Officials with the Metro Nashville Social Services and the Nashville-based Room in the Inn announced Saturday that, after the many impacts of COVID-19, faith-based groups will return to the city’s Cold Weather Shelter Plan.
Before COVID-19, Metro Nashville and Room in the Inn officials had relied on more than 200 faith centers to help house the homeless during the winter months. As a result, far fewer homeless people could access shelter when temperatures dropped below 28 degrees. Exactly 60 fair centers coordinated with the city last year.
Currently, on Nashville’s coldest nights, 89 places of faith offer overnight shelters between November through March. Additionally, Room in the Inn’s downtown campus and the Nashville Rescue Mission provide cold weather shelter. The city’s Extreme Cold Weather Overflow Shelter is the backup shelter once all other facilities reach capacity.
Metro spokeswoman Harriet Wallace told The Tennessee Star on Saturday that the city is working aggressively to collaborate with community partners.
“The main message is homelessness cannot be solved in a day,” Wallace said.
“But we are absolutely working tirelessly and more aggressively with community partners to create new and innovative opportunities to reduce homelessness and give them more services, support, and access to housing and everything that they need.”
Wallace provided The Star with the following information:
• Metro’s Extreme Cold Weather Overflow Shelter at 3230 Brick Church Pike can hold up to 250 when it’s activated (at 28 degrees) though it is not often at capacity. The number each night varies however, it can shelter up to 250, if needed.
• Room in the Inn’s downtown campus averages 70 people when it houses on cold weather nights.
• Congregations participating in the collaborative (city and community partners) Cold Weather Shelter plan are expected to house a total of 100 next week.
“Each year, we do what’s called a Point in Time [PIT] count — a one-night citywide count — of those who classify as houseless. Due to COVID, we were unable to complete that count last year. The most recent PIT count we have is from January 2020 where our street teams calculated 2,016 classified as homeless/needing shelter,” Wallace said.
“We are estimating that number to have increased slightly in the last year, mostly due to more robust data gathered by expanding and coordinating the community’s street outreach efforts throughout the year. Additionally, as the city is recovering from COVID, we are able to gain more access to those needing housing.”
Wallace told The Star that faith-based organizations may visit Room in the Inn’s website to register their church and get their congregation trained to increase housing.
– – –
Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
