NEWS

A Few Questions with Ginny Welsch, District 16

BY JUDITH TACKETT

Council Member Ginny Welsch met me at a coffee shop in District 16. Welsch chairs the Metro Council Human Services Committee — she shared that the committee wants to put a special focus on homelessness issues this year. (Editor’s note: Welsch invited Tackett to attend her committee meetings as a subject matter expert due to Tackett’s experience working with the community on building a system to implement solutions to homelessness. Most recently Tackett served as the former director of the Metro Homeless Impact Division.)

Welsch said that when she ran for council, she did not fully understand how powerful a council member could be. In local government, it is the council member who controls all zoning in the district. She said as a first-term council member she was still trying to find the right balance for her constituents, but she has enjoyed helping individuals get things done that they could not do on their own.

“It’s a lot of work,” Welsch said. “It’s interesting. It’s fun. And it’s satisfying if you can help someone solve their problem, however big or small.”

What would you like to achieve with the Human Services Committee this year?

Metro Council has consolidated several different committees to pare down the committee structure. The Human Services Committee is new this year and basically looks at bills that support the work of the Metro Action Commission, Metro Social Services, and Veteran Affairs.

What I would like to see is that we focus on homelessness. That’s an area touched by all three agencies, and I’d love for us to figure out new ways of how we can use our influence to intervene before people get into situations where they are unhoused. The question is how do we effectively identify people who need services and connect them to services and support services?

The committee has started to identify a few things. For example, we are asking whether there is an opportunity to link a social worker with the Office of the Trustee, which collects taxes on behalf of Davidson County, to identify households that need support services. Would this help with early intervention before people are becoming homelessness? Or we know that veterans experience homelessness at a higher rate than the general population. Are there policies that we can help create to support veterans?

Obviously, this one committee is not able to solve this issue but maybe stem the tide by doing things a different way.

Looking at District 16, what are the top issues your constituents are concerned about right now?

Our issues in District 16 are probably not much different than in any other district: traffic, speeding, lack of amenities that help improve the well-being of the community like sidewalks. People are also worried about trash, and then there is a subset of constituents in our district that is very worried about crime. Another subset in the district is very worried about the increase in population and they are worried that they’re not getting what they are entitled to in terms of their share of the property tax increase.

What do you think is the number one topic on people’s minds?

I am not sure if this is unique in my district, but there is a definite line between the old guard and the new guard. District 16 hasn’t really increased in population. There were 87 new houses built in the past five years. The old guard doesn’t want any change. They feel they speak for the majority. The new guard are young people who are moving in, and they want to see an increase in density. They don’t want cars; they want to be able to walk to places. They think it’s wasteful not to do multifamily housing, and their concern is how do we bring more amenities to the district.

We are talking a lot about infrastructure in District 16. So, if I had to pick a top priority it is growth in the district and also in the city. But the two fractions of my constituents have very different vision of what that growth should look like.

It makes it very difficult because I am very pro-density, but I focus on what’s in line with the city’s Nashville Next plan where people have identified how they would like the city to grow countywide. I campaigned on the idea that growth is coming regardless of whether we want it or not, so we have to be intentional about it.

In regard to homelessness, what are the main concerns you hear from your constituents?

The feedback I am getting is ugly. The concern is that people are sleeping on the side of the road and leave trash. I get calls to clean up, and the caller means cleaning up in terms of the people.

Again, there seems to be a divide between the old guard and the new guard.

The former wants me to clean up in terms of getting rid of people experiencing homelessness, the new guard seems to be more interested in investing in longterm solutions.

What are solutions you would like to see from the city and the community?

I would like to see the city take a more expansive approach. I think we need to be utilizing the land bank that we have, getting people to donate properties that we can build on, we have surplus properties and surplus land that we could use — if we can’t build housing on those in terms of infrastructure, maybe we can utilize them for service centers where people can go to shower, wash clothes, etc., until we can find them the housing they need.

I’m a real neophyte in knowing comprehensively what we can do to address homelessness, but we have to have a broader approach. I don’t think we have necessarily utilized all the expertise that we have access to. And as a city, we need to put our money where our mouth is.

This Q&A is the first in a series where Judith Tackett will interview members of Metro Council about the most pressing issues in their districts.