HopeFest is the next large homeless service event, which is held Oct. 9, 2023, at War Memorial Plaza. The exact location of War Memorial Plaza is between Union Street, 6th Avenue North, and Martin Luther King Blvd.
HopeFest is a one day event to bring tangible short-term and long-term resources for people experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness. The goal is to bring together nonprofit service providers, businesses, government agencies, the faith community and other organizations and meet people where they are, which in this case is on Nashville’s streets.
Every Monday night, People Loving Nashville, a local nonprofit organization serving people living outdoors, holds a street outreach event at the Memorial Plaza. HopeFest expands those services that are being offered weekly and brings community agencies and businesses together to meet people in need where they are. Simply put, HopeFest will tag onto an existing outreach event by expanding hours and services.
Events like HopeFest are not new, but they are eye-opening and help foster collaboration between nonprofits, business, and faith communities and nurture cross-sector collaboration. When different organizations serve people together, it leads to networking that allows providers to identify and fill gaps.
The main goal of events like HopeFest is to reach out to people where they are by bringing together an array of different providers and set up “entry doors” to services in one location. The hope is to engage people long-term and support them on their path to housing and ongoing assistance that focuses on their health, mental health, legal issues, employment, etc.
HopeFest will educate not only people experiencing a housing crisis about available services but also service providers who may not be familiar in detail about what other organizations offer. Events like Hope Fest help build community. Volunteers I have spoken with in the past who participated in similar service events felt they learnt a lot about homelessness and the available services.
Nashville has worked hard over the past decade to build a coordinated system of services, implemented a usable data tool for providers to coordinate and deliver services more efficiently, and bring more landlords to the table. While our systems-building efforts are and must be focused on housing, a true Housing First approach does not focus on housing only (which often is a huge misunderstanding, even among service providers). Housing First means that permanent housing is the foundation upon which services can effectively be delivered.
Under a Housing First philosophy, the path to permanent housing is as quick as possible combined with health care, mental health support, substance use treatment, case management, employment and any other supports people need to sustain their housing and reach their goals. While services are not mandated, they are offered, and case managers check in regularly on people to continue engaging with them and building those relationships needed to help people maintain housing, health, and community.
Service events like HopeFest help foster trust and strengthen relationship building between the providers and the people in need. People who are extremely vulnerable are successful in housing if they trust that their service providers do not disappear but stick with them to help them navigate potential barriers they encounter along their way to meet their own goals.
Let’s dive a little bit into the past and talk about the history of service events in Nashville. In 2008, Nashville organized its first Project Homeless Connect, which became an annual event that brought together dozens of service providers, hundreds of volunteers and hundreds of people experiencing homelessness or a housing crisis participated to receive medical care, legal services, shoes, food, foot care and many more services in one day in one location.
Project Homeless Connect originated in San Francisco in 2004 by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom (now the governor of California) and their Department of Public Health. In San Francisco, it grew into its own nonprofit and meanwhile offers Community Day of Service events and in-house weekly services.
One-day service events try to focus on each participant’s needs. People can learn about available services in one location that otherwise may have taken months for them to figure out.
Nashville stopped organizing Project Homeless Connect in 2014 for multiple reasons. For one, it became hugely expensive in terms of organization time and resources. Secondly, smaller service events started popping up with specific focus areas. And finally, at the last Project Homeless Connect event, the majority of participants were service providers and volunteers while the participation of people experiencing homelessness had shrunk by a few hundred people.
Finally, services became more mobile with medical mobile clinics of Neighborhood Health, Shower the People and Shower Up going out to meet people where they are, laundry services and legal clinics at different nonprofits being held regularly.
There is still a huge benefit of one-day service events, and personally I would like to see them offered on a quarterly basis, at the smaller scale that HopeFest will present, in different geographic locations where people are living with specific themes based on the input of the people living in those areas. For example, a medical event at a community center with eye care, HIV tests, flu & COVID vaccines and other health check-ups. Or a dental event at a local high school where people may need to sign up through nonprofits ahead of time and get appointments for services.
That’s why I am excited about HopeFest. First of all, similar to a past event held at Room In The Inn prior to the COVID pandemic, this event takes advantage of an already existing weekly service gathering and expands upon it. It is manageable and replicable.
Secondly, HopeFest ensures that people who are new to Nashville or have not fully engaged with a service provider have the opportunity to do so right there and then. It will offer community assessments to get people started right on the spot on their path to housing and support services. And those people who may have given up on themselves and the system will see what happens when the community comes together — we create an energy of hope!