COVER STORY

Q&A: Robb Nash looks to build community at The Village at Glencliff

BY HANNAH HERNER

Serving as the executive and medical director for The Village at Glencliff medical respite could be considered a third career for Robb Nash.

Becoming a nurse practitioner was his second, after working for years in IT. He went back to school at 42 and his first job in the field was to be the nurse practitioner at Room In The Inn. Then, he joined Vanderbilt’s HIV/AIDS clinic, the Comprehensive Care Clinic. Through these positions, he has been working with people experiencing homelessness for 15 years.

“I'm excited for Nashville,” Nash said. “I think it's really cool as the healthcare capital of the United States that we're stepping into this respite space and making it world class in a way that will reflect well on Nashville. And Nashville citizens are coming together to make this happen.”

As the village waits for final approvals to start bringing in referrals from the hospital, Nash sat down with The Contributor to talk about the community of the village, and what it will entail.

What was it like going from being behind the scenes working in IT to moving to direct service?

It's overwhelming at first because of the grinding poverty that people who are forced to live without housing experience — and all the ramifications of that poverty — is something that those of us who are housed have no idea about what it's really like on the ground… It was certainly a shock to my system at first, but it was never something that scared me or was off-putting to me or anything other than, well, this is a problem. Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.

How is your past work experience going to inform what you do at The Village at Glencliff?

One of the founding principles that I used at Vanderbilt to start [the PATHways Program] there that I started for people who are traumatized was: I can't write a prescription for poverty.

I can't fix those big problems. But maybe if I can work with people at the individual level, I can give them the tools to be stronger, so that they can take better care of themselves in a world that doesn't care about them. So that's the approach that I use is to try to lift up the individual, and give them tools and give them the support — give them the feeling of community. Instill in them the fact that they do matter, and they are loved, as something that otherwise they never experience. And to give people that, I have seen that make more of a difference in a person's life than any medication prescription I could have ever written.

ROBB NASH

PHOTO: HANNAH HERNER

We're community animals, and we want to be in groups. That's just a basic fact. So when you take a person out of a group, that's really problematic at several levels, and all they want is to be back in the group. That's what we're trying to do here at the village is create that intentional kind of community so that people can have that feeling, rather than just come and stay for a few days and be bounced right back under the bridge.

Will the village also be open for people needing end-of-life care?

I'm very comfortable managing those kinds of situations. Those kinds of situations certainly might be difficult for other residents who aren't used to that kind of thing, and that's a community issue. But the most fundamental issue is that nobody, nobody should die alone. And nobody should die uncomfortable. And nobody should die under a bridge, or behind a bush, or in a tent behind Walmart. That's just not acceptable. And it would mean a great deal to me if this could be a safe place for people to come to make that transition.

What will the day-to-day look like for you?

I'll do a daily wellness check. We're the only program in the country that's run by No. 1, a nurse practitioner with 15 years of clinical experience, and No. 2, who has a PhD in nursing, and No. 3, has deep experience dealing with marginalized and traumatized populations. I'll take people's vital signs and do all that stuff Monday through Friday. And then if they're here after surgery, and I need to check their surgical incision, I can check that every day. We can pick up things here, like an infection, for example, I can see an infection a long time before it becomes a huge problem that requires going to the ER. And that's another motivator for me is to help the hospitals break the cycle of having people in the ER for what should be a primary care problem.

What will funding for this program look like?

There are a wide variety of different ways to fund programs like this in different parts of the country. The model that we've chosen here is that we're asking hospitals to pay for part of the cost of sending people here. This program will save hospitals a lot of money because we are a safe, high-quality care place for hospitals to discharge patients to, to make sure they get healthy and make sure they don't come back to the hospital and not coming back to the hospital saves the hospital money. Not coming back to the ER because things went south saves the hospital money, and moving people out of the hospital bed sooner saves the hospital money. Because from the hospital's perspective, they would rather have somebody with insurance in a bed than somebody without insurance in a bed. Because they get reimbursed for that care.

What can potential volunteers help with at The Village at Glencliff?

When you come here to volunteer, it's important to understand that you don't have to do anything. Like you don't have to bring a person a meal, you don't have to bring a person clothing … because all their needs are already taken care of. Everything's out there.

So what we want volunteers to do, really, is just come here and be. Come here and help instill that sense of community. Just come here and hang out with a person. It's not very often that a person experiencing homelessness would have the opportunity to sit down with the CEO of a company and just talk for an hour over a cup of coffee. My belief is that it's just as valuable for the CEO as it is for the person experiencing homelessness.

And yes, there will be communal needs for keeping the grounds up, and, you know, volunteering for this day to work on this project on that day to work on that project. And the gardens will need volunteers to keep them and the flower beds as well as the vegetable garden in the back. So there's certainly those kinds of volunteer opportunities. I don't mean to be dismissive of those. But again, community, it's really about, just come and chill.