Features

Q&A with Rico X

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Rico X has worked with young people throughout his career and recently was named the chief mission delivery officer of the Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee.

Features

Remembering Old Tent City

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If you were to drive one mile south of downtown and hang a left on Anthes Drive which snakes down to the Cumberland River, you would find over 20 acres of land that are now fenced off and flanked with barbed wire and “no trespassing” signs. Over the past 40 years, thousands of unhoused Nashvillians have called this land home. Before it was closed by city officials in June of 2025, the area was endearingly, and somewhat notoriously, known as Old Tent City. On my first visit to the camp in September of 2008, thick morning fog held around trees, emanating from the riverbank. I walked the well-worn footpath with other outreach workers past the Music City Star tracks along an old chain-link fence.

Features

Learn More about the Internal Audit of OHS

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The Metro Audit Committee decided in September to conduct a financial audit of the Office of Homeless Services (OHS). An overflow room was set up to accommodate all the people that were interested in this meeting, including those called in to testify during the public hearing, which was limited to eight people, each allowed to speak for two minutes. The audit request was submitted by Councilmember Ginny Welsch. The following is a summary of her justification for an audit (copied and pasted from her letter to the Audit Committee):

“Since the creation of the office, serious questions have been raised regarding the leadership of OHS Director April Calvin, and numerous documented examples of mismanagement have been brought forth, including but not limited to:

Financial mismanagement and/or potential fraud related to expenditures of both federal ARP and Metro funds as well as contract compliance;

Lack of oversight of Metro facilities, including Strobel House, resulting in harm to residents and staff opening Metro to liability;

Staffing and hiring mismanagement;

Overall mismanagement resulted in the failure to improve housing outcomes despite a massive influx of federal and Metro dollars, and failure to deliver on its chartered obligations to coordinate Nashville’s homelessness response through shelter management, outreach, planning council support, and maintaining an inventory of third-party service providers.”

More specifically, Welsch claims that local journalists and advocates have reported $3.2 million in suspected financial irregularities including:

$569,000 in improper invoicing to Depaul USA, which is the contractor that runs Strobel House together with OHS;

$565,000 in improper use from Metro’s Landlord Engagement funds;

$130,000 in charges on a single department credit card;

$2 million of temporary federal funds used for permanent positions, which Welsch states would create “a future ‘funding cliff’ that will require an injection of Metro general budget funds.”

Welsch’s letter also points to other finance questions, some of them I would consider administrative moves that may create more transparency once corrected. Other claims include:

Unsustainable staffing structures, including when running Metro’s cold weather shelter, and circumvention of the Metro HR hiring policies;

Lack of transparency surrounding safety incidents at Strobel House; and

“Operational collapse despite massive funding increases,” in which Welsch points to

The lack of housing placement increases despite an increase in millions of dollars in investments.

Features

Q&A with Nathan Harmening

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In the past decade, people working in the nonprofit sector have increasingly become interested in the creation of housing units to serve vulnerable populations. One local leader who has made the shift from social work to housing development and property management is Nathan Harmening. Since April of this year, Harmening has served as the vice president of operations for AGB Real Estate, the development company that has opened 250 permanent supportive housing units in two complexes called Wallace Studios and Greenview Apartments. Prior to joining AGB Real Estate, Harmening was the executive director of I Am Next, an organization you may have read about in our July-16 issue when Contributor vendor Norma B. featured their work with young people aging out of foster care. At AGB Real Estate, Harmening tackles a dual role of overseeing the property management operations for the company as well as scaling the supportive housing portfolio.

Features

Bill Carey: What Nashville Chooses to Remember about the KKK’s Presence

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There’s a hill south of downtown Nashville that is home to Carter-Lawrence Elementary School and several sports fields, one of which is Belmont University’s home baseball stadium. On a Friday a couple years ago, I took my dog to the top of it and saw joggers, people playing softball and students taking part in their annual field day. It was a wonderful place to be. However, more than 100 years ago, the Ku Klux Klan held its most widely viewed meeting ever in Middle Tennessee there. On the night of June 1, 1923, residents of Nashville were mesmerized by the sight of a huge cross lit by incandescent lights on the hill.