Metro, Salvation Army Can’t Agree on Funding for Temporary Hotel Housing

This story is a partnership between the Nashville Banner and the Nashville Scene. The Nashville Banner is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization focused on civic news. Visit nashvillebanner.com for more information.

Metro and one of its main partners on homelessness response are at odds over transition housing funding for people moving out of outdoor camps. 

Allison Cantway, assistant director of planning and research for the Metro Office of Homeless Services, took Metro councilmembers by surprise at a Tuesday meeting of the council’s Public Health and Safety Committee when she alleged that the Salvation Army had reneged on its pledge to use a city grant to continue management of motel units used to house people temporarily when Metro closes camps. 

Metro Councilmember Russ Bradford said he was “alarmed.” Councilmember Brenda Gadd said she was “completely alarmed and shocked and quite upset.”

“To say I’m upset is an understatement,” added Councilmember Jordan Huffman. (Another councilmember, Joy Styles, is on the Salvation Army’s local advisory board but could not be reached for comment.)

The contract between the Salvation Army and Metro for managing the motel units dates to 2022 and expires at the end of this month. Last year, Metro awarded the Salvation Army $1.9 million in “capacity-building funds.” Office of Homeless Services leaders — including office director April Calvin, who previously worked for more than two decades at the Salvation Army — said it was clear to them during discussions about those funds that they would be used to continue the motel work. 

“It was fully intended to fund gap housing,” Cantway told the committee. “That’s what we discussed with them over a period of months and months. The new leadership does not believe that the contract compels them to provide gap housing. They think that they can fulfill it in some other way.”

That new leadership includes Bill Mockabee, who, along with his wife Stephanie, took over as area Salvation Army commander this summer. He told the Nashville Banner on Wednesday that OHS officials and councilmembers were conflating two different funding streams: the 2022 contract for management of the Rodeway Inn units that expires this month and the 2023 capacity-building grant for its LIFNAV program that provides outreach and services to people experiencing homelessness. 

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“We were completely caught off guard with the way that they framed everything in the council meeting and that it was being talked about like that publicly,” Mockabee said. “What we have in writing is the actual grant itself, which only refers to our LIFNAV program, and that is completely independent of the Rodeway and the gap housing. … We never got a renewal contract to be able to continue the program that OHS was funding with Rodeway. The Salvation Army was expecting both of those grants to be able to continue, and we never received a grant renewal for gap housing.”

In addition to the approximately 30 people currently housed as part of the program at the motel, one person caught in the middle of the misunderstanding is Shabana Ali, who owns the Rodeway Inn on Wallace Road. 

She tells the Banner she is “very proud” of having housed more than 700 people since 2019 as part of the program. She says she met with Calvin and Salvation Army leadership in March and again in August, with no indication that the program would stop until another meeting this week.

“I was dumbfounded,” Ali says. “I have had over 80 rooms ready to go since March, and they could have told me that then, that we’re not continuing it. They could have not kept me in the dark.”

Though Calvin declined Tuesday to confirm that the so-called Old Tent City is next on the list of planned camp closures, Ali says she was under the impression she was holding the rooms in order to house people being moved from that camp, where limited demolition — though not a full camp closure — began this week. It’s unclear how Metro could facilitate the closure of Old Tent City without access to the dozens of rooms at the Rodeway Inn.

Ali adds that she is now offering use of the rooms for free to the city, at least until Metro can figure out what to do next.

“I called today and said, ‘I don’t care about money anymore,’” she tells the Banner. “Move them to my property. I don’t want the money for them. You’re going to get the money back from Salvation Army. That’s what they’re trying to do. But at this point, you need the place, I have the place, use it.”

Mockabee said his team is committed to continuing to serve the 30 or so people at the Rodeway too. 

“They may end up having to move to another hotel, or maybe having to move to another type of housing, but we’re committed to continuing to make sure that they’re seen all the way through the intention of the program, which is permanent housing,” he said.