How Nashville’s Homeless Community and Its Advocates Weathered the Storm

The camp under the Jefferson Street Bridge is a tangle of debris, tarps and tents, the aftermath of the tornado that ripped through Nashville on the morning of March 3. One day after the storm, Mike sits in an old lounge chair while his puppy Star runs about on a leash. Mike’s tent is crumpled up nearby, his belongings ruined. “That’s 13 years of my life,” says Mike, who asked that we not include his last name.

There are many other destroyed tents nearby, the remnants of a large campsite made up of people experiencing homelessness. Just a few hundred feet away is the badly damaged Department of Human Services building, its roof now a pile of rubble. There’s plenty of destruction in the nearby Germantown neighborhood the day after the tornado — traffic lights are out, businesses like The Christie Cookie Co. are damaged, telephone poles are wrecked.

Mike says that on the night of the storm, 20 to 30 people were at the camp. When the storm hit, he called 911.

“I thought it was gonna be the last time anyone was gonna hear my voice,” he says, adding that the responders did great work helping the camp after the storm hit.

Organizations focused on helping the homeless mobilized after the storm. The Bridge Ministry, a group that began by serving the folks at the Jefferson Street Bridge in 2004, has been active at the campsite and other parts of Nashville, helping tornado victims and relief workers. Candy Christmas, founder of the organization, says the group is also helping Metro schools provide food to students while classes are canceled.

Other volunteers have visited the Jefferson Street camp since the tornado, providing haircuts, a mobile shower and supplies, according to videos shared on Facebook. A few tents have also returned to the site.

Other campsites in Nashville may be slower to rebuild, if they can at all. Howard Allen, an unhoused advocate for the homeless, usually stays at a different camp near the Jefferson Street Bridge. He stayed at a hotel the night of the storm, and hasn’t been able to return to his campsite — but he’s seen pictures of the devastation and is sure he lost everything. He hopes the Federal Emergency Management Agency can help him find housing; if not, he returns to waiting for Section 8, where he says he’s approximately the 2,000th person in line.

Lindsey Krinks, co-founder and co-director of homeless-outreach organization Open Table Nashville, says the widespread displacement from the tornado may impact Nashville’s current affordable housing crisis — especially since the general waiting list for Section 8 housing is closed. (The only public housing lists accepting new applicants are one for people over the age of 62 and one for people experiencing chronic homelessness.)

“There’s nothing for people,” says Krinks. “Where the hell are people gonna go?”

As it happens, Krinks and her husband Andrew, the former editor of Nashville street paper The Contributor, are themselves displaced, after the tornado wrecked their North Nashville home. The whole neighborhood was hit hard, with crushed and damaged homes all over their street. But volunteers are also everywhere. One of the first people to help the Krinkses was a man living at a campsite.

Lindsey says she and her husband will be all right, but she worries about the future of North Nashville — particularly, how developers may take advantage of those who’ve been affected. Fears of gentrification in North Nashville are looming, and she says the city needs to do more to protect those who are already marginalized and at risk of further displacement and homelessness.

“We have the resources and knowledge to do it,” she says. “It’s about our priorities.”