At the beginning of the June State Homelessness Symposium in Nashville, the public information officer for the Office of Homeless Services kicked the meeting off by saying it had been a “very big week” and a “big win for people living outside.” Just a couple days before, the city closed the encampment at Anthes Drive, long known as Old Tent City.
Demetris Chaney Perkins went on to say at the symposium that the city had housed 107 people during the closure with the help of community partners. At the time of closure, 86 of those folks were said to have moved into Rodeway Inn, a transitional housing option, while 16 found permanent housing and two moved in with family or friends.
“We are very fortunate for many of you in this room who helped to house 107 people,” Perkins said.
A week after the symposium, advocates with Open Table Nashville weren’t feeling like the closure was as much of a grand success. They, and other service providers, have spent years doing outreach at Old Tent City. Some of their first experiences advocating for unhoused people predated Open Table as a nonprofit and began when the city was trying to close the encampment in 2008. Since the encampment was slated for clearing earlier this spring, Open Table was among those hustling to find places for people as their eviction dates loomed.
“Closing an encampment is not a success story unless we also address the underlying issues that fuel homelessness like the affordable housing crisis in our city,” reads an release from Open Table Nashville. “When the shelters are full, Section 8 vouchers are halted, and the housing waiting lists are long, we echo the concern we’ve heard on the streets again and again: ‘Where can we go? Where can we safely exist until we get housing?’”
The closure of Old Tent City that moved the majority of the encampment’s residents into Rodeway Inn may show progress, but to many it is a short-term solution. More than 100 people moving from unsheltered homelessness to sheltered transitional housing or permanent housing is no small endeavor, but real solutions would require less short-term triage.
Years of temporary fixes, not all recent, have led to the neglect that keeps Nashvillians going back to encampments as a solution for shelter — the challenge will be sustaining the effort beyond this crisis response and measuring not just how quickly and efficiently an encampment is cleared, but whether every option offered was stable and dignified.
