Be Invisible or Be Arrested: Gaps in Services and the Need for Alternative “Tent Cities”

by Lindsey Krinks, published in the August issue of The Contributor

Carol is a single mother with a 24-year-old son, Jesse. Jesse has a developmental disorder which affects his ability to function as an independent adult, yet doesn’t qualify him to receive disability benefits. In the fall of 2009, Carol lost her job, fell behind on her bills, and was evicted from her home. Because of Jesse’s age, he couldn’t stay in the Women’s Mission with his mother, yet he couldn’t function alone in the Men’s Mission due to his disorder. After wading through program after program and being told that they “didn’t meet criteria” or that they would have to split up in order to receive services, Carol and Jesse heard about Tent City and moved into a tent where they could live together while navigating Nashville’s social services system.

Lori and Rich have been together for three years and are devoted to their dogs. When they became homeless, staying at traditional shelters was not an option for them. Their lives, homes, and jobs had crumbled in around them and they had no stability or security, save in the reassurance of their relationship and the unconditional love of their pets. So rather than living 2.5 miles apart in the Men’s and Women’s Mission and giving up their dogs, they chose to camp in Tent City. After all, in Tent City, they could keep their family together, have a place to store their belongings, and work with outreach workers to begin rebuilding their lives.

Eli has paranoid schizophrenia and a criminal background and dreams of having his own apartment. For now, however, he is just trying to stay on his meds and out of jail. Crowded environments like shelters, group homes, and soup kitchens agitate his paranoia so he tries to strike a balance between keeping to himself and avoiding complete isolation. After trying to live in a variety of shelters and ending up in crisis centers, he decided to try camping. He established a quaint, quiet camp on the edge of Tent City and continued living day to day.

People like Carol, Jesse, Lori, Rich, and Eli fall through the cracks of Nashville’s existing homeless shelters and transitional housing programs. Without a safe place to go, they will spiral further into their despair and receive citations (and therefore court fees and a record) for non-criminal offenses such as sleeping on park benches (“trespassing”) with their belongings and pets at their sides (“obstructing the passageway”). In a city with an estimated homeless population of 4,000 but only about 1,500 beds at shelters and other transitional housing facilities, thousands are left with only two options: be invisible or be arrested.

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In 2008, Mayor Karl Dean stopped Metro from bulldozing Tent City and asked the Homelessness Commission to oversee the camp and assist its residents in accessing permanent housing. For two years, they have worked toward that goal in hopes of eliminating the need for a tent city, but in May of this year, flood waters destroyed the camp displacing approximately 140 residents and over a dozen pets. Even after the waters receded, residents were not allowed back because the area was deemed a “health and safety hazard” by Metro.

So where are the residents now? Many are camping illegally downtown, over 25 have obtained permanent housing, and others fluctuate between couch surfing, staying at cheap hotels, and living in make-shift transitional housing facilities provided by local churches. Currently, several former residents are living in Hobson United Methodist’s parsonage in East Nashville. The set-up at Hobson is based on community houses of hospitality like The Open Door Community in Atlanta. There are house rules, house meetings, a curfew, volunteer hours, and chores. Every night, one to two outreach workers or volunteers spend the night at the house to build community and accountability with the residents. While this model is working well, it only accommodates a small number of people.

Since the beginning of July, Metro representatives from the Mayor’s Office, Homelessness Commission, and Chamber of Commerce acknowledged the need to fill the gap in services exacerbated by the closing of Tent City and offered to partner with advocates and faith-based groups like Amos House Community and Otter Creek Church to work toward solutions. The ambitious goal is to have a permanent site for an alternative to tent city by the beginning of October. This site would be a structured, transitional housing site that can meet the needs of those who fall through the cracks of the existing system.

Models for the proposed site are grounded in providing hospitality to the stranger and meeting basic needs like shelter, food, clothing, and sanitation concerns so that residents can address the reasons they became homeless and begin to rebuild their lives with support from service providers and community mentors. For the last year and a half, advocates in Nashville have been researching models of existing officially sanctioned encampments around the nation, particularly Mobile Loaves and Fishes’ Habitat on Wheels Village in Austin, TX.

While part of the short term strategy to alleviate homelessness in Nashville involves creating alternative shelters and transitional housing facilities, the big picture strategy involves creating enough accessible and affordable permanent housing for all of Nashville’s citizens. With enough housing, every advocate in town would be thrilled to no longer worry themselves with replacing tent cities, but despite Nashville’s Strategic Plan to End Chronic Homelessness which was implemented in 2005, the city is still a long way off.

