In October 2022, Metro Council approved four resolutions to allocate a total of $50 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to address homelessness and strengthen our local Housing Crisis Resolution System.
The Office of Homeless Services (OHS) published preliminary “impact reports” in June 2026, which present an overwhelming amount of data points that are disjointed and focus on numbers of people served (which are outputs). In short, we do not know yet how effective the $50 million investment was, what the actual outcomes or impacts are, or whether the money was actually invested as originally presented to Metro Council.
Homelessness has steadily and significantly increased since 2022, which raises the overall question: Is what we’re doing working?
While OHS is finalizing its ARPA report and plans to have that done by the end of the year, I took another look at the initial four resolutions from 2022 and developed some questions I hope OHS will answer in their final report.
$50 Million for Homelessness
In October 2022, Metro Council passed four resolutions dedicating $50 million in ARPA funding to homelessness. Here is a summary of the resolutions:
- RS2022-1696: $25 million were allocated to provide low-cost loans to developers to create deeply affordable housing units for households with an income of 0-30% of the Area Median Income (AMI).
- RS2022-1697: $9 million to build capacity in Housing First case management services, including establishing Assertive Community Treatment teams.
- RS2022-1698: $9 million for temporary interim gap housing for households waiting for housing units and/or permanent housing subsidies.
- RS2022-1699: $7 million to fund Metro’s Low Barrier Housing Collective landlord engagement and incentive program ($3 million) as well as competitive grants for support services ($4 million).
Questions for a Final Report from OHS
So far OHS data has been overwhelming but not producing numbers that show:
- Outcomes and the actual impact of these investments for people and the community;
- Whether the output data produced counted unduplicated individuals;
- How these individuals moved through the system to permanent housing;
- How many remain permanently housed; or
- How OHS intends to utilize its current $18.6-million budget to help sustain the efforts started by the $50-million investment.
Specifically, I hope OHS will be able to answer some of the questions I list below:
A) RS2022-1696: $25 million to build deeply affordable units.
The legislation requested, among other things, that “any un-obligated funds left in the Affordable Housing Gap Financing (AHGF) program as of December 31, 2023, shall be transferred to the Barnes Fund for Affordable Housing.”
Scott Dietz, Communications and Community Engagement Coordinator of the Metro Planning Department, confirmed that per a substitute resolution (RS2024-240), $7,551,528.78 in unobligated funds were transferred to the Barns Fund.
“Barnes then issued a special funding round to make those funds available to nonprofits to create permanent supportive housing and ultimately awarded all funds to I Am NEXT, Inc, per RS2022-817,” Dietz said.
The remaining millions were awarded to seven developers who took advantage of the loan program. However, I found that OHS wrongfully and repeatedly listed an allocation made to Shelby House 1, LP, in the amount of $2,8 million in their impact reports to Metro Council and the community even though that developer returned their award in full. Therefore, that impact ultimately ended up being zero.
Demetris Chaney Perkins, OHS’ public information coordinator, said via email that the “$2.8 million returned by Shelby House was reallocated through Metro’s approved process to three priorities: Eviction Right to Counsel as a homelessness-prevention and diversion strategy, permanent funding for critical positions previously supported by ARPA within the Office of Homeless Services, and permanent funding for critical ARPA-supported positions within the Office of Family Safety. These investments preserved the infrastructure for housing-stability and public-safety services consistent with the intended purpose of the original federal funding.”
To me, that means that $2.8 million that were designated for the creation of deeply affordable housing units were not spent as originally intended per Metro Council’s resolution, and it would be appropriate to expect OHS to explain in their final report why that was the case.
I also hope OHS will seek information from the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA), which managed the $25 million AHGF program, to find out whether this loan program has already generated any income, which, according to legislation, “will be dedicated to housing and/or services for citizens experiencing homelessness.”
In summary, the questions I hope OHS will answer include: Were the $25 million spent on the creation of deeply affordable housing units, and are 100 percent of these units occupied by people who have experienced homelessness? If not, why not? Was any income created through the AHGF program, and if so, how much of that income has been reinvested into housing and/or services so far?
B) RS2022-1697: $9 million for intensive wraparound support services for permanent supportive housing.
- Councilmember Courtney Johnston, a member of the COVID-19 Financial Oversight Committee, took an avid interest in adding accountability measures to all four resolutions for the $50 million ARPA funding for homelessness. She proposed several amendments including one for RS2022-1697, which added a monthly reporting requirement to Metro Council outlining:
- The number of people served by this program;
- The demographics of the individuals served;
- The average length of time the individuals have been in housing;
- Income and non-cash benefits;
- Types of services provided;
- Number and percent of individuals who returned to homelessness;
- The number assessed, applied, and awarded as able to obtain SSI or disability; and
- The percentage remaining housed.
Of these requirements, OHS did not include all items in their monthly reporting. What was missing was the average length of time in housing, income and non-cash benefits, number and percent of individuals who returned to homelessness, the SSI/disability benefit outcomes and the percentage remaining in housing.
