Twenty-five COVID quarantine housing pods installed in the parking lot of the Nashville Rescue Mission sat empty for seven months from October 2021 until May 2022, having never received clearance from the state Fire Marshal’s Office. There are 83 more units that never saw the light of day in storage at an undisclosed location.
Led by District 12 Metro Councilmember Erin Evans, Metro is seeking control of the pods, with hopes of putting them to use in temporary housing for those transitioning out of homelessness. The Metro Council passed a resolution creating an action plan for the pods at its July 6 meeting.
Since 2021, the Metro Department of Codes and Building Safety and the state Fire Marshal’s Office have been at odds over the matter. The fire marshal’s office oversees all modular housing, including mobile homes, tiny homes and the pods Metro bought with $1.2 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding. According to Kevin Walters, a spokesperson for the state Fire Marshal’s Office, when the pods were installed at the Nashville Rescue Mission, the marshal asked for a letter sent by the codes department and signed by a state-certified engineer who inspected the pods and certified they were up to state residential code. The department never received the letter, he said.
“This is the same conversation we’ve been having since 2021,” says Walters.
In the more recent push for use of the pods, the state needs the same letter to turn over control of the units to Metro. Metro Department of Codes and Building spokesperson Will Dodd told Scene sister publication the Nashville Post on July 10 that letter would come through any day now, and there hasn’t been an update since.
“The state Fire Marshal’s Office told the Codes Department [in 2021] that they were unable to classify the pods and could not determine fire hazard regulations, which means the project was unable to move forward,” Dodd told the Post via email. “Metro Codes is excited and prepared to put together a plan to put the pallet shelters to use once we receive the long-awaited clearance from the engineer.”
The pods were originally set up for COVID-19 isolation outside the Nashville Rescue Mission as part of a partnership between the nonprofit homeless service provider, the Nashville Office of Emergency Management and the Metro Health Department. As described in a 2021 press release, each pod can hold two people and can connect to electricity, heat and air conditioning. At the time, the CDC funding paid for a certified nursing assistant and 24-hour security, and those using the pods would have had access to restrooms, meals and recreation areas at the Nashville Rescue Mission.
It is unclear where the pods are now, or what state they are in. The Nashville Office of Emergency Management has them in storage, though the department would not disclose a location to the Post.
If approved, Evans’ goal is to have the codes department, health department, local fire marshal and office of homeless services convene to make a plan for using the pods.
“My thought process is, are there nonprofits, organizations, faith communities that may have an interest in leveraging the pods to help support their community?” Evans says. “I don’t think it’s an opportunity for Metro to leverage in the same way it had been envisioned originally, but I think there’s a potential for getting it out there and saying, ‘These are available,’ and then figuring out how they could be implemented.”
This article first ran via Scene sister publication the Nashville Post.