Until a permanent site is secured for the residents of Tent City, advocates are asking for space in another church or gathering place where 20-40 additional residents can stay while they are working on obtaining permanent housing. If you are interested in volunteering or have resources that might be helpful, please e-mail amoshousemercyfund@gmail.com.

What is the Crisis at Hand?: Further Reflections on a Town Hall Meeting

by Andrew Krinks

It has become all too clear in recent days that we now find ourselves, once again, at a moment of crisis in our work with the homeless community in our city. But perhaps that is somewhat of an understatement. For indeed, the last month has consisted of one crisis after another after another. First came the floods of May 1^st and 2^nd—a crisis for many thousands of people in Middle Tennessee. As for those of us trying to walk alongside our brothers and sisters trapped on the underside of a system that they struggle to survive in, we have seen firsthand the crisis of displacement—displacement after displacement after displacement.

After the Red Cross shelter at Lipscomb University closed; after the week-long shelter of motel rooms and gracious churches expired; after driving those Tent City residents left with no other place to go out to Otter Creek Church to wait and scramble for another plan to come through so that our friends would not be abandoned, we found ourselves taking up the offer of the only landowner willing to help us out. And as we all know by now, that final move led to the crisis of a vehement people. Crisis after crisis, displacement after displacement—a familiar rhythm for people without homes or adequate community.

But the crisis I want to talk about is not the crisis of the flood itself. Neither is it the crisis of finding temporary shelter for our homeless brothers and sisters in its wake—whether hotel room, church building, or 124-acre plot of land. Neither is it the crisis of being accused of acting as scheming, manipulative connivers for refusing to abandon our friends, and for moving them to the only place we had left without first asking for permission from area residents (permission that surely would never have been granted, which we only now realize after the fact). To be sure, these are the crises that ring in our ears at such a high pitch these days that it’s hard to sleep at night, hard to keep from feeling exhausted, enraged, and ever at a loss for words. And indeed, we remain awestruck in the wake of the Town Hall meeting in Antioch in which the empty refrain was repeated over and over again: “We love the homeless, but…”

The crisis I want to talk about is the one that confronts us, much like these other crises, generation after generation—a crisis that seems to grow like a weed in our world, never squelched no matter how hard we try. It is a crisis I wrestle with as if it were another person—and one could even say that it is. What is the crisis? It is the crisis of trying to discern how best to love—to be reconciled with—“the people of Antioch”. Why is it a crisis at all? Why should I even care? Because, as Christ says, we find God in “the least of these.” For Amos House and our friends and partners, we are ever finding God in society’s “least”. But as Southern Baptist bootleg-preacher Will Campbell has recently reminded me, if the people who appear the most detestable to me are “the least” then, according to scripture, that’s where I meet God. And to be quite honest, the people who incite the most fury in me these days are those who spewed so much vitriol from the microphone at Living Word Church last Thursday night. And when I contemplate whether or not this could possibly be true, that God resides in them, I feel a rope wringing itself into a knot right in the center of my chest.

If there are no flesh-and-blood enemies in God’s kingdom, then those people of Antioch who are denying the Christ in their poorest neighbors are as family to me. So I guess that means I’m angry with my brothers, upset with my sisters. But they are family, beloved, which means that they lie within the fold of God’s love.

So what, then, is the task at hand? For those of us who have refused to abandon our friends at Tent City, it is to learn to put on the gaze of God—to see in our most-misguided brothers and sisters from Antioch the very presence of God, and in so doing, to seek new ways to bring the good news, and to do so in ways that don’t demonize or diminish. For many of the people of Antioch, the task lies in learning to see in Amos House, in Jeannie Alexander, in Doug Sanders, not conniving, self-righteous bastards who have “dumped” garbage on them, but rather people seeking to be ministers of the God who takes the shape of those cast out from society. Nothing more, nothing less. Brothers and sisters. Their task also lies in walking out of their houses, into Tent City, not with burning anger or clenched fists, but with open hands and hearts willing to go beyond what they have so long considered their charitable way of being. This is an invitation.

