The growth of a camp at Brookmeade Park seems to have sparked a citywide discussion in the press and on social media about homelessness in Nashville this year. And that includes debates between Metro councilmembers and Mayor John Cooper’s office on the subject.
Much of the discussion arrived in the wake of the sudden resignation of Judy Tackett, longtime director of Nashville’s Homeless Impact Division, who departed in late October. Tackett spoke at a Nov. 17 joint committee meeting, and when a councilmember asked why she left, she replied that the “leadership structure” hindered her from implementing the vision she had planned. Councilmember Colby Sledge says he and his colleagues are now “stuck” when trying to “figure out who the right person is to go to and what the strategy is.”
Cooper appointed Office of Emergency chief Jay Servais as interim director, but some councilmembers called for the city to quickly find a permanent hire with experience in homelessness outreach.
Shortly after Tackett resigned, Councilmember Freddie O’Connell filed a bill to create an independent Office of Homelessness and Housing, which would become the new hub for agencies like the Homeless Impact Division and offer improved coordination for homelessness services and housing initiatives. The bill has 17 co-sponsors.
The mayor’s office argues that the current structure — with HID nested in Metro Social Services — is effective, citing its success in getting 600 people off the street this year through rapid rehousing efforts.
O’Connell and his fellow councilmembers discussed his bill at a joint session between the council’s Human Services and Affordable Housing committees. Representatives of Cooper’s office also attended and discussed conducting a performance audit of the existing structure. O’Connell’s bill will be on the agenda for the council’s Dec. 7 meeting.
Another source of discussion for the Metro Council has been the use of American Rescue Plan funds to address homelessness. The council approved $1.5 million in ARP money for Metropolitan Social Services to be used for shelter, outreach, sanitation, housing and food, and the mayor signed off on it. A more controversial use of that funding is a proposal to allocate $1.9 million for construction equipment and infrastructure improvements at Brookmeade and to install cameras at parks where encampments exist.
When the bill came before the Budget Committee on Nov. 2, members deferred it for one meeting, citing concerns with the cameras and equipment. In response, the mayor invited councilmembers to tour the camps themselves — but councilmembers quickly blasted the move on social media and in interviews, with Sledge noting his “mix of surprise and disgust” at the invitation. At the Budget Committee meeting on Nov. 15, Councilmembers Sean Parker and Sledge voiced concerns about the bill’s framing of the equipment to be used for “managing homeless encampments” — quoting the bill’s own caption — and its potential use for displacing tenants.
Supporters of the bill, like sponsoring Councilmember Courtney Johnston and parks director Monique Odom, said it was not intended as an answer to homelessness, despite the language. An officer with MNPD’s Quality of Life Team also said that a majority of people experiencing homelessness interviewed by police said they wanted cameras for safety reasons.
Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda also voiced concerns about funding what appear to be capital improvements with ARP dollars.
The mayor’s office says that the funding is derived from ARP money because an increase in camp populations at places like Brookmeade has placed extra burden on the parks department.
While the bill was deferred again at the Nov. 16 council meeting, councilmembers are still frustrated about the mayor’s invitation to tour Azafrán Park (which doesn’t have a camp but does have a camera), Wharf Park (currently home to Old Tent City) and Brookmeade.
The Scene emailed all 40 councilmembers to ask if they accepted or declined the invitation and why. As of this writing, 23 councilmembers have responded; of those, only one attended the tours. Many, like Sepulveda and Brandon Taylor, say they and other Metro officials already know that the best way to solve homelessness is more affordable housing, and that a tour wouldn’t provide new insight. Others call the visits, which included a police escort, “inhumane,” “performative” and “nutso.”
Some councilmembers say they’re struggling to address homelessness in their own districts. Of Brookmeade, Councilmember Russ Bradford says, “We have encampments all over the city that need attention, and I’m concerned that we’ve allowed all the focus to be on just this one park because it happens to be in a more affluent area of town.” Bradford is a sponsor of the bill, though he says it’s because he’s the Public Facilities chair, not necessarily because he supports it. Fellow sponsor Johnston says she was out of town the week of the tours. Thom Druffel intended to join the Brookmeade tour, but wasn’t able to when it got rescheduled after a firearm was found in the park.
Gloria Hausser, a sponsor of the bill, seems to be the only councilmember to attend all three tours, and she says they were enlightening. Hausser tells the Scene she previously didn’t realize how different each camp is, and learned a lot about the outreach work done by police officers with the Quality of Life Team. She also saw how unstable some of the infrastructure at Brookmeade Park was, like weakening footbridges. Hausser says only two other councilmembers attended any of the tours. She agrees that housing is needed, but says short-term safety issues like cameras and park improvements are also important.
In a statement, the mayor’s office says the “nature of these information-gathering visits have been misinterpreted.”
There will be a pair of charrettes — that is, community discussions — on homelessness hosted by Vice Mayor Jim Shulman on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 before the bill goes before the Metro Council on Dec. 7.
