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Metro officials, nonprofit agencies and around 50 to 60 residents of a camp along the Cumberland River near Nissan Stadium are quickly working to relocate people out of concern that their tents are in the path of the planned Fourth of July fireworks show downtown.
April Calvin, director of the Office of Homeless Services, first alerted advocacy groups to the situation earlier this month; however, discussions intensified last week. A series of meetings involving emergency personnel, OHS and some homelessness advocacy groups have begun to hash out a plan. It’s still uncertain whether the residents will be moved out permanently or allowed to return after the holiday, but Calvin told the Continuum of Care general membership meeting on Thursday that she opposes anyone returning to the camp.
Residents plan for next steps as police and social workers manage a 60-day countdown at large downtown encampment
“I'm not a person that would ever entertain the idea of moving someone temporarily for a fireworks show and then bringing them back,” Calvin tells the Nashville Banner, calling such a scenario “very traumatic.”
“It is something that we are not taking lightly,” she says.
Homelessness advocates at the Thursday meeting expressed concern about the plan, as it circumvents the normal camp closure process, like the one that led to the closure of Old Tent City across the river earlier this month. That closure followed several months of planning and outreach, while this one could occur in less than a week. And with limited resources, the last-minute scrambling at this camp could disrupt prioritization plans for other vulnerable individuals.
Other advocates say the situation should have been discussed much earlier, and could have been if homelessness organizations, including OHS, were brought into planning discussions sooner.
“It’s not unprecedented that we’re having fireworks on the Fourth of July,” says Ryan Lampa, CEO of outreach group People Loving Nashville. “We know that’s going to be happening.”
Adds Allie Wallace, executive director of Open Table Nashville: “We have said we’re tapped out as agencies and don’t have a lot of resources to put toward this. While a temporary solution may not be the ideal, it may be the option given the reality of the calendar.”
One advocate called on the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp, which organizes the annual fireworks show, to contribute money to help with the response.
“The NCVC is not involved in any relocation efforts,” says spokesperson Bonna Delacruz Johnson. “However, for public safety, it is extremely dangerous for anyone to remain within the fireworks fallout zone.”
As of Friday, the Nashville Office of Emergency Management had not confirmed to the Banner whether the flame retardant officials plan to spray on the area prior to the show contains chemicals that would make returning to the site dangerous for residents.
The View From the Camp
On Thursday, several residents of the camp told the Banner that they had spoken with outreach workers or heard about the plan through word of mouth, but they said they did not know what a temporary or permanent closure would mean for them.
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Corey Williams, Marvin Kirk and Brandy (who declined to share her last name) say they had experienced fireworks shows from the camp before without issue. (Williams has a room at the city’s Strobel Center permanent supportive housing facility but maintains a camp across the river.)
“It wasn't a problem for me then,” Kirk says. “It probably won’t be a problem for me now. It’s just something they want to use to get rid of what’s in front of them.”
Both Kirk and Brandy say they would be pleased to move into a hotel unit.
“I’m down with it, because I’m tired of the streets,” says Brandy, who has lived at the camp about two years. “I’m ready to go back to work. I’m ready to be able to shower, ready to be able to cook. I can’t do this anymore. ... I'll be OK with anything besides this tent city shit. I'm tired of it.”
Though Kirk says he would be “tickled to death” to move into a hotel unit, he remains skeptical it would happen. He says he has lived at multiple other high-profile camps that went through closures and missed out on housing placements each time. He says he thought it was because he once rejected a housing option when a landlord said something to him that he thought was demeaning to homeless people. He believes he has been kept off housing lists since.
“I didn’t slip through the cracks,” Kirk says. “They kicked me through the cracks.”
Further down the riverbank, Marlon Williamson has been living at a campsite for about a month. His wife Angel has been there for about a week. Marlon loves it, and Angel is still getting used to it. Marlon says he was living in a trailer in Sparta, working in a well-paying job in industrial maintenance until he and his temp co-workers were abruptly laid off.
“When I lost my job, it was a trickle effect,” he says.
He couldn’t afford his house or his car. He went to Mississippi to stay with friends, but that didn’t work out, and he ended up in jail. Williamson says, even if residents can return after the Fourth, he expects the camp to be closed in time for the return of Tennessee Titans football in the fall.
And though Williamson did not live at Old Tent City across the river, he believes their camp is safer, especially for women and children.
“We have our little altercation from time to time, but it's actually a good place,” he says. “People look after each other. There's nobody hungry here.”
He does not seem eager to move into a temporary shelter, in part out of fear that his criminal record could complicate his situation.
Several service providers offer food and other supplies in the camp. A mutual aid subsidiary of the Middle Tennessee Democratic Socialists of America has been distributing supplies every Friday for months, says Julia Sugden, one of the volunteers.
“Everybody there has the general idea that no place is stable,” Sugden says of the planned closure. “I wish that we had more time to sit and talk with the people in the camp and really ask them what would be ideal for them, what their needs would be.”
Update: Most of the camp's residents were moved out over the weekend, after the Banner's version of this story ran. Some of the residents were moved to Rodeway Inn. Calvin tells the Banner that OHS' plan is for those placements to lead to permanent housing — not for residents to return to the camp.
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