Let me clear. This is not some sorry attempt at utopian diplomacy. Nor is it, I pray, merely a fear of confrontation speaking through my words. For if there is no confrontation in Antioch now, if we hear no complaints for our actions, then maybe we are the misguided ones. (Jesus makes clear, after all, that this sort of work will not always be welcomed.) No, on the contrary, what I am interested in is learning the sort of persistent patience that would not dismiss “the people of Antioch” as a homogenous monolith that has struck out and lost their chance to do good. For indeed, we have seen how they are anything but homogenous: many Antioch residents have even come down to Tent City to donate time and resources to those living in the camp. Indeed, there were even those few exceptional men and women who sought to offer more compassionate perspectives on the situation from the microphone at Living Word Church. I even overheard a couple outside of the town hall meeting offer their genuine support to a Tent City resident in need of work, promising to keep in touch about it, even promising to come visit the camp. And whether they ever went to the camp or not, I am here making it known that “the people of Antioch” is anything but a monolithic beast of hatefulness that we “righteous” ones have come to condemn. It is a people—colorful, diverse, lost, found, beloved.

Clearly, this does not mean that I have overlooked the poisonous speech that made up the majority of the town hall meeting last Thursday. Indeed, I believe there were many a captive mind, false allegiance, and demon-possessed imagination in that room. But driving home from the meeting, in between fits of frustration, I felt a deep sadness, a heavy pity, a longing to see transformation take place in Antioch. And this, precisely, is the reason I even venture to put these thoughts before you at all. As Will Campbell says, echoing Jesus of Nazareth, prisoners are prisoners; it is our vocation to set them free. Whether an actual prison, or the prison of poverty, our vocation is to help liberate, and in so doing find liberation ourselves. But what is truly scandalous about this vocation is that we are even called to help liberate those held captive in ideologies that oppress, in lifestyles that insulate from strangers and “others”, those lost along those ways of being that mistake safety and property value for the tenets of a meaningful existence.

If we are to find God—the God who has reconciled us to himself, and all peoples to one another—then we should begin by using our imaginations to find new ways to welcome the “people of Antioch” into further reflection and action and community. Yes, many proved that they will refuse to listen, to think critically enough to realize their doublespeak regarding their Christian-ness and good citizenry. For those lost children of God, we offer our prayers tonight. If their hearts remain hard, we will, as my sister Jeannie (and the gospel) says, shake the dust from our feet and move on. But, as ungodly as they have proven themselves to be, I don’t believe God gives up on people, even when they deny him in the guise of a poor stranger. It is for this very reason that we shouldn’t give up on them either. If the grace of God has, and continues, to transform me—a gift I do not deserve—then by all means, I ought to extend that gift to others, to extend the table that has been extended to me by God and by God-in-my-homeless-brothers-and-sisters time and time again. For I have been given a gift from those living on the margins of our city. Therefore, in trying to continually receive this gift, and to receive it well, it is my desire to share it—to share it, especially, with the people of Antioch.

To reference once more that one-of-a-kind prophet and pastor of our time, Will Campbell, unless those who, whether they realize it or not, hold up those systems and structures that dominate and oppress—unless they are enlisted in the communal effort to dismantle the powers of death, then our work might accomplish some good things, and we’ll move on with the people of Tent City to whatever place we can find, but there will still be people in Antioch in dire need of liberation. And so, once again, let this be an invitation. For we have discovered God, the God of freedom, through our communion with the cast-aside and oppressed of our city, and we invite you to do the same.

I don’t presume that these words speak for God or that they encapsulate the heart of what’s true. Indeed, no naïve romance has accompanied the writing of these words, only genuine fear and trembling, and great uncertainty—which makes me wonder if there isn’t something here worthy of being said. But I could also be wrong. In the end, all that I am confident of is that we desperately need the fire of prophetic witness, but not the fire of prophetic witness alone. For if that fire is not leavened with the equally scandalous fire of radical reconciliation—reconciliation that resists that part of our nature that would cast out those men and women who spewed false witness in Antioch—then our holy anger lies in danger of turning sour, dull, incapable of bearing faithful witness. For the battle is not against flesh and blood, but against those powers—powers that hold imaginations captive—that possess those beloved children of God who live in Antioch and have made their voice heard in such a sad way. Indeed, it is my conviction that such foolishness as this, such reconciliation, is, in fact, prophetic in and of itself.

May the people of Antioch—may we all—be liberated into the freedom of God wherein the words “rich” and “poor” lose all their meaning in the wake of radical hospitality, reconciliation, and resistance to those systems and structures that know not what it means to love those deemed unlovable. Let us have the courage, and the faith, to be surprised, shocked, thrown off our “safe” courses-of-action by genuine encounters with those “others” who exist on the far side of our failure to love and be truly reconciled.

