Listening is a fundamental key to effective street outreach. Let me explain.
“A local homeless man named Doy terrorized the parish with his demands. We replaced the storm door at the rectory several times after he kicked it in. His language was X-rated, and he stayed on the porch all day long demanding his just due. I was the object of a lot of his venom … everyone in the parish wanted to avoid him and – even worse – was afraid of him. Everyone, except Mary Hopwood. She always spoke quietly and respectfully to Doy. She was the only one who would listen to him, even though his mental state was irrational and rambling, and she was the only one he would listen to.
In time I realized that I didn’t really love Doy as Mrs. Hopwood did. I only wanted to change him. I was disrespecting him and so I got disrespected in return. Once I realized that he was not my problem to solve but my brother to love, the change was almost immediate. I changed and he changed, and we grew to know and love each other.” Excerpt from The Kingdom of the Poor: My Journey Home by Charles Strobel (Chapter 16, p. 76)
Two things happened the day I started working on this column. One, I began reading Charles Strobel’s book, The Kingdom of the Poor: My Journey Home, after attending the Tennessee Writers Stories series at the State Museum. And two, on my way home from that event, I listened to a podcast called A Formerly Homeless Person’s Guide for Journalists produced by Mark Horvath, the founder of Invisible People.
Both the book and the podcast made me think about how we treat our unhoused neighbors, especially considering that in the past few weeks there has been a lot of stigmatization of the homeless population and of service providers in our community. I observed divisive language that has been used by some media outlets and in some public meetings. There are two main events going on regarding outdoor homelessness as of this writing: one is the dismantlement of six structures in a large encampment called Old Tent City, south of Downtown, and the other is the determination about whether Metro Parks is going to provide permits for street outreach.
In both cases there was a lot of misinformation flying around in every direction. In both cases the voices of people with lived experience, the people who are directly affected, were hardly heard. In both cases street outreach groups stepped in to try to represent the dignity of people living on the streets and in encampments. In both cases there is a sense of “them versus us” that reporters have been highlighting and, to some degree, stoking.
Talking and listening to each other builds the foundation of trust. We all understand this in our personal and professional lives when we are dealing with family, friends, coworkers, and peers. However, when it comes to how we speak to, listen to, and communicate with people experiencing homelessness, we seem to know what’s best for them without actually listening to them.
Let me zoom in on homeless street outreach. For one, it is not only in Nashville that politics and policies are largely focused on managing outdoor homelessness. In a recent blog posted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness about what prevents progress on unsheltered homelessness, the author Nicole DuBois writes: “As unsheltered homelessness has received more attention, it has increasingly been seen through a political lens by some elected officials … communities noted additional challenges related to politics and policy. Among the factors that complicated their work were:
- difficulty navigating changing political winds that can affect funding,
- jurisdictional tensions over responsibility and differing approaches to the issue, and
- the varied and substantial administrative requirements related to different funding sources.”
Street outreach plays a huge role in a functioning, housing-oriented system. And street outreach needs to be more than just handing out water and food. It is about relationship building and engaging best practices such as trauma-informed care, motivational interviewing, and assertive engagement. Street outreach takes time and outreach staff has a dual role in linking people to services and helping remove barriers to housing while also keeping them alive.
I have heard multiple times from outreach experts that they struggle to get a person to agree to work toward housing — and then, all of a sudden, that person said yes. I recall a formerly unhoused person once telling me that she kept saying no to this outreach worker because her hopes had been crushed so many times before. But eventually, she had enough trust to give housing one more try if that one outreach worker was walking alongside her. She was in housing when she recalled this story. And she added that in her mental state she could not have accessed housing without the assistance of her outreach worker. Once in housing, she was able to get the medication she needed, calm down, and move from a daily survival mode to planning her future.
The podcast I mentioned above features a conversation between Mark Horvath, the founder of Invisible People, and Shawn Pleasants, a Yale graduate who worked on Wall Street before becoming homeless. When you listen to the first 12 minutes, you will hear an explanation of why people living outdoors may seemingly be reluctant or even shy away from accepting assistance at first.
So how many people are sleeping outdoors in Nashville and what do we know about them?
