Tesla and Switch), it's a great opportunity to turn these motels into apartments and upgrade them in order to create a better atmosphere. We need the residents, right? So it's an opportunity for investment. Once you make it beautiful, the lower end will move out or away.

Higdon: What kind of investment is needed?

Carano: There's Tessera on the east side of Virginia Street across from Circus Circus around Sixth or Fifth street. They're looking at a whole complex, not just residents and not just retail, but also businesses. I don't know how it's going to work, but there needs to be major investment to expand UNR downtown and get students, faculty and administrative working downtown. What a tremendous opportunity. We need to promote investment. But we're in the tourism industry.



Higdon: Is there anything the casinos can do to be part of the downtown investment now that the three will be connected?

Murdock: Cindy works closely with the mayor and RSCVA.

Carano: And downtown maintenance. And our chief of security is the chair for police assessment district and public works and I'm on the RAD (Reno Alliance for Downtown) board and commission of tourism state board. Rick is on the airport authority board.

Also, code enforcement is a big deal.

Higdon: That's on my to-do list of stories.

Carano: Alex Woodley (community outreach manager) is working really hard with Cindi Gil-Blanco (downtown code enforcement manager) on code enforcement. We aren't trying to write these business owners up out the door. Just like with employee counseling, we give them information maybe they didn't know was against code in order to better the community and to bring them back up to code. To fine them and condemn them and put an easement against them isn't what we're looking for.

Murdock: Paint it. Clean it. Clean your sidewalk. It's about pride.

Higdon: Do you ever communicate with your neighbors about that stuff?

Murdock: When we do our big events every year, we have to go talk to all the tenants across the street because they get upset if you block their business. Cindy also sends her team, our cleaning team, we send them across the street, especially when you book a bowling conference. They're going to want to walk from the Sands and they want to know it's clean and they're not getting accosted. We even put up the screen printing in the windows of vacant buildings. We paid for them. Their awning is all torn and they kept getting called for code so we took care of it. I want to walk outside and feel proud. Cindy is diligent about it.

Higdon: So if you could give me a list of things that need to happen that would really increase your pride of downtown, what would it be?

Carano:

​We would need some quality retail. Ground floor, quality retail. Maybe some sidewalk cafe environment. Art. And... lighting. Keeping the place lit.

Murdock: If I could be a genie and blink it into existence, (He folds his arms and blinks, like in "I Dream of Jeannie") I would:

Blink the homeless shelter out to somewhere sustainable and out of the downtown core. I think we need a retail anchor. The university is going in the right direction. Remember the pictures of old Reno? You see cars parked diagonally. We need some cool parking. You drive to some cool towns in California and you can park downtown. You may not want to go to the Eldorado but you might want to go over to Louis' Basque Corner. Might want to go to an artist exhibit.

Carano: Storefront parking is important to retail.

Murdock: I want to figure out how we can do more nice parking. Not looking for a parking garage but making it easy to go downtown.

Higdon: The Midtown folks are interested in that too. They want more parking in Midtown to encourage customers from all over the city.

Murdock: I think the downtown revival starts with cleaning up the panhandling and people who aren't good for tourism. I don't want to sound like we're being tough; we went to a family program and served dinner to people.

Carano: We thought we weren't going to stay long but we stayed the whole time.

Murdock: We like that kind of stuff. A program that takes care of families and tries to get them back on their feet. Certainly don't like all the men being here. Whenever you bring men around it's a tough deal.

Higdon: The men have gotten more aggressive downtown. It's crossed over into assault.

Carano: A lot of the homeless are mentally ill. Back in the '70s we closed all the mental institutions and that's a problem. The country isn't taking care of the mentally ill.

Higdon: According to the city, some of them are actually homeless and some of them are beggars who have a place to live.

Murdock: We make it easy to make a panhandling living here.

Carano: We don't make it easy to be an investor or a visitor in Reno.

The interview was edited for brevity and clarity. Mike Higdon is the city life reporter at the RGJ and can be found on Instagram @MillennialMike and on Facebook at Mike Higdon, Reno Life. This is the beginning of ongoing coverage of downtown Reno issues.