This resolution and its addenda focused on providing comprehensive wraparound support services aligned with Housing First programs. However, it is unclear how funded programs collaborated to serve individuals in a seamless manner to move from homelessness to permanent supportive housing.
In other words, if the six programs funded, each served a different group of people, was this truly a comprehensive and coordinated Housing First approach? In the end, output may be high, but if the money is not spent as intended to impact the most vulnerable people, did we really meet the intention of the resolution, and did it result in an actual reduction in overall homelessness for the group of people served?
Other questions are: Was there an Assertive Community Treatment team that followed people from temporary housing to permanent housing? How many people were permanently housed in the end, and how many of them are still in housing? What is the sustainability plan to ensure they remain housed after the funds expired, and who is providing ongoing support services to keep people housed?
C) RS2022-1698: $9 million for two separate temporary housing program models.
The previous resolution that funded intensive wraparound services stated that those supports may start in temporary housing and follow people into permanent supportive housing, following a Housing First model.
Neither OHS’ monthly reports to Metro Council nor their preliminary “impact” reports indicate that there was a strong coordinated effort by Metro to ensure that the people served in temporary housing were quickly moved to permanent supportive housing or how many providers actually followed people as they moved from temporary into permanent supportive housing.
My questions that will help evaluate the effectiveness of temporary housing include: How long did people remain in temporary housing? How many people who entered temporary housing were ever able to access permanent housing? How much was spent on security and securing properties compared to intensive wraparound support services? What was the caseload for each worker?
D) RS2022-1699: $7 million divided up between OHS and nonprofits.
The resolution called for $4 million in innovative projects given to eight to 10 nonprofits. In the end, five nonprofits received funding for prevention, temporary housing, community education and training, permanent supportive housing, and street medicine and hospital discharge programming.
The remaining $3 million managed by OHS was intended to be used for staff including a supervisor and 3-4 housing navigators. In the Metro budget process, Metro moved 15 full-time positions from ARPA funding to Metro general funding under OHS. The OHS director claims that they have the largest outreach team in the city, but that this team does not really have a caseload or provide direct services. So what were these 15 people actually doing? According to the director, they entered people living on the streets into the database. Data entry alone usually does not help people.
OHS did provide monthly reports to Metro Council about the incentive program as outlined below:
On June 16, 2026, OHS alerted all partner agencies that these incentives would no longer be available due to the expiration of the ARPA funds. When I asked OHS about the Low Barrier Housing Collective (LBHC) moving forward, I received the following response, “OHS recently filled a position for the program director who is in the early stages of strategic planning for LBHC and restructuring.”
Considering that OHS knew that ARPA funds would expire and considering that OHS has received huge increases in Metro funding in the past few years, I wonder why OHS did not proactively plan for ARPA funding to sunset. Last year’s OHS general fund budget was $11.6 million (currently it is $17.2 million) and staffing was sufficient to take a more proactive approach.
My questions for the final report are: How were the $4 million in innovation grants used to supplement existing programs and fill gaps in the homelessness system? What is the sustainability plan for the $7 million moving forward? How many landlords that received incentives are actually still housing people that were placed in those units?
Other ARPA Funding
In their community report published in June, OHS listed about $52 million in total ARPA investments. What were the additional $2 million intended for? When were they received? Were any ARPA funds used to run Metro’s permanent supportive housing structure called Strobel House that operates 90 units? What happened to the initial $1.5 million in ARPA allocations that Metro designated for various homelessness projects in response to COVID through RS2021-1207, including a four-member outreach team, to pay for cold weather emergency sheltering, to expand a SOAR (SSI Outreach, Access and Recovery) program managed by Park Center, to pay for sanitation stations (port a potties and handwashing stations for people living outdoors during COVID), and a landlord risk mitigation fund?
There is no doubt that the millions in ARPA funding invested have helped a lot of people. However, Metro and OHS have shown little interest in full transparency, which is necessary for systems improvement. Their data is output-oriented, contains glaring mistakes, and is overall not useful for productive conversations to understand homelessness outcomes in Nashville.
Rather, this city has focused so much on the messaging to pat themselves on the back that we seem to have forgotten the people we claim to serve. Accountability and oversight are clearly lacking. And the evident increase in overall homelessness is flippantly explained away without clear analysis of why we have seen at minimum a 20-percent increase in homelessness since 2022. Remember, 2022 is the year the millions of investments started, not only in ARPA funding but also in Metro dollars.
We can do better and I hope OHS leaders come around and produce a solid ARPA report by the end of the year coupled with a clear outline of how they intend to spend their overall $18.5-million Metro budget ($17.5 in general funds, the rest in designated special program funds). A proactive approach would help the community have solid analytical discussions, move forward with targeted investments and turn the tide around.
Judith Tackett is a longtime homelessness expert and advocate for housing-focused, person-centered solutions. Opinions in this column are her own.