Nashville Metro Council will hold a two-day public discussion to tackle the homelessness problem in the city. Beginning Wednesday, December 01, anyone who wants to discuss their ideas on how the city can tackle homelessness in Nashville is invited to attend and speak.
The event will be held at the Downtown Public Library at 615 Church Street, in the first-floor conference room. The meeting will be from 5 PM to 8 PM. The second meeting will be held on December 1st, at the same time and location. There will be an overflow room if needed.
Vice Mayor Jim Schulman will be facilitating both of the meetings and told FoxNews 17 that during the first meeting, attendees would be held in groups for people to discuss ideas, and the second meeting would be to formulate a plan that everyone could get behind.
Shulman told FoxNews 17 “[W]e need to take these ideas and figure out really what should work and come up with a plan.”
Earlier this month, The Tennessee Star reported that Mayor John Cooper was arranging tours around homeless encampments around Nashville. During Cooper’s tours, Vice Mayor Schulman sent out an email to Councilmembers saying he did not support Cooper’s approach.
In his email, Schulman said that while he had visited the encampments before, “I do not believe that this is the proper way to understand the situations involving outdoor homelessness, which can be extremely complicated. Many of these people are simply in need of housing and services.”
He added that instead of the tours, he referred the Councilmembers to homelessness advocacy groups who actually know those who are being affected by homelessness.
Schulman ended his email and said that he confirmed Cooper did not plan to attend the tours, that they were specifically intended for Councilmembers to attend.
Many Nashville residents have voiced their concerns about homelessness, and many Twitter users have expressed their frustration with how poorly lawmakers seem to be handling the situation.
One user tweeted, “It’s maddening seeing the homeless take over public parks in Nashville & hearing council members & politicians mouthing the same bad ideas & viewpoints that were shown in Southern California. Definition of insanity, doing the same thing over & over expecting a different result.”
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Morgan Nicole Veysey is a reporter for The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow her on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
