Beloved priest, homeless outreach advocate and native Nashvillian Father Charles Strobel died on Sunday. He was 80 years old.
Strobel was best known as the founding director of Room In The Inn, a street outreach organization he started in 1985 while serving as pastor of Holy Name Catholic Church in East Nashville. Since 1995 the nonprofit has operated from a space on Drexel Street near downtown Nashville, and under Strobel’s leadership it has grown to include scores of participating congregations and thousands of volunteers.
Father Charles Strobel
Born in Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood during World War II, Strobel attended Father Ryan High School before entering the seminary. As he told Kay West when he was named the Scene’s Nashvillian of the Year in 2004, Strobel in part poured himself into serving the unhoused community as a means of coping with his mother’s tragic murder in the mid-’80s.
"Looking back, I think that the homeless helped save my life," said Strobel, who at the time asked that his mother’s killer not receive the death penalty. "It's like when children get sick; the mother can't get sick, because she has to care for her children. I was so depressed, I would have stayed in bed if I hadn't heard them calling at the gate, 'Please, let me in.’”
Strobel was an enormous baseball fan and a giant in the world of advocacy, serving on the boards of organizations including natural burial site Larkspur Conservation at Taylor Hollow.
"Charlie is a natural in this life, in this world," Strobel’s friend and colleague, the Rev. Becca Stevens, told the Scene in 2004. "That's why he moves freely with the homeless as well as with people of power. He walks with grace and is unafraid to speak the truth. If you know him for any length of time, he will eventually ask you where you are in the Scriptures. That's where he lives."
From the parking lot behind the building at 532 Eighth Ave. S., and looking northeast, there's a panoramic view of the proud evidence of a thr…
Room In The Inn announced Strobel’s death via social media on Sunday, referencing a passage from the Gospel of Matthew.
“‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’” reads RITI’s post. “It is with great sadness that we share the passing of our founding director, Father Charles Strobel. Charlie passed away peacefully this morning. We are so grateful for his life and for his legacy. May he rest in peace. A Community Celebration will be held in the coming weeks.”
Strobel was preceded in death by his sister Veronica and is survived by his brother Jerry, his sister Alice and many nieces and nephews.
