People asking for money on street corners. Individuals sleeping in doorways of businesses, in the shadow of towering developments. Encampments springing up on public and private land. A Supreme Court decision criminalizing people for sleeping outdoors when no shelter is available. Families sleeping in cars. And the latest, a heated local debate about whether outreach groups can hand out basic necessities — water, blankets, food — to people who are unhoused on Metro Parks property. These are the symptoms we spend hours discussing in board meetings, on task forces, and in community planning sessions. And yet, for all the time and energy spent on how we react to these symptoms, we rarely stop to consider the causes.
A system should be more than a reactionary machine addressing surface-level problems. A helpful system — one that could actually end homelessness as we know it in Nashville — must begin with shared goals, created and embraced by the entire community, especially those with lived experience of homelessness. In this system, we all know the goal, and we are working together to achieve it. It must also be built on a shared understanding of what truly works: a person-centered, data-driven approach that prioritizes rapid access to stable housing. We need to support Nashvillians with the greatest health and safety risks first, rather than just managing the symptoms that make homelessness visible.
Right now, the system in Nashville is broken. Much of what we see in Nashville’s response to homelessness focuses on managing symptoms, not fixing the system that produces them. Instead of tackling the root causes — like the lack of actionable and affordable housing, the lack of clear access points to obtain support, inadequate health services, and structural barriers that keep people in cycles of poverty — we are caught in a cycle of reacting to visible problems. This approach keeps homelessness manageable, but it does not eliminate it.
To create meaningful change, leaders and funders must step up and commit to restructuring the system. We need funders of our system to be nerdy about homelessness — passionate about evidence-based strategies that work. We need the funders to get into heated discussions with each other about the best ways to use the money and authority they wield. Without strong leadership driving this shift, we remain stuck in a loop, trying to make homelessness less visible rather than making it rare, brief, and one-time. This means changing how funding decisions are made, moving from tradition to outcome-driven investments that prioritize getting people into permanent housing quickly.
I have been part of this work for 20 years now, and I can’t help but reflect on my role in creating a system that doesn’t work as it should. I’ve been in the meetings, I’ve had the money and authority, I’ve been at the tables where these decisions get made, and some of the blame lies at my feet. It’s humbling to admit that. But I know we can do better.
The role of funders cannot be understated. They have the money, and money changes behavior. Funding decisions should be grounded in effectiveness. Programs need to be evaluated based on how well they move people into permanent housing and how effectively they reduce the number of people experiencing homelessness over time. Accountability must be at the heart of this system, with performance-based contracts that make sure every dollar invested contributes directly to ending homelessness, not just managing it.
A system that works can only be built when we stop reacting to the symptoms and start addressing the root causes, with a clear vision shared by the community.