The Contributor looks at the events and policy shifts that shaped the year
In 2025, the city experienced a busy and chaotic year addressing homelessness, with a cascade of events, policy shifts and program expansions shaping the landscape in Nashville and nationally. This year, the release of the Point-in-Time Count in June revealed rising numbers of unsheltered residents. Strobel House celebrated its one-year milestone as a permanent supportive housing apartment complex. Legal battles over federal funding, repeated encampment clearings — including a high-profile sweep on July 4 just in time for the fireworks show and the closure of a longstanding encampment — and the continued closure of the downtown library disrupted lives and highlighted persistent gaps in services. At the same time, new programs like the Unseen Nashville walking tours and increased Metro funding created pathways for support, engagement and housing. The combination of displacement, advocacy and systemic intervention made 2025 a year of dense, transformative activity in Nashville’s homelessness crisis. While this list is nowhere near exhaustive, here are some of the things that shaped the homelessness sector in the past year:
Impact of Closing Old Tent City
Nashville closed Old Tent City, the city’s largest and longest-standing encampment, located off Anthes Drive near the Cumberland River. For more than 40 years, the site had served as a self-organized community for people experiencing homelessness, providing not just shelter, but informal governance at times, shared resources and mutual support. Its closure marked the end of a space that had offered some stability, safety, and social connection for generations of residents, despite conditions at times also not being great in the space. Residents received 60-day eviction notices in March. Some were placed into transitional motels or permanent housing, while others temporarily stayed with family or friends. Despite these efforts, many lost not only their homes but also the community networks that had been central to their survival. The dismantling highlighted the trauma caused by repeated displacement and raised questions about whether temporary placements truly meet the needs of those affected. The closure underscored a broader pattern in Nashville’s homelessness strategy: clearing encampments without sufficient permanent housing to absorb displaced residents. Many who were relocated faced ongoing instability, often forced to find shelter in unsafe or hidden spaces. The event also drew attention to structural challenges such as insufficient affordable housing, limited shelter capacity, and inadequate support services. Beyond logistics, the closure carried symbolic weight to so many in the community. It erased a visible community, displacing not just bodies but histories, relationships and agency. Advocates argue that the event should prompt a shift toward housing-first policies, emphasizing permanent supportive housing, long-term stability and meaningful involvement of people with lived experience in policy decisions.
Audit of the Office of Homeless Services
Metro’s Office of Homeless Services underwent a partial audit that uncovered operational issues within the department. The partial audit identified gaps in financial controls and recordkeeping.
The full audit expanded these findings, revealing broader structural weaknesses in oversight, contract management and program tracking. The results of the audit are not complete and still pending.
Closure of the Downtown Nashville Public Library After Parking Garage Fire
The downtown Nashville Public Library — one of the most essential daytime refuge spaces for people experiencing homelessness — closed temporarily after a fire in the connected parking garage forced the building to shut down. The closure immediately disrupted daily survival routines for many unhoused individuals who rely on the library for bathrooms, computer access, charging stations, safe indoor rest, and protection from extreme weather. With few alternative daytime options downtown, the shutdown created significant strain on people living on the streets. As the year closed, the library remained shut heading into the new year, leaving a major gap in the city’s already limited daytime services.
NPL regularly parnters with OHS, and continued to do so in light of the closure downtown. In December, OHS representatives hosted 24 open-office-hours sessions at five different branch locations, including North (1.4 miles from Main) and Hadley Park (three miles from Main), and have offered 75 sessions to help meet needs since October, according to NPL’s public information officer Joan Brasher. In addition to these sessions at other locations, all NPL staff at all locations are trained to assist community members and connect visitors to supportive services.
Housing Instability
Multiple individuals who had been placed into housing programs earlier in the year lost those placements after struggling to maintain stability. The incidents pointed to vulnerabilities within Nashville’s housing retention system, including inconsistent follow-up services, landlord complications and insufficient case management support.
Point-in-Time Count Results Released
The annual Point-in-Time Count — conducted each January — showed shifts in Nashville’s homelessness numbers when the full results were released in June pointing to an increase in unsheltered homelessness in Nashville. The data provides a snapshot of how many people were living unsheltered or in emergency shelters and highlighted several areas of growth, especially among those living outdoors or experiencing chronic homelessness.
Legal Challenges Over Federal Homelessness Funding
A major conflict emerged around the federal homelessness funding process (NOFO), resulting in a lawsuit alleging that local organizations were unfairly evaluated during the competition for federal dollars. The dispute created uncertainty for several Nashville programs dependent on those funds and intensified scrutiny of how federal resources are allocated to local agencies. Read more on Page 8.
