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Mayor Cooper pushes $50M plan to curb homelessness; residents question strategy





Overturned shopping carts are seen near the entrance to Brookmeade Park, a Metro park that is currently closed because of a homeless encampment that has existed there since 2001. Vivian Jones / Main Street Nashville

Overturned shopping carts are seen near the entrance to Brookmeade Park, a Metro park that is currently closed because of a homeless encampment that has existed there since 2001. Vivian Jones / Main Street Nashville

Mayor John Cooper is pressuring the Metro Council to support a $50 million strategy to reduce homelessness in Nashville, but residents of a neighborhood near one of the city’s largest encampments want to see more data to show it will work. 

The Mayor’s plan allocates $50 million in one-time federal COVID-19 funds toward a combination of new-build affordable housing, partnerships with landlords to make already-built housing available, temporary “gap” housing, new support and case management services.

It’s unclear many new housing units would become available if funding is approved.

As of January, about 1,900 homeless people live in Nashville, including 600 living outdoors. About 500 of those are chronically homeless — who either are disabled or have been homeless at least 12 months of the last three years. Nashville’s chronically homeless population hasn’t changed much since 2011, an independent audit found.

“The unsafe and unhealthy conditions and encampments across the city cannot continue,” Cooper said during a news conference at Bellevue United Methodist Church on Wednesday. “We cannot afford to wait any longer.”

Mayor John Cooper speaks during a news conference promoting his $50 million strategy to reduce homelessness in Nashville at Bellevue United Methodist Church on Sept. 21. Vivian Jones / Main Street Nashville

Mayor John Cooper speaks during a news conference promoting his $50 million strategy to reduce homelessness in Nashville at Bellevue United Methodist Church on Sept. 21. Vivian Jones / Main Street Nashville

Council members first considered the funding proposals last month but delayed a vote to allow the Mayor’s office to respond to a list of questions from the council. Spokesman TJ Ducklo said answers would be available before the end of next week. Cooper asked council members to approve a package of four funding resolutions during their meeting on Oct. 5.

Bellevue UMC has served as a “mobile housing navigation site” since last year, one of two such centers launched last August with dormitory-like living spaces and around-the-clock staff to help homeless people seeking housing find a place to live.

Now, Cooper is seeking to open four more centers, expanding on a housing-first approach recommended by independent auditors this spring. Housing in this approach does not mean a place in a shelter for the individual, but a permanent apartment or other home in which the homeless person or family will live.

April Calvin, interim director of the Metro Homeless Impact Division, speaks during a news conference with Mayor John Cooper, promoting his $50 million strategy to reduce homelessness in Nashville at Bellevue United Methodist Church on Sept. 21. Vivian Jones / Main Street Nashville

April Calvin, interim director of the Metro Homeless Impact Division, speaks during a news conference with Mayor John Cooper, promoting his $50 million strategy to reduce homelessness in Nashville at Bellevue United Methodist Church on Sept. 21. Vivian Jones / Main Street Nashville

Cooper’s plan uses some of the last of Nashville’s one-time federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. He says one-time funds are a good fit for one-time, up-front expenses of building more housing. For ongoing maintenance costs and costs to maintain support services, Cooper touted his administration’s 92% increase of the Homeless Impact Division’s budget over the last two budget cycles. So far, he’s not mentioned more funding to come to support ongoing expenses.

Residents of neighborhoods in Bellevue — where one of Nashville’s largest homeless encampments at Brookmeade Park is located — are skeptical the new approach will yield the expected results.

Among them is Rebecca Lowe, founder of Reclaim Brookmeade Park, a community group advocating to house individuals in the Brookmeade Park encampment that has resulted in the park’s closure. Lowe lives near Brookmeade Park and says the Bellevue UMC housing center that’s been operating for the last year has not had the impact Metro said it would.

Brookmeade Park remains closed because of a homeless encampment that has existed there since 2001. Vivian Jones / Main Street Nashville

Brookmeade Park remains closed because of a homeless encampment that has existed there since 2001. Vivian Jones / Main Street Nashville

“I would really like to see the numbers and the return on investment,” Lowe told Main Street Nashville. “For the last year, the center has been in operation, and we were supposed to be seeing results. … This center was supposed to be the answer for the encampment at Brookmeade Park. That has not happened.”

Lowe says she’d like to see more communication from the Mayor’s office and Metro, as well as data showing the plan will be a success.

She says it’s important Metro’s plan not be one-size-fits-all. Last week, while she was at the park for a cleanup day, a volunteer she was with helped save the life of a 12-year-old girl with an addiction. Others, she says, need a different approach from Metro.

“Not everybody who is unsheltered is the same,” she says. “Some are predators. They prey on those who are vulnerable. We need a different approach for all of them. That might mean some tough love for some of them.”

 

 

Residents from neighborhoods near Brookmeade described an environment of public indecency and theft in the neighborhoods surrounding the encampment during the Metro Council meeting on Tuesday.

Mercedes Voecks, who serves as treasurer for Reclaim Brookmeade Park, told council members that drug addictions in the encampment have driven up break-ins and theft in the neighborhood.

“I think sometimes we forget that people’s livelihood is on the line as well,” Voecks told council members. “We have 17 small businesses that surround Brookmeade Park, and I can tell you every single one of them has financially been hurt by this situation. We have people breaking into businesses and stealing everything they can get their hands on.”

Tim Tomes, a resident of Sylvan Park, told council members his six-year-old granddaughter regularly has to walk by naked homeless men while going to school on Charlotte Pike.

“I’ve got photographs here that I was told are unacceptable to hand out to the adult members of our government who run our city,” Tomes said, “but it’s acceptable for children that are six years old to see in public every single day.”

Here’s a summary of the four prongs of Cooper’s plan:

$25M for affordable housing loans

The Metropolitan Development and Housing Authority would receive $25 million to provide low-cost loans to developers to increase “deeply affordable” housing units, specifically for households experiencing homelessness. MDHA would make the units available to individuals with 0% to 30% area median income.

MDHA would reinvest income generated from the loans back to housing and homeless services.

$9M for temporary housing

The Metro Homeless Impact Division would use an allocation of $9 million to expand temporary housing availability “so no one has to sleep outside while we find them units,” according to the proposal.

Metro would open up to four more “mobile housing navigation sites,” like the one at Bellevue United Methodist Church. The funds would also allow for partnerships with nonprofits, faith-based groups and others to create housing for individuals to live in from 90 days to two years.

$7M for landlord partnerships

Metro Homeless Impact Division would also receive $7 million in ARP funds to establish a “low barrier housing collective” to fund competitive grants for support services. Of that, $3 million would fund staff for the project: a program manager and a staff of “housing navigators” to help Metro identify, maintain and retain housing and manage landlord and tenant incentives. The other $4 million would fund the actual grants for up to 10 nonprofits providing care, recovery, education and workforce readiness services.

Last year, Metro established a Landlord Guarantee Fund to cover $1,000 in property damages and up to $2,000 in lost rent to incentivize landlords to accept federal housing vouchers.

$9M for supportive services

The Metro Homeless Impact Division would receive $9 million to be used to support housing case management teams and other services, including mental health services, addiction treatment, healthcare referrals, WIC, TennCare and disability benefit application support.

Case managers will be able to support 50 to 75 households in the first year, according to HID’s funding request. After scaling up and adding staff in the coming three years, capacity is projected to increase tenfold, to serve 500 households per year.

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