The Flooding of Tent City

by Andrew Krinks (Originally published in the June 2010 issue of The Contributor)

(Photos by Tasha French)

When Ronnie Smith lost two jobs and a house four years ago, he was left with only one option. Like so many others in similar circumstances, he headed to Nashville’s largest year-round shelter space, the Nashville Rescue Mission. But, having never been homeless before, Smith struggled to adjust. Finding it near impossible to stay sane in such a chaotic and crowded environment, he soon began looking for another option. So, when he was finally able to move into the peace and quiet of an abandoned house with a friend, he was relieved. But, despite his best efforts, that friendship finally fissured, and Smith found himself in search of what seemed to be his last option: a tent. Once he obtained his tent, Smith spent his evenings setting up camp anywhere he could manage only to find himself, again and again, threatened by strangers or told by police officers to “move along.”

Finally, bereft of any remaining options, Smith headed to the only place left on his list—the place he had hoped never to have to go: Nashville’s Tent City. Having heard nothing but bad stories of the city’s largest homeless encampment—from drugs to theft to violence—Smith carried his belongings toward the riverside encampment with trepidation.

But when Smith arrived at Tent City eight months ago, he was surprised to find little to confirm those rumors. On the contrary, what he discovered was something he hadn’t been able to claim in his years on the street: a community. “People were real helpful. They’d even watch out for your stuff when you were gone,” says Smith, one of approximately 140 residents of the camp who, up until the morning of May 2nd when floodwaters completely destroyed the camp leaving every last resident displaced, were grateful to be able to call Tent City home.

Tent City before the flood

The Tent City that Ronnie Smith encountered eight months ago was not the same Tent City that has existed on the banks of the Cumberland River for more than 20 years. Not only had its population grown in that time from a mere handful of residents to over 140, it had also changed from a well-kept secret to a widely-recognized fact of the city, appearing in local newspapers, countless television news stories, a few documentaries, and even The Wall Street Journal.

To understand what initially caused this wider exposure and overall shift at Tent City, we need to go back to 2006, when then-Mayor Bill Purcell announced, in a trend that mirrored a number of other American cities, that the city of Nashville would begin its official push toward raising the “quality of life” in its downtown area. In the eyes of the average beholder, this campaign appeared, rather innocently, to be concerned with strengthening the overall pleasantness of our city. For those on their way to work, for tourists, for weekend honky-tonkers and concert-goers, the idea was, seemingly, to make downtown Nashville a more desirable place to spend time.

Unfortunately, however, a direct result of this public policy has been the criminalization of homelessness in Nashville.

To illustrate, if a well-dressed woman on her way to work stops on a sidewalk to rest with her large rolling briefcase in tow, no one would think anything of it. However, try the same thing when you’re a resident of the Rescue Mission who has no choice but to carry your large pack containing all of your belongings back and forth across the city on a hot day. When you stop to rest on a sidewalk and relieve your back, you’d better not rest too long, unless you’re looking to land an “obstruction of the passageway” citation from a law enforcement officer.

The same goes for carrying an open alcohol container in public or cutting through a parking lot to save time: one who is not homeless will seldom receive any trouble for such actions. But the same is not true for those who are homeless, and the city’s court and arrest records prove it.

All things considered, the notion of “quality of life” as understood in Nashville translates into little more than “quality of life” for some of Nashville’s residents, but certainly not all of them. Furthermore, and perhaps more telling, it is all too clear that this notion of “quality of life” also translates into “quality” for some at the expense of others. So, in a city where it is a serious challenge to show your face as a homeless person on a public sidewalk in downtown Nashville without being questioned about what you’re up to, the obvious result is a city where homelessness disappears—which is precisely what every city dreams of.

But our city officials ought to know better. When you “get rid” of a problem, it’s a good idea to engage in a bit of reflection, to dig a little deeper. You may ask yourself: has the problem been made right, alleviated, redeemed? Or has it merely been made to disappear? The truth is, the “quality of life” campaign and other efforts to rid our city of the “problem” of homelessness can only result in the displacement of that problem, meaning, if we look hard enough, we’ll find that the problem hasn’t been alleviated, only relocated. And to find where we’ve sent so many of our beloved “problems” packing, one need look no further than the banks of the Cumberland River. Because when it is a crime to be homeless and to dwell as such among the other citizens of Nashville, and when the Rescue Mission, for various and legitimate reasons, is not an option, one is left, like Ronnie Smith and so many others, with only one remaining option: camping. And Tent City, located alongside Inner City Ministries on the banks of the Cumberland River was, until recently, one such place for 140 men and women to do just that.