Strobel House One-Year Milestone
Strobel House, the permanent supportive housing apartment complex, reached its one-year anniversary. The program’s first full year of operation showed many successes around providing the type of support that comes with literal in-house support, but also faced challenges related to staffing, capacity and management.
Homelessness Symposium in June
Nashville hosted its first Homelessness Symposium that gathered service providers, researchers, national housing experts and individuals with lived experience. The event examined system-wide challenges, including outreach shortages, retention services and the city’s growing unsheltered population, and offered evidence-based strategies for improving coordination across agencies. It was one of the year’s largest forums for collaborative policy planning.
Dispute Within the Homelessness Planning Council
A conflict arose inside the Homelessness Planning Council related to payments and financial decision-making, centered in part around concerns raised by a member with lived experience Kennetha Patterson. The dispute escalated into broader questions about governance, transparency, and internal accountability within Nashville’s homelessness leadership structures.
July 4 Encampment Clearing
One of the most controversial closures outside of the Old Tent City closures happened ahead of the July 4 weekend. A longstanding encampment was cleared to make way for the fireworks celebration. The clearing displaced residents with limited or no advance notice and resulted in the loss of personal belongings, including essential items like identification documents and medications. The timing and abruptness of the sweep seemed to happen with very little transparency ahead of time.
Unseen Nashville Tours and Unzine Nashville at The Contributor
The Unseen Nashville program expanded its walking tours, providing new paid opportunities for individuals who had experienced homelessness. Participants were trained to lead tours that highlight downtown history through the lens of survival, resilience and lived experience, offering another sustainable income opportunity and community engagement. Unzine Nashville also launched, publishing more than 40 issues in collaboration with vendors and community members and organizing collaborative workshops where people experiencing homelessness could write, create visual art and share personal stories. It became a growing creative outlet and community-building project across the year.
Efforts to Reduce Visibility of Homelessness Downtown
Several public-space management efforts — particularly in high-traffic areas downtown — seemed to be implemented to reduce visible homelessness. These included targeted cleanups, removal or redesign of benches and increased police presence downtown. The changes affected areas around major tourist corridors and pushed unsheltered individuals further from central public spaces. Benches for seating in spaces near Korean Veterans Bridge and Music City Center and surrounding were removed, making it difficult for folks to rest in those areas and be seen by others. Community members stepped in all over Nashville building and installing benches, all volunteers hoping to ease hardship for daily riders.
JourneyPass Transit Access Program
Nashville continued operating the JourneyPass program with WeGo Transit, providing transit access for people experiencing homelessness to attend appointments, job interviews, service programs and essential errands. The program is slated to increase to more service providers in 2026 with enrollment processes and usage guidelines evolved over the year. Transit remains a critical piece of service navigation in the city and will be served better by the most robust services possible for low-income riders.
Increased Metro Budget for Homelessness
During the fiscal year’s budget process, Metro allocated an additional $5 million to homelessness initiatives. This raises the total funding for the Office of Homeless Services to approximately $11 million, the largest budget aimed at homelessness and housing in the city’s history.
Growth and Milestones at Daybreak Arts
Daybreak Arts expanded its creative and workforce development programs for artists with lived experience of homelessness or housing insecurity. The organization facilitated new exhibitions, increased artist stipends, and broadened access to income opportunities rooted in the arts. It also celebrated an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, which highlighted the organization and its artists.
The Contributor asked the Office of Homeless Services to offer some wins and challenges from 2025. The following are some of the things OHS wanted to highlight for the year:
- As community, we moved over 1,800 individuals into permanent housing.
- Metro Council added $2 million to the annual budget dedicated to Strobel House to continue housing and supportive services.
- Metro Council added an additional $2.4 million for Rapid Response Funding to provide short-term rental assistance and shorten the length of time that households experience homelessness but create a pathway for long-term stability.
- Hosted the city’s first State of Homelessness Symposium where over 300 registered to gain insights from Nashville’s homelessness data and national speakers.
- Engaged in network expansion opportunities to partner with Nashville Fit Magazine and local churches to host a community-wide resource fair Rise Up. The event was designed to engage the philanthropic community and the faith-based community to increase an awareness of the work being done in the city and opportunities for them to support the work. The next Rise Up event will occur in February of 2026.
This story has been updated to add information about resources being provided at various Nashville Public Library locations in light of the temporary closure at the downtown location.