The Office of Homeless Services (OHS) recently revealed to the Metro Council in a public meeting that they have been keeping 70-80 gap housing units open because a specific facility, currently run by The Salvation Army, is set aside for encampment closures.
After telling members of the Metro Council Public Health Committee in an Oct. 15 meeting that only 30 of the 110 gap housing units were currently filled, OHS leadership explained that “the beds at [the motel used for gap housing] are really for encampment closures and an encampment closure has not happened.”
To say that this revelation has upset me is a huge understatement. I admit that I am not completely surprised by this though. As I have mentioned in this column before, in my opinion, the city is implementing an Encampment Closure Plan rather than a Housing Plan. While OHS likes to refer to encampment closures as “housing surges,” I have a problem with that when the city intentionally keeps beds open for weeks or months at a time, so that OHS can implement a publicity event every time they close an encampment and call it a “housing surge.”
After sharing that available beds were not filled, OHS executive director, April Calvin, jumped into the conversation at the Metro Council committee meeting on Oct. 15 and said that the open beds were not being paid for. In my opinion, when looking at the original gap housing contract with The Salvation Army, nearly half of the dollars (more than $2 million) was dedicated for security costs, which Metro would likely pay regardless of how many units are filled.
Calvin also said that a Continuum of Care Shelter Committee asked OHS to put a pause on the encampment strategy. OHS repeated a similar statement two days later at a Continuum of Care General Membership meeting when an OHS leader this time made an encampment prioritization subcommittee responsible for encampment closures. Calvin, in the Metro Council Committee, added that The Salvation Army leadership also asked for a pause on entering more people to their Gap Housing program due to staff turnover.
I have two issues with these statements. If these beds were kept open for encampment closures, as OHS has said, have temporary beds intentionally been kept open for prior encampment closures? And has the fact that The Salvation Army was unable to fulfill a Metro contract due to internal staff turnover led to any conversations about how to implement an interim plan to still utilize these open beds as quickly as possible in order to move people indoors? This should be expected from a Housing First city.
Another problem is that OHS seems to indicate that nonprofit organizations essentially have any authority over how Metro contracts are implemented (beds kept open) and when encampments on Metro property are closed. While I appreciate and promote the city’s openness for input from partner agencies in the timing and processes of such encampment closures, which helps promote a coordinated effort, the fact remains that ultimately nonprofits do not have authority over Metro funding or Metro property.
The term gap housing is synonymously used with interim or temporary housing. It includes emergency shelter and transitional housing — any programs where a person has no signed lease and will eventually have to leave. Gap housing can be used to speed up the permanent housing process and offer an alternative to existing shelter programs to help people move indoors quickly. They can play a crucial role in a Housing First-oriented system.
But by intentionally keeping beds open for weeks or months prior to closing an encampment, the city is not following best practices of a Housing First approach.
I believe most of us agree that encampments are generally neither healthy nor safe places, and the goal is to move people to housing as quickly as possible. There’s a history and concept of gap/temporary/interim housing in Nashville and how this fits into a Housing First approach. My insights here come from the period I served as the former director of the Homeless Impact Division, and secondly, from the help I provided to a Mayor’s Office consultant to rewrite her initial draft of Metro’s resolution that allocated $9 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) dollars to the current gap/temporary/interim housing concept, even after leaving that position. I am currently not proud of having done so, even though the original intention of the concept as written is not what I see implemented today.
Temporary housing is not intended to be a requirement on the path to housing. On that note, it would be interesting to see how many people under Metro’s Encampment Closure Plan moved directly to permanent housing without having to access temporary housing first (notice my play on words as Housing First is actually not called Temporary Housing First).
In October 2022, Metro Council approved $50 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to address homelessness over a period of about three years. Of those allocations, $25 million was set aside to fund new housing units for people experiencing homelessness. The remaining $25 million was allocated for support programs to help move people off the streets and out of shelters quickly.
When we look at the $25 million in services, Metro Council approved three resolutions that were divided as follows:
- $9 million: over 3 years for low-barrier “Gap Housing” — temporary housing for individuals and families waiting for housing units and/or permanent housing subsidies.
- $9 million: over 3 years for Housing First supportive services, such as programs such as ACT, ICM, and SOAR, which help people stay in housing.
- $3 million: over 3 years to build capacity of the Low Barrier Housing Collective (housing incentives, landlord engagement, housing navigators) to increase landlord participation and retention.
- $4 million, competitive grant funds to local nonprofits, such as high fidelity coordinated Housing First programs to be accessed through coordinated entry.