But as Tent City grew, so did Metro government’s hyper-awareness of it. Before long, though it was by no means the first time in its more than 20-year history that it happened, police officers showed up at the camp in 2008 and posted notices that the camp would be shut down in a matter of weeks and would therefore need to be cleared of all belongings as soon as possible; anything left standing would be razed and anyone remaining would be arrested. And so, after being unable to stay too close to downtown without getting harassed, homeless individuals who retreated to Tent City for some semblance of privacy and freedom were once again told to “move along,” or else face arrest.

That is, until local churches, advocates, and outreach workers stepped in. Offering to clean up the premises, then actually paying for dumpsters, port-o-potties, showers, and bringing in volunteers to pick up trash—all while promising to stand face-to-face with any bulldozer that might tear down tents and well-designed wooden homes to the ground—Tent City’s closure was averted. After rallies and extensive volunteer efforts from ministers, students, and concerned citizens, the word from Mayor Dean at last came down that the camp would not be demolished.

Since then, despite occasional and somewhat subtle attempts by Metro’s police department to reverse Mayor Dean’s order, Tent City has gone from being a homeless encampment perpetually on the verge of destruction to the closest thing Nashville has to an officially-sanctioned “transitional housing” site, with law enforcement recently going so far as to destroy other camps and send their residents packing for Tent City. In the last year, with the help of its closest outreach workers and ever-present volunteers, a Tent City council, made up of Tent City residents, was formed to help keep order and rules intact. If that is not evidence enough of the fact that its residents deeply desire to get their lives back together, they have even initiated and held AA meetings on site, aware that alcohol abuse has often been the root of more than a few problems the camp has faced in its history.

While Tent City has been far from an ideal community, it has been a necessary a one. In a city that promised 2,000 units of low-income housing five years ago and yet has drastically failed to follow through on that promise, a place like Tent City remains inevitable. Not only that, but Nashville’s primary shelters are not legitimate options for individuals in committed relationships, for those who own pets, or for those who have a criminal record. Furthermore, the road from homeless to housed and reintegrated is a long and arduous one—one that is near impossible to manage without a system of support. It is for these reasons that “transitional housing” (what Tent City strives to be) is important. A step above temporary shelter and a step below permanent housing, transitional housing puts a floor beneath the difficult path of downward mobility, allowing homeless individuals to prepare for permanent housing and social reintegration with the guiding help of outreach workers and a community of other homeless men and women in the exact same boat.

But, despite the fact that it has existed on the banks of the Cumberland for over 20 years, and because it has grown so rapidly on land owned by the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), city officials have had no choice but to put a timeline on relocating Tent City. To that end, in February of this year, the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission formed two subcommittees charged with locating an alternative site for the camp, as well as with researching models and structures from officially-sanctioned, transitional encampments like Dignity Village in Portland, OR that could work in Nashville. Progress has been made and more evolved rules and guidelines are in the process of being written with the help of Tent City residents.

While many things have improved at Tent City in the last year—things that have allowed many people to gain the necessary footing to step into housing and better work and a more humane existence—its days have long been numbered. But, to the shock of its residents, it would not, in the end, be the cold machinery of bulldozers that would level Tent City; it would be the unexpectedly volatile Cumberland River come rising over its banks, higher and higher until the top of every last tent and tarp-covered wooden home packed full with every last belonging stood fully submerged beneath its consuming waters.

The flooding of Tent City

When Ronnie Smith woke up Sunday morning, May 2nd, to a small but steady stream of water running in front of his tent (a large tarp fastened over a wooden frame), he wasn’t terribly surprised. “It wasn’t all that unusual,” he said. “So I went back to sleep.” When he woke up fifteen minutes later, however, with water halfway up his bed (a stack of two mattresses on top of two box springs), he began to worry. After a quick glance around his tent in which all of his belongings were floating like debris on the surface of the water, he grabbed the only dry items he had time to reach for: a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. When his feet hit the floor, the water was well above his waistline. Emerging from his tent, he started wading with other residents to higher ground.

One of those other residents was Ruth Simmons, a relative newcomer to Tent City the day the rains began to fall. Waiting to receive word on her disability appeal, and working as a vendor for The Contributor in the meantime, Ruth considered it a gift to be able to live where she did for those brief months. “I was very comfortable there. It was my home.” When she woke up Sunday morning, like any other rainy morning, she, along with Ronnie Smith and so many other Middle Tennesseans, had seemingly no reason to be concerned. Even as the water rose, Simmons says, it didn’t quite sink in what, exactly, was happening. “I was kinda in denial.” That is, until she stepped outside her tent into waist-high water.