The official government data based on a one-night count conducted in January every year is 725. This is the highest it’s been since we’ve improved our count methodology in Nashville. Whenever I mention that number to Contributor vendors, however, I get a lot of boos and corrections. The consensus is that this is a huge undercount, which research has shown is true. Regardless of accuracy, the fact remains that these 725 people were found sleeping outdoors in Nashville on the night of Jan. 26, 2024.
But counts alone do not tell us much about the population. Here are some characteristics of Nashville’s outdoor population based on the 2024 Point In Time Count.
The 725 people living outdoors represented 653 households. Two of those households include a total of 9 individuals in families with children.
When looking at the 716 adult-only individuals:
- 36 or 5 percent were considered youth (age 18-24) and 176 or 25 percent were aged 55 or older.
- 205 or 28.6 percent identified as women; 492 or 68.7 percent as men; and of the remaining people, two identified as transgender, five as non-binary, two as questioning, three as different identify, and seven as more than one gender.
- 199 or 27.8 percent identified as African American and 425 or 59.4 percent as white. For a full breakdown on race, see the chart.
- 425 or 60 percent experienced chronic homelessness.
- 58 or 8 percent were Veterans.
- In addition,
- 82 percent who were surveyed reported that their last permanent address was in Middle Tennessee.
- 51 percent were staying in encampments, 27 percent on the streets/sidewalks, and 6 percent in vehicles.
- 19 percent said they were having pets with them.
- 48 percent reported having a severe and persistent mental illness.
- 47 precent said they have a substance use disorder.
- 2 percent were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.
- 15 percent were adult survivors of Domestic Violence.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) organizes different geographic areas that are eligible for federal homelessness dollars. These areas are known as Continuums of Care (CoC). Each CoC is required to submit PIT Count data. Locally, the Office of Homeless Services serves as the CoC Lead agency that collects and submits that data to HUD.
Now that you know some of the data and characteristics, let’s return to the importance of engaging people and asking them what they need. Systems are built to improve efficiency in service delivery. However, sometimes, we may take it too far and focus on systems building so much that data overshadows the person who is before us. In my opinion, seasoned street outreach workers are the remedy to that when addressing outdoor homelessness.
Many street outreach workers are hired as entry level staff. Based on some of the characteristics I just showed, many people living outdoors have high acuity levels and deal with complex issues that lead to multiple barriers that prevent them from accessing housing on their own. If that’s the case, shouldn’t we have our best trained and most experienced staff on our street outreach teams? Burnout amongst street outreach workers is very high, which means we also need team leaders who understand how to support their peers in doing this work effectively and with a person-centered approach.
And, to sum up what I concluded after listening to Shawn in the podcast I keep citing, we need to learn to listen. For all the years Shawn had spent on the streets and for all the relationships he built with outreach workers, it was a former acquaintance from Yale who asked him for the first time what he needed. He did not even understand what she meant because he was used to interacting with people who came with offerings and wanted to serve him based on what they thought he needed. But no one ever truly sat down and asked him about all that he needed.
Another thing Shawn said that confirmed my experiences when talking with and listening to people outdoors is that it’s sometimes easier for people to tell a stranger that they are fine where they are and do not want housing rather than open up and make themselves even more vulnerable. I have only once in over 25 years met a person who chose to abandon his apartment. He moved into his van because, as he explained to me, he only had months to live, and he preferred to die amongst “his people.”
This leads back to the importance of listening and truly communicating with each other. Often we listen for what we want to hear to support our own stereotypes. That’s where judgment and misunderstandings begin.
So, rather than pushing more laws and resolutions to manage and control outdoor homelessness to satisfy the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) folks and politicians, why don’t we just all come together and have the courage to listen to the people where they are. For the ones of you who fear that this means people want to remain outdoors, I guarantee you, that will be a miniscule percentage of the unhoused population. In the end, we all want the same: a safe place to stay that is ours, to be able to maintain our housing, a purpose, feeling healthy and well, and be part of a community.
Let’s stop offering what we think others need and start with listening. To do so, let’s stop our local government’s increasing attempts to regulate street outreach. Instead, we should focus on coordination with outreach providers through open conversations and transparency, which will build trust and further collaboration. Top down government control will not reduce outdoor homelessness. However, a compassionate and person-centered approach that links people to housing and the support services they tell us they need might just do the trick.