The “Gap Housing” contracts, which Metro Council approved in October 2022, were divided without a request for proposal process to the following two organizations through sole source contracts:
- Community Care Fellowship to expand its Mobile Housing Navigation Centers ($4.57 million); and
- The Salvation Army to “utilize a motel to run temporary, single-room housing units” ($4.44 million).
In an Encampment Closure Plan people are often only given one or two viable options to move to a shelter (or gap housing unit). In essence, an entire encampment may be moved indoors. That’s why I promoted reducing encampment populations gradually by filling temporary and permanent housing units as soon as they become available rather than keeping them unoccupied to announce a well-timed “housing surge.” Yes, politically, it is more attractive and satisfying to close an encampment in one swoop, but on the ground, such an approach may actually do more harm to people who could have already been indoors for weeks or months.
The former motel that The Salvation Army utilized was first identified by Metro as an early response to the COVID pandemic. Initial federal allocations to Nashville included $10 million in Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) to implement a Rapid Re-Housing surge. We set a goal locally to house 400 people in 2021 and serve them for up to two years. In actuality, we surpassed that goal and moved 600-plus people to housing in 2021 — 110 people were given a one-year, renewable lease in the same former motel that Metro utilized for its Gap Housing contract entered with The Salvation Army in 2022.
That 2022 scope of contract did not specify the location of that Gap Housing. Rather, it states, “Utilize a motel to run temporary, single-room housing units.” The contract further says that “the budget includes an initial increase in security, a fence, and revamping the existing model to meet Salvation Army case management standards.” In addition, that Gap Housing contract with The Salvation Army outlines that only Davidson County residents can be served. Nowhere does it say that the Gap Housing is to be used only for encampment closures.
What I have not even touched on yet is the fact that The Salvation Army in June 2024 received another $2.5 million in Metro funding, which means they received nearly $6.9 million of the $22 million in ARPA dollars that were allocated to nonprofit providers. OHS announced on Oct. 29, 2024, via press release that “The Salvation Army has requested to withdraw from the Metro Capacity Building Grant set to begin November 1, 2024.” According to a recent public dispute, OHS told Metro councilmembers that they understood the $2.5 million was provided to continue the Gap Housing Program, while The Salvation Army responded in an interview on Channel 4 that “what was being communicated just isn’t accurate” and explained that the capacity grant allowed for more flexibility allowing for increased outreach for all homeless persons. In June, when I first saw these contracts, I reached out to the Metro Council to pull them off the consent agenda to ask more questions about the scope of work. That happened, but it seems OHS did not take the opportunity prior to the contracts’ approval to further scrutinize and clarify what the $2.5 million was actually for. As a side note, in the written statement OHS said 40 people remain in the gap housing while in the prior Metro Council Committee, they said it was 30 people who still lived in the 110-unit former motel.
Anyone paying attention to these public conversations knows that a large encampment located in District 19 which is commonly known as Old Tent City is slated for closure. OHS refuses to publicly say so, and has said they do not announce encampment closures before having a chance to talk to residents. I commend them on that. However, Metro Parks has for years announced the development of a new park at that location south of Downtown, and OHS has had months to reach out to the residents in that encampment.
It is impossible to get a specific number of how many people currently reside in Old Tent City (people are moving in and out constantly), but estimates I have heard range from 120-150 people. So, in theory, if we had just moved people to temporary beds as they became available and OHS had worked through any impasses the contractor may have had during that time, that encampment could already be reduced by half. In practice, OHS had sufficient time to set up daily street outreach efforts with their internal outreach team to get to know each person and their needs in that encampment, establish strong relationships, coordinate with other nonprofits, be fully transparent with encampment residents, and stop the current political shenanigans that focus on blaming nonprofits and calling encampment closures a “housing surge.”
City leaders better start paying attention right now to how Metro continues to oversee its $50 million in one-time investments, which is in addition to the $6 million Metro funds that OHS receives annually (that annual budget is more than triple what we had in 2021 when I left Metro).
OHS leaders represent the Mayor as April Calvin directly reports to his office. I believe I know Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s heart because I worked closely with him to build the foundation needed to implement and improve a functioning Housing Crisis Resolution System.
Did we have the best possible Housing Crisis Resolution System in place in 2021? No. But since then the city has had an opportunity to build on that foundation we left, especially with the recent millions of dollars it invested into homelessness. We may have the ability now to count more people as they move to housing. But the real question is, are we housing as many people as we could with the current political and bureaucratic mess that surrounds homelessness at present? I argue that we can do better and have the opportunity to actually implement a Housing First strategy. But to do so, we need strong and trusted leadership.