Recently, I met Denny. He is 70 years old and lives outdoors in a local park, by himself — without a tent — and I’ve been terribly concerned about him. We just have gone through the second extreme cold spell of 2025. Denny has extremely bad eyesight. He told me that about two years ago, his eyes started to fail him, and his number one concern right now is to finally get to see a doctor about it.
I was sitting right next to him on a bench, and he said he was unable to recognize my features. When his case manager from People Loving Nashville showed up, he called out to her so she could identify herself by voice.
Denny told me that people have been checking up on him. People want to help. He’s also been offered a ride to Metro’s Cold Weather shelter, rather aggressively, as he described it to me, which made me laugh as Denny has a sense of humor. But Denny explained to me that he prefers staying outside. He feels safer in his spot, especially with his bad eyesight. Once he explained all the different reasons, it made sense.
The reason I found Denny is because I intentionally reached out to several nonprofits to help connect me with people who are willing to tell me their story and allow me to check in over the course of the next nine months. Their stories will be recorded, and portions of those conversations will be used for the second season of In My Place, a nine-part radio show/podcast about homelessness. In My Place airs live on This Is Nashville, and you can catch it most likely on the last Tuesday of each month on WPLN 90.3 FM.
I’ve had the honor of creating and co-producing this radio/podcast series with Tasha A.F. Lemley, managing editor of This Is Nashville and one of the founders and the first executive director of The Contributor. The vision of the series is to educate listeners about the different aspects of homelessness and learn from experts, including people with lived experience, about what we can do to help.
For this second season, we want to dig deeper into how people are linked to services. What are their experiences on their path to housing? What are their obstacles, and how do they overcome them? What are their goals and needs, and how do they feel about their situation when we check in with them?
I have now met several people in the places they live. Some asked to use a different name for safety reasons that they explained to us. But they all look forward to telling their story in the hopes to help listeners understand homelessness better and learn how they can help.
It feels different when people tell you their story rather than hearing it told through other folks like nonprofit providers or me (in this column). It also feels different when you can hear the emotion in people’s voices. When you listen and can see the tears rolling slowly down the face of a nearly blind person as he shares with me how he lost his son in an accident and fell into such a deep depression that rendered him unable to work. He lost everything and eventually ended up on the streets.
Another person, Danielle, needs 24/7 care due to her disability. That’s also the reason why she cannot access a shelter since most emergency shelters require people to be able to take care of their own hygiene. That is understandable, when you think about it. Shelters are not equipped and do not have the staff on hand to help people shower or brush their teeth, for example. Besides their personal stories, we hope In My Place will allow us to show people’s talents, strengths and resilience — similar to what you can find in the writing of The Contributor vendors on these pages.
While In My Place always had a strong focus on including people who were or still are experiencing homelessness, in our second season, we aim to elevate their voices. We will attempt to go into the field and talk to them about their journey. Some folks, we hope, will allow us to check in every few weeks throughout the duration of the next nine months. Others may decide that after a while they don’t want to talk to us anymore. Some may leave you wanting for more, while others may upset you with their opinions. All of that is what we hope to share.
As we enter an unstable future for most of us, it behooves us to pay attention to what is happening to some of the most vulnerable among us.
We are in a world right now where political campaign money seems to flow endlessly. Yet, we are clearly unable to help people off the streets as quickly as they lose their housing. We have the most billionaires we’ve ever had globally — and they now rule countries and make arbitrary laws that threaten to cut off funding for marginalized populations such as people experiencing homelessness.
The first big shock wave came with a memorandum issued by the Trump Administration on Jan. 27, 2025, which directed all federal agencies to pause the disbursement of federal financial grants to organizations. The effective date was the following day, Jan. 28, at 5 p.m. A judicial order put a temporary block on the directive, which had created confusion and chaos for nonprofit and government agencies across the nation. Eventually, the Trump Administration backed off, but some federal funds were unavailable for days — and according to news reports some monies are still not accessible.
In a Feb.-14 email, Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, gave an update of the impact the measures of the Trump administration have had on homelessness so far. Here is a brief summary of those impacts:
- In January, HUD announced nearly $3.6 billion in Continuum of Care (CoC) program awards across the country. But, Oliva said, so far, no steps have been taken to distribute the funds. A majority of these funds are needed to continue services to people experiencing homelessness.
- A new federal budget proposal issued by House Republicans “relies upon $1.5 trillion in spending cuts,” Oliva wrote. “It is believed that Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will be targeted for deep cuts.” This would deeply impact access to health care and housing stability.
- Oliva further noted that the Equal Access Rule is at risk. The Equal Access Rule prohibits agencies from asking about sexual orientation or gender identity to determine housing eligibility, and it requires that federally funded programs including shelters and other facilities allow people to be served in accordance with their gender identity.
- HUD also intends to revoke the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which is a tool that requires local communities to identify barriers to the Fair Housing Act and set goals to address those barriers. Protected groups under the Fair Housing Act are those who experience discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex or disability.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition wrote shortly after the inauguration, “President Trump came into office at a time when more renters than ever before, particularly those with the lowest incomes, are struggling with high housing costs.
“More than 10 million households with the lowest incomes are severely cost-burdened, paying more than half their limited income on rent. Despite the urgent need, three in four households eligible for housing assistance are unable to access assistance because of Congress’s failure to adequately fund vital affordable housing programs. Without affordable housing options, these families are always one financial shock away from facing evictions and in the worst cases homelessness.”
The Contributor has and continues to report on increased criminalization of homelessness. In 2024, the nation saw the highest number of homeless people ever — 770,000 — during a one-night count of people staying in emergency homeless shelters or outdoors. The count also found that families are the fastest growing population affected by homelessness.
In case you wonder how all of this is linked to our reporting for In My Place, I believe it is imperative that we learn to truly listen to the people who are affected by homelessness directly. The Contributor is already doing a tremendous job. Read the articles written by the vendors!
But we have more to do. We need to elevate people’s voices whenever we can, so that the general public starts to understand that when we have people living on the streets in the United States of America, something has gone terribly wrong. And through these stories, they will learn that it is not personal failures that are the root cause of homelessness in America. Rather, it is widespread systems failures that could be corrected through long-term planning, policies, and government support.
I hope by listening to people’s stories, we learn from their experiences, and we see opportunities to improve some things despite what is going on politically.
When I spoke to Denny, he said there were a lot of people who came up and tried to help him out. They are good people. They want to help their neighbors. But oftentimes, they give him stuff he cannot use or currently doesn’t need. He described a guy to me who was super nice and brought him a shirt and pants. But those were clothes that a businessperson would use to go from the car to a store. They were not warm enough to sustain Denny in the cold of winter.
I asked him, “Has anyone ever come to you and ask you first what you need before they bring you stuff?”
“Once,” he replied, pointing to a blanket he said was exactly what he needed in size and warmth.