Tennessee Voices, Episode 263: Solving homelessness crisis with key Nashville leaders
After a COVID-caused hiatus on conducting the point-in-time count of Nashvillians living in homelessness, city leaders resumed their efforts in 2022.
They await the results to give them a picture of how dire homelessness is in Music City. As Nashville, like many other fast-growing cities, has boomed, the income and prosperity gap has also widened.
In recent months, the city saw turnover in its homelessness services leadership and closed encampments. But leaders say they are resetting their efforts on plans to create a long-term strategy, work with nonprofit partners and provide permanent shelter to unhoused people.
On this episode of the Tennessee Voices podcast, I spoke with three of those leaders: Metro Social Services Executive Director Renee Pratt, Homeless Impact Division Interim Director Jay Servais and HID Assistant Director April Calvin.
They said Nashville is "in a crisis situation" as it comes to homelessness and they described their efforts to solve it.
"Housing is the ultimate goal," they said.
They addressed the complexity of the problem and the range of tools they have available.
A community plan is getting refreshed. They also addressed the closing of encampments, which has drawn criticism, especially from advocates for homeless residents.
They also talked about the data they collect, the vulnerability index screenings and how the process of getting homeless people into stable housing works.
There are large gaps between the official and unofficial number of homeless residents because the point-in-time count focuses on people living on the streets. There are many uncounted people couch-surfing and living in hotels, which makes it challenging to understand the whole scope of the crisis.
Op-Ed by Jay Servais: How Nashville is making progress on homelessness and what's coming next
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The Tennessee Voices videocast is a 20-minute program, which started in March 2020 and invites leaders, thinkers and innovators who have written guest columns for a USA TODAY Network Tennessee publication to share their insights and wisdom with me and our viewers.
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David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee and an editorial board member of The Tennessean. Tweet to him at @davidplazas.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Voices: Solving homelessness crisis in Nashville