An hour or so later, residents began to gather together on higher ground where they met Doug Sanders, outreach minister at Otter Creek Church, who had been given permission by Inner City Ministries to use their bus to transport residents to the Red Cross Shelter that had just been set up at Lipscomb University. Doug, one of the more familiar faces at Tent City in recent years, drove two busloads of residents, about 70 in all (plus more than a dozen pets), to Lipscomb where Tent City residents and approximately 130 non-Tent City residents stayed until Tuesday, May 18th. Another 30 of Tent City’s residents received temporary shelter at Woodbine Presbyterian Church and Green Street Church of Christ, as well. The remainder of the residents went either to a friend’s house or straggled on the edges of the flooded camp until they found someplace else to go.

Of course, it wasn’t just those living on the banks of the Cumberland that felt the force of the record-breaking rainfall. It has been nearly 100 years since Tennessee has seen anything close to the amount of rain that fell those first three days of May. As much as 18 inches of rain fell in some areas, leaving countless streams, rivers, and waterways well above their capacity. The images are unforgettable: the building floating past almost fully submerged tractor trailers on Interstate 24; the tops of stop signs barely visible above the water line; rescuers driving boats down the middle of roads that have never been flooded before; homes and businesses all but buried beneath standing water; people of all ages hanging onto trees and cars for dear life; brown water sneaking up to Second Avenue downtown; and the list goes on—more endless than any one person can know.

But more than the images on the news, every person in Middle Tennessee, whether personally affected or not, knows countless others—family, friends, neighbors—who were. So widespread is the devastation that every Middle Tennessean knows someone who lost every last thing: people whose houses were carried upstream; people whose cars were destroyed; people whose tokens of memory were lost; people who now own nothing but the clothes on their back.

But the storm’s devastating effects have had a rather fortunate result, as well. The true character of a people is given room to reveal itself in the worst of times, and Nashville has proven itself to be more generous than expected. Anyone who spent any time tearing out drywall or tile flooring in a flooded house knows well how many strangers spent days walking through the desolation (in Bellevue, Bordeaux, Franklin, and elsewhere) offering whatever help was needed. At last, the “Volunteer State” has been given the opportunity to prove its nickname unmistakably accurate.

Many have said that natural disasters such as the flooding that struck Middle Tennessee have the ability to act as a great equalizer. While it is true that all socio-economic classes were affected by the storm, its lasting effects will likely not prove equal. For some, losing “everything” means losing those things that can fit inside a two-person tent. When Ruth Simmons, holding back tears, says that she lost “everything”, she means her bed, a few bags of clothing, her personal identification, photos of her children and grandchildren, as well as her Contributor bag and newspapers. All of it now floats somewhere along the banks of the Cumberland River while she strains her mind to figure out some way to start again.

Tent City after the flood

There is no minimizing the degree of loss people all across Middle Tennessee will continue to suffer for a long time to come. But it would be a mistake to pretend that every victim will experience an equal degree of restoration. For those living in Tent City—and let us not forget the countless other riverside homeless encampments of our city—the future is especially uncertain. But just as the people, organizations, and businesses of Middle Tennessee have been given an opportunity to respond compassionately to victims of the flooding living in all areas, so the pre-flood posture of our city—government and public alike—toward our homeless neighbors now has an opportunity to be reexamined and reconsidered. After all, the recent displacement of Tent City due to flooding is not the first displacement its residents have experienced, and it almost certainly will not be the last.

As for what comes next for the displaced residents of Tent City, there is much still to be determined. Metro has officially condemned the land on which Tent City stood for so many years; saturated with raw sewage, upturned port-o-potties, diesel fuel, and other contaminants, it is no longer a place where humans can live in relative health and peace. But then, we might ask, when has living under a bridge or by a river ever been an acceptable form of human dwelling in a land of such plenty?

The immediate goal is to locate an alternate site for Tent City to be relocated. Calls for land in the downtown vicinity have been sent throughout the city, but those calls, as of the writing of this article, have yet to be answered satisfactorily. Donations of tents and sleeping bags have, however, been plentiful, and will certainly be used, but not until land is found.

The long-term goal is to move the camp to a permanent location before the end of the year. But both the temporary and permanent sites will continue to move away from the sort of camp where anyone can come and go and camp whenever they’d like, toward the sort of camp where people who are serious about making every effort to get back on their feet are given the means to do so. All in all, the goal will be to offer a dignified alternative to living on the streets or in shelters—streets and shelters that either do not welcome or cannot accommodate everyone.

