When Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve took office in 2014, the city was still emerging from the depths of the Great Recession. Now, four years later, the Biggest Little City has seen significant progress and Schieve is asking voters to elect her to a second term.
KUNR's Paul Boger caught up with the mayor at a campaign event to discuss that progress and how the city can continue to address some of the biggest issues facing the city including affordable housing.
"Getting creative is really important. It’s not just our city. It’s every city I talk to, a lot of mayors across the country and we're all facing this challenge," Schieve said. "It's important that a mayor seeks out those partnerships with other developers to create affordable housing [because] it's very challenging to do so in this market because land is super expensive. Well, guess what? The city can come to the table with land and that makes it a lot more doable."
Schieve also touched on homelessness. Reno, along with many other western cities, has seen a spike in the number of homeless individuals living on the streets or along the banks of the Truckee River. She says, in the past, the City of Reno has tried to go it alone to fix the problem and it just wasn’t working.
"We can't do it alone at the City of Reno. We have to have our regional partners to tackle this. That's the City of Sparks, Washoe County and the City of Reno. We all have to come together and do it together. So we have decided to consolidate on that effort."
This article is an excerpt of an extended conversation. You can listen to a longer interview by clicking the play button above.
