Local Meetings

An invitation to attend Continuum of Care Shelter Committee meetings

BY CATHY JENNINGS

Resolutions allocating $50 million dollars to provide services, security, permanent housing, and interim housing communities to Nashville’s homeless neighbors were deferred until Oct.r 4 by Metro Council in mid-August because the affordable housing committee had questions and felt the plans had not been fully fleshed out.

As chair of the Continuum of Care Shelter Committee, which consists of key stakeholders from the shelter, outreach, housing and lived experience community, I thought it important that you know the work we have been doing over the past several months to flesh out the plan.

We were approached by Metro Homeless Impact Division in June to provide input to the housing process that these funds would provide-from outreach, through interim community, to permanent housing. We’ve spent weeks thoughtfully fleshing out the plan: workshopping ideas surrounding encampment prioritization, service collaboration, outreach, and the bridge communities, discussing community leads and hiring practices, peer support, services, security, and community spirit. We have presented those ideas to the Homeless Planning Council and Metro Homeless Impact Division.

During this deferral, we will continue to flesh out the plan with Housing and Urban Development. Yes, we would love to move people directly into permanent housing as HUD best practices suggest. However, if the lack of available housing prevents that, we are realists who love our neighbors and want them to be safe in a choice of interim housing communities, and we are ready to journey alongside until housing stability is achieved. All of our meetings are public.

I encourage anyone with questions to come to one of our meetings. You can sign up to get text notifications to attend here: https://www. nashville.gov/departments/ social-services/boards/ homelessness/meetings.