The good news is that, in the wake of the flood, many Tent City residents have received aid from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). In addition, a number of Tent City residents have been approved for Section 8 housing vouchers. But even so, it may take months, if not longer, to secure actual housing locations for those residents. This may prove especially challenging in a city that is drastically under-resourced when it comes to low-income housing options. As for the rest of Tent City’s residents, some have received hotel vouchers that will last for a few weeks, while others will take refuge inside the walls of a handful of area churches that have been gracious enough to show hospitality to those left with no other place to go. But hotel rooms and emergency shelters are viable options for only so long, which is why the request for land in the downtown vicinity on which Tent City may be allowed to reestablish itself—as a well-organized transitional housing site—remains the most dire need at the present moment.

In the end, a city like Nashville—with all its churches, non-profits, and government institutions—certainly does not have to stand alongside the very poorest of its displaced flood victims. Indeed, there is no official law stating that a city must care for those whose lives have consisted of one disabling tragedy after another—those who, after the flooding of the Cumberland River, have found themselves displaced for what seems like the hundredth time. But there is no better moment than the present for the people of Nashville to reflect on what it means to be a city that cares for all of its citizens, no matter their socio-economic status. For if it is indeed true that “We Are Nashville” as the slogan says, then it is eminently important that none be excluded from that “We”—that none be left wanting after we’ve congratulated ourselves for being such a generous city. If “We Are Nashville”, then we will open our doors—and our land—to Ronnie, to Ruth, and to all the others left with no other place to go.

How the Light Gets In

by Lindsey Krinks (published in the May 2010 issue of The Contributor)

It is easy to find stories of loss, despair, and devastation on the streets. Such stories are as endless as the countless faces of the men, women, and children who stand daily in breadlines across the world. And such stories are important, for they bear witness to the atrocities that happen in the margins—atrocities which often go unnoticed. Yes, on the streets, funerals abound and loneliness descends like a plague. We are broken people living in a broken society. But in the midst of such brokenness, there are glimpses of hope, hospitality, and community. “There is a crack in everything,” croons poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen. “That’s how the light gets in.” Let this be a tribute to the light that seeps through the cracks, to the brief moments of beauty, clarity, and renewal that overcome the dark, grueling chaos of the streets.

Hope against all odds

Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter in the Christian tradition, was, for first century disciples, a day of mourning, uncertainty, and “standing in the void” between death and life. This year on Holy Saturday, a group of us spent the day on the streets with our brothers and sisters in a period of contemplation and reverence. While we were waiting in line for food at the Jefferson Street Bridge, we mingled with our friends and listened to their stories. In the middle of a conversation, I felt a light tap on my shoulder and heard a voice ask, “Lindsey, is that you?” I turned around to see a tall, handsome man in his fifties and it took only a second for me to realize who he was. “Indiana!” I shouted, as I hugged him. My eyes filled with tears—I was utterly stunned to see him.

Indiana was one of the first people that I truly connected with on the streets, and for nearly a year, I have wondered about him. I’ve wondered if he was dead, locked away in jail, or roaming the streets of some distant city. I met him on a cool, rainy day last March, and we connected instantly. He was filthy, soiled, and toothless, but he had a twinkle in his brown eyes that I will never forget. Every few days, he stumbled to our office reeking of mouthwash, his pants saturated in his own urine, barely able to stand. Because of his poor health, he had to lean on a crutch or a shopping cart to get around. My coworkers and I worked with him for months and months and nothing changed. He was an old hippie—an ex-member of “The Rainbow Family”—and thus highly skeptical of institutions. He wasn’t ready to get the help he needed, but we continued to build a relationship with him, give him clean, dry pants, and help him down to the shower. We watched him cycle in and out of jail and the hospital, and finally, finally, he agreed to try treatment. “You got a life,” he said to me one day, “and just like you got one, I want one, too. I want mine back.”

I still remember the day I drove him out to the VA in Murfreesboro for detox and treatment—we listened to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon to calm his nerves. After treatment, he got into a local transitional housing facility and shortly thereafter he left and we lost track of him. I figured he had relapsed and hitchhiked back to Indiana, but there he stood before me: alive, articulate, sober, healthy, and smiling with a new set of teeth. He stood before me resurrected, and I was as astounded as doubting Thomas. He told me that he thinks of us often and is thankful for us. “Do you remember what you ladies told me before I left?” he asked. “You said when I was sober and in housing, you would take me out to eat. Well, I want to take you guys out to eat!” he beamed. Yes, on Holy Saturday, life seemed devastating, bleak, and confusing. But even today, in the midst of darkness and uncertainty, resurrection is happening all around us, if we only have eyes to see.

