>>Jill Tolles: We came across a quote from a theologian, John Wesley, who said, "Earn as much as you can, save as much as you can, and give as much as you can."

Throughout our entire marriage, we have always consistently held that philosophy.

>>Par Tolles: It is a wonderful journey being married to Jill and to feel not only the love I have for her, but the respect I have for her.

I'm honored to be with her and get to experience her life alongside of her.

It's been the greatest joy in my life.

>>Jill Tolles: I am so proud of my husband on so many levels, and I have loved being in the front seat to this journey.

>>Jeff Peterson: There is no question that I introduced them.

>>Par Tolles: I was volunteering at a youth group, and she came in and gave a talk, and I have never seen anybody of her age captivate a large group of high school junior high students the way that she did.

>>Jeff Peterson: Par pulled me aside and he said, "hey man, can you introduce me to Jill Metzger?"

I'm like, "yeah, no problem."

>>Jill Tolles: He heard me speak and cold called me after to see if I wanted to go out.

>>Par Tolles: but she said no.

>>Jill Tolles: My roommate at the time, had a huge crush on him.

I couldn't tell him why, but I said no.

>>Par Tolles: So I chased her around for four months.

>>Jill Tolles: He prayed for a divine coincidence to run back into me again, and literally three days later, I physically ran into him and he thought, oh my gosh, if I don't ask her out, I'm going to get struck by lightning.

>>Par Tolles: We were married, I guess a year, year and a half later.

>>Par Tolles: Luckiest guy in the world, so.

>>Jill Tolles: The Guinn Center is a statewide, nonpartisan policy research center, and we provide information to our legislature and our governor and to the public at large.

We believe that a well-informed citizenry leads to a healthier democracy.

>>Phil Satre: We decided that we should name the organization after Kenny Guinn who had at that point who had at that point in time, passed away, in identifying kind of a bipartisan approach because although he was in fact a Republican governor, he was somebody who really was characterized by reaching across the aisle.

>>Jill Tolles: I show a cartoon.

It's an illusion of two different men fighting over how many bars there are on the floor.

And so they're standing over what looks like either three bars on the floor or four bars in the floor, depending on which angle you're looking at, the illusion.

And it illustrates that sometimes we come to an issue only from our own set of facts, from what our algorithms have told us, from what our news feed or our friends and family all are in agreement is the truth.

And we look across at the other person who also has their own set of facts and algorithms, and they see something very different.

And what happens is that you look at the person on the other side, and you tend to think one of three things either they're stupid, they're crazy, or worse yet, they're evil.

Never in a million years thought I would get involved with politics didn't like politics.

Still don't like politics, in all honesty.

But back in 2010, a neighbor invited me to an event called Stand Up for Education, and I learned about our rankings nationally.

We had a third grader and a fifth grader in public elementary school, and I turned to Par and said, either we're getting out of the state or we're getting involved.

I walked into the legislature for the first time in 2011, and I remember walking up to the law enforcement officer behind the front desk and asking, how does this work?

What do I do?

He said, this is your house.

This your taxpayer dollars pay for this, and you can come in and listen to floor sessions or sit in on committee hearings and you can meet with your representatives.

Then I walked past that desk and I grabbed the little brochure, and I looked up who my representatives were.

And then my assemblyman at the time was Pat Hickey.

>>Pat Hickey: When she first called me, she was very unaware of how the system works, how you can have contact, how you can make an impact.

And of course, she was surprised when she called and didn't get an attaché or an assistant or a staff person.

She got me directly.

>>Jill Tolles: I thought, what kind of state do we live in?

This is amazing that we have this kind of access.

My Assemblyman, Pat Hickey, appointed me to a task force on child sexual abuse prevention as a citizen, and that was eight months of studying this issue that impacts 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys in America under the age of 18.

And what he and nobody else knew at the time is that I am one of the 1 in 4.

And so it was one of the hardest things for me to participate on that task force, and yet also incredibly important to feel like I had a place where I could turn something that was so painful from my past into motivation to try and help others.

>>Melissa Holland: She's open about some things that she's gone through and overcome, and she's just a really safe person and a talented individual to walk alongside these survivors as they start to share things that they want to see used to bring good as well.

>>Pat Hickey: I thought, boy, this woman should be in the legislature.

>>Heidi Seevers O'Gara : Jill and I actually ran at the same time.

In 2016, she ran for the Assembly and I ran for the Senate.

And because our district overlapped when we worked together, she didn't just knock on the door for a second.

She took a moment with people to really understand their interests and concerns.

>>Gretchen Kelley Bietz: I was so impressed by how well she educated herself, and I had never experienced a legislator who spent that much time and energy trying to understand the issue from the ground up.

>>Jill Tolles: I had the privilege of serving for three terms, and I was really proud of the fact that I was consistently rated one of the most, if not the most bipartisan legislators in the state.

One of the first things that I noticed when I walked into my office at the legislature the first time was that the name plates were on sliders so they could easily be moved and replaced.

There was nothing permanent about them.

You never know how long you're going to be in this position.

It's not about how many likes you get on social media.

It's not about how many times you make the headlines in the news.

It's really, at the end of the day, how effective are you at getting substantive and significant laws passed for the good of the state that you represent?

>>Par Tolles: Seems like every TV show that I see, I'm the bad guy.

From Yellowstone to Avatar, there's always bad developers.

Our tagline is thoughtful development.

