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Learn More about: The Impact of Zoning on Homelessness

BY JUDITH TACKETT

It will be very hard for many cities to address the homelessness crisis without addressing zoning codes.

For too long, Nashville has carefully separated the housing conversation from the social services conversation as well as the poverty conversation from the homelessness conversation. Yet we all know that homelessness, at the core of its definition, is a description of a housing status. So, how then can we ever prevent or end homelessness if we do not talk about building more housing and include homelessness in that conversation? More housing can only be built if we have a zoning code that permits that.

I am not saying, nor have I ever implied, that social service needs are to be overlooked in any way, form, or fashion. But I am tired of treating housing and support services as an either-or question. We need both. Continuing the current bifurcated conversation about housing and homelessness will never lead this city, this state, or this nation to solving homelessness. After all, we know what ends homelessness for people: access to housing, to support services, and to livable incomes.

In a recent article published in Governing.com called Few Mayors Connect the Dots between Zoning and Homelessness, reporter Carl Smith quotes several sources that show how little mayors understand the interconnectedness of homelessness and zoning.

In their book Homelessness Is a Housing Problem (published in 2022), Greg Coburn and Clayton Page Aldern write that, “residential zoning is one of the seemingly innocuous rules and regulations that has played a major role in the housing crises that are gripping cities around the nation.”

Finally, a recent report by Boston University’s Initiative on Cities in partnership with Cornell University and the nonprofit Community Solutions called Cities, Zoning, and the Fragmented Response to Homelessness argues that, “centering housing in homelessness policy will require mayors to be politically courageous and prioritize long-term goals over shortterm politics.”

Yet, the Menino survey of Mayors conducted in 2021 clearly showed that few mayors truly grasped the connection between zoning and homelessness (see chart).

Nashville currently lacks a homelessness plan that includes a long-term outlook of what types of housing we need to create and make accessible for people experiencing homelessness. For the first time in… well, forever, we have administrative data sets through Nashville’s Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) that make it easier for us to measure outcomes and enumerate the problem beyond the annual, limited Point In Time (PIT) count (a one-night count conducted across Davidson County within the last 10 days of January that only focuses on people in shelters and sleeping outdoors). Yet, I am not aware of anybody, including the Homelessness Planning Council, that actually utilize data sets to create specific goals and work toward long-term solutions based on what the data, what people with lived experiences, and what providers and other stakeholders tell us.

To say it differently, we have enough data to outline the needs that allow the city to develop housing strategies for different subpopulations and create an equitable approach that takes into consideration the racial disparities that exist in homelessness. And those housing strategies need to include the creation of housing, which will need to be aligned with city planners who see the need for zoning reviews and policy changes.

Since 2020, when the COVID pandemic started, outdoor homelessness and chronic homelessness have increased in many cities, including Nashville. However, compared to other cities, Nashville has been able to avoid a huge increase in homelessness, even though the city’s growth and increasing lack of affordable housing could have easily led to an overall increase in homelessness. Yet, some of the measures our community took have paid off.

Could we have done more? Absolutely. I believe the city has missed huge opportunities during COVID. We have taken advantage of some homelessness dollars, but the city leadership largely has ignored input from local homelessness leaders who called for an increase in local department coordination. (For full disclosure, I was at that time working as the Metro Homeless Impact Division Director and left in large part because I felt my division was buried in a department that was solely reactive, focused on protecting the current state of affairs, and not interested in providing leadership in homelessness.)

To this day, whenever I talk to local policy makers and Metro employees, most push back on the idea of combining the homelessness and affordable housing conversation within one office. But to truly prevent and end homelessness, cities must fundamentally change their traditional inter-departmental coordination. Nashville needs to move from its status-quo thinking of collaboration where department representatives get together maybe once a month (or more often if they react to a disaster). They need to shift from being merely responsive in a crisis to becoming proactive in developing and implementing long-term strategies. Housing, planning, and zoning conversations must include public experts focused on long-term solutions to homelessness.

That’s why I have and will continue to challenge Metro to combine affordable housing and homelessness conversations. It’s easy to point out that the housing issue is bigger and more complex and cannot just focus on homelessness needs. The fact remains that without examining zoning laws and educating the very politicians who essentially control zoning issues in Nashville (Metro councilmember), we will not create an environment in which we build the housing that our community needs for everyone.

I realize that Nashville is located in a state that keeps aggressively undermining Metro policies. However, the fact remains that we must fully examine and understand at the local level how zoning impacts homelessness. I actually believe our local leaders in Nashville are largely aware of the connection. Now the majority of them just need to get over the fear of actually including the zoning conversation as part of the discussion of solving homelessness.

The local Five Year Consolidated Plan For Housing and Community Development (June 1, 2018-May 31, 2023), a wide-ranging, report that serves as quasi-bible for potential community investments of federal dollars, mentions zoning in 16 different places, which is not overwhelming considering it is a 265-page document. But even that city plan does not make a direct connection between zoning barriers and homelessness rates.

In short, housing and homelessness keep being treated as separate issues, which is what will prevent us from prioritizing policies that truly create housing for everyone — including people who do not have the means to compete in our current housing markets.

Do I know what I am talking about when zoning enters a conversation? I actually think I fall short in that arena and still have a lot to learn. But I certainly know that if mayors do not start including housing and homelessness, planning and zoning in a unified discussion and couple it with a social services approach, we won’t make strides in creating a healthy, livable community for all Nashvillians where we leave no one behind.

So, listen up mayoral candidates. Here is my suggestion. For starters, the city needs to ensure that there is a citywide housing plan that addresses homelessness. Without that, our current administration’s encampment closure plan will not be able to reduce homelessness after the $50 million federal American Rescue Plan (ARP) investment runs out. But it’s not too late. I actually have hope for an immediate and significant adjustment in the local homelessness approach. Now that Mayor John Cooper does not need to use the homelessness plan to garner votes for his re-election campaign, the city can quickly turn things around and again prioritize ending homelessness for people in an equitable manner as opposed to focusing on closing encampments in certain geographic locations. Shifting to such an approach would reduce outdoor homelessness actually quicker (albeit, I admit, with less visible fanfare) and lead to the reduction of encampments across the entire county in a more organic and sustainable manner.