Hospitality in the margins

“Until we find each other, we are alone,” writes poet Adrienne Rich, and who knows this better than the marginalized, forgotten, and overlooked members of our community? Through my work with Nashville’s homeless community, I’ve often seen more faith and hospitality on the streets than I’ve seen in many of our churches. Over the last two years, there have been a handful of vulnerable homeless individuals we’ve worked with that no service providers would take because these individuals “didn’t fit criteria”: the elderly, uninsured man with Alzheimer’s; the gnomish, schizophrenic 54-year-old with the mental capacity of an eight-year-old who wasn’t “sick” or “violent” enough for a state hospital but not “well” enough for other service providers; the nearly blind, chronically ill, mentally disabled man who was told he was a “fire hazard” by the only transitional shelter in town that almost accepted him. My coworkers and I spent countless hours with each of these individuals trying to locate the services they desperately needed, and were turned down by almost every service provider in Nashville. We were frustrated, burnt out, and utterly sick at the subtle violence of a system that cannot grasp mercy because the barriers of “criteria” and “policy” have grown too thick, too high.

Each time, after we failed to locate resources for our vulnerable friends, the only place we found hospitality was in the margins—specifically in Tent City. You see, when we visit with our friends at Tent City, they often ask us how things are going. Sometimes, we recount frustrating circumstances with them (while observing HIPPA, of course). With each of the three circumstances above, residents of Tent City offered to make space in their camp for our vulnerable friends. Two such residents even said of the 54-year-old, “He can stay in our ‘hospital wing’ and we’ll make sure he’s safe. We can share our Food Stamps with him and since church groups come to feed all the time, he’ll be okay.” Indeed, they had a hospital wing in their camp where they once cared for a man who was uninsured and had a broken back and two broken arms. Other residents of Tent City cared for the man with Alzheimer’s when no one else in our city would. Maybe those of us who feel compelled to bring Jesus to the “least of these” should consider that, perhaps, he is already there in the margins with them.

Community and commitment

For every person and congregation in Nashville who is disconnected from the lives and stories of the poor, there are also people and congregations who are engaged. The engaged and committed groups are those who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty and realize that people are not problems to be fixed; they are brothers and sisters to be loved and journeyed with.

Ethos Church is a fairly new church in Nashville whose mission is simply to love God and love people. They have about 600 members and hold services at the Cannery Ballroom on 8^th Avenue every Sunday night. They don’t meet at the Cannery because it’s a trendy music venue; they meet there because it’s close to the heart of the city and accessible to their members who are homeless. Ethos has embraced the countless members of Nashville’s homeless community and invited them into their lives and homes. A little over a year ago, Popcorn joined their church. Popcorn was homeless, African-American, endearingly flamboyant, and HIV positive. Last fall, the doctors told Popcorn his “T cell” count was dangerously low and that he only had a couple of months to live. Immediately, Ethos raised the money to keep Popcorn in housing and helped to make provisions for hospice care.

As Thanksgiving and Christmas approached, Popcorn’s body grew weaker, but his spirits remained high. His friends from Ethos visited him, brought him food, and prayed and laughed with him. The week of his death, Popcorn was surrounded by his closest friends and family members around the clock. Despite his young, tragic death, Popcorn lived and loved with everything he had, and there was no doubt that he was loved by many. When the time came for funeral preparations, Ethos stepped up again. Their members generously funded the funeral and invited Popcorn’s family to a potluck dinner afterward.

The memorial service was held on a chilly night in January and the room was packed with a mosaic of African-American members of Popcorn’s family and members of Ethos who are primarily white and in their 20s. Tears, laughter, hugs, and memories were shared and it was clear that this was a glimpse of the “beloved community” that Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about so eloquently. Afterward, everyone gathered together for a huge meal where there was singing, storytelling, and more laughter and tears. Members from Popcorn’s family were deeply moved and told Ethos, “We’ll see you at your church on Sunday!”

Earlier this week, I received a call from a librarian, “Francis,” in Sumner County. She told me that she had recently taken in a homeless couple. “The guy is 23 and the girl is 20 and nine months pregnant,” she said. “Both are mentally handicapped