There's more well-intentioned good developers out there trying to make their communities better than there are bad ones, particularly in this town.

I really want to be the first city that solves homelessness, and I know that's an audacious goal.

>>Par Tolles: I worked downtown for a long time.

I had a pretty baked view of why homeless are homeless, and I had for a long time would go into my underground garage downtown.

I would take the elevator up to a floor, and I could avoid a lot of the painful things that you can see in downtown Reno.

I went to Portland, I went to LA, I went to San Francisco, I went to Seattle and really started having the feeling, and I will sound extreme here, but with this clear and present danger to our country, I really felt like if we didn't start moving and acting in Reno, that we were going to really lose our downtown.

>>Judge Egan Walker: Building prisons and building detention centers, jails, you know, like the Washoe County Jail, are arguably the most expensive way to deal with issues like homelessness.

It is exactly the worst solution, usually, as well.

>>Par Tolles: There's a big part of the population that is one bad mistake, one accident away from not having the money to get back on their feet.

They come from a broken home.

They don't have parents, they have resources.

And that's a big part of how this homeless population happens and is by no fault of their own.

And for me to think that I'm better than they are when it's only by the luck of the draw or the grace of God that I have the resources, the family I have, that we got to step in and help.

>>Kate Thomas: Anyone can fall into homelessness.

>>Patrick Cashell: From roughly 28 years of age to 38.

I was homeless, not homeless, and and I was sleeping on people's couches.

During that time, my dad was the mayor, and it was just really hard on him.

You don't have a place to wake up to.

You don't have a bed to sleep in.

You don't have a pillow to put your head on.

You don't have a place to brush your teeth.

Most likely you've lost your family and your friends as well.

And it's scary, you fight to survive.

>>Sharon Chamberlain: Being homeless.

The biggest thing for me was that I just felt completely invisible.

We just need to see these individuals that are out there on the street as individuals, just like you and me.

>>Christie Holderegger: Nobody was born and had this vision to be homeless.

And things happen in your life.

They need the exact same things that we do.

Somebody that loves them and that they love to be a part of a community and also have a purpose.

>>Kate Thomas: We don't feel that it's in anyone's best interest to live on the streets.

It's just not humane.

>>Neoma Jardon: The Downtown Reno Partnership is Reno's business improvement district for downtown.

>>Par Tolles: Property owners within 100 blocks of downtown.

Agreed that we would assess our property values, that we could hire 20 ambassadors, that you see the blue uniforms downtown.

>>Neoma Jardon: We helped make downtown friendlier, safer, cleaner.

They're engaging with visitors.

Give them directions and recommendations.

They're assisting our houseless population to connect to services.

>>Par Tolles: We saw misdemeanor calls to the police.

Drop by 50% within the first year.

So that's when I thought, okay, we just leaned in a little bit.

When that worked, I thought, okay, may be something else we could do.

I've joined a small handful of people on a transitional housing task force.

>>Neoma Jardon: The Village at Sage Street is a really unique project.

They were called man camp units that were up at a place in Wyoming.

>>Par Tolles: This particular labor camp had to be off of this BLM land, in nowhere Wyoming in six months.

And they were willing to kind of a really good deal.

So I flew out with my thought partner, Allison Gorelick.

The whole city of Reno got in the room and we FaceTimed them.

Electrical rooms, roof, bathrooms.

This is really well built.

If you can get this out to Reno, we'll give you four acres on fourth Street, this is 220 rooms.

Our goal was 400 bucks a month.

That's kind of was a line for the working poor that we felt that we can influence.

>>Christie Holderegger: And created dorm like style housing, and it was a temporary housing for them to increase their income, stabilize and move back out into the community.

>>Par Tolles: I was like, this is great.

We made a difference.

>>Kate Thomas: The Cares Campus is a 15 acre parcel that's located on fourth Street.

It started as an effort between the cities of Reno and Sparks and Washoe County to expand our housing capacity for homelessness during Covid.

>>Sharon Chamberlain: Reno is unique in that we have created this corridor of hope, where multiple entities are working together to support individuals living in homelessness.

>>Par Tolles: This Cares Campus >>Par Tolles: This Cares Campus is this beacon of hope.

>>Judge Egan Walker: In my humble opinion the Cares Campus would not exist without Par Tolles.

>>Patrick Cashell: I think about the thousands of lives that Par has no idea that he's even touched.

>>Christie Holderegger: Nobody's walking around with this badge that says formerly homeless.

But they're all around us, and they're thriving because of people like Jill and Par >>Gretchen Kelley Bietz: I've had the chance to spend time with them as a family, and I see the energy and the connection that they have to their girls.

>>Mia Tolles: The biggest thing The biggest thing that they taught Riley and I growing up was how to ask questions.

It's that is such a huge part of how they connect with people.

To look at someone and to ask them.

Tell me about your background.

Tell me about your family.

How can I best understand you?

>>Riley Tolles: During summer nights in Reno, we have a little fireplace out in our backyard, and we'll go out, huddle as a family and just have deep conversations about life.

>>Par Tolles: I find helping the homeless rewarding, and I'm hoping that we can bring light to the issue more than we have.

I hope my involvement inspires other people to get involved.

I hope my involvement inspires other people to get involved.

>>Jill Tolles: I think I'd love to be remembered for leading with my head and my heart, that I engaged in both factual information, data, thoughtfulness, but also compassion.

And that, people would know that what drives me is love.