In 2014, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness launched the Mayors Challenge, calling on officials across the country to end veteran homelessness in their communities. USICH reports that since then, 78 communities and three states have ended veteran homelessness. Nashville, which accepted the challenge under then-Mayor Karl Dean, isn’t one of them — at least not yet.
The number of veterans experiencing homelessness in Nashville has decreased over the past few years in Nashville, but finding housing is tough when rents are rising and landlords can earn more from market-rate tenants than vets with housing vouchers.
“That is one of the biggest challenges right now,” says Judith Tackett, director of Metro’s Homeless Impact Division. “We need landlords to take subsidies to help house veterans.”
Still, Tackett is confident about the progress Nashville is making, especially as Metro continues to develop a more coordinated system to help vets enter housing faster and more efficiently. One of the newest and most helpful tools is a by-name list, which helps service providers identify all of Nashville’s homeless veterans by name, as well as keep track of which organizations are working with them.
Built for Zero — a homelessness-solution initiative formed by social-services nonprofit Community Solutions — confirmed that Nashville had met its quality by-name list criteria at a conference last month. A quality by-name list fulfills Built for Zero’s 10 requirements, which include developing a list of all known individuals, tracking status changes and new arrivals, and coordinating outreach coverage, among other features.
“Everything that happens is really data-driven,” says Tackett. “We have a system in place where veterans that experience homelessness are identified as quickly as possible with all the partners.”
One of the Homeless Impact Division’s partners in the effort is Operation Stand Down Tennessee. The Nashville-based nonprofit originally began as a service provider that exclusively helped chronically homeless veterans, but has since expanded to help all veterans.
Housing still remains a core service, and Operation Stand Down Tennessee provides transitional housing for veterans encountering barriers on the market. Barriers to housing can include bad credit, mental health issues, substance abuse or extended periods of homelessness.
“We provide housing in a communal setting, but then we also provide them access to resources and skills and … other things they need to become ready to be and to find housing and be sustainable in that housing,” says John Krenson, CEO of Operation Stand Down Tennessee.
Tackett notes that successful tools and techniques used to address veteran homelessness could also be used to help chronically homeless non-veterans. (The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines a chronically homeless individual as someone with a disabling condition who has either been “continuously homeless for a year or more” or has experienced “at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years.”)
“It’s a smaller population,” says Tackett. “It’s even more defined if you can actually build that system and meet those criteria and benchmarks around veterans. … The federal resources are there, [and] others have done it.”
There are other options for veterans looking for housing. In Gallatin, American Legion Post 17 operates a 30-unit apartment building that veterans can rent for one-third of their net income. The folks at Post 17 are proud of the building, which they converted from a motel built in the 1950s, and they put most of the money they collect into supporting it.
“I would say almost 95 percent of it goes across the street to maintenance and repair and keeping those things up,” says Ron Wade, first vice commander of the post. Post 17 is currently raising money to rebuild its parking lot and get a new electronic sign.
Krenson also points to Curb Victory Hall, an upcoming apartment building on 12th Avenue South in Edgehill that will offer housing options to low-income and homeless veterans.
After an increase in veteran homelessness from 2017 to 2018, the number dropped again in 2019, from 259 to 249 vets. Point-in-time counts have some limitations, as the Metro Development and Housing Agency notes on its website, but the numbers from the past nine years shows a steady decrease in homeless veterans.
Krenson, who served in the National Guard, notes that some of the housing barriers facing veterans could stem from conditions caused by a veteran’s service — post-traumatic stress, for example. More broadly, he sees a struggle for returning service members to connect with their communities — whether that results in homelessness, isolation or other struggles. Krenson says in a way, their work with homeless vets is part of a general mission to connect veterans with the community.
“If you can make connections happen, you know, then you’re off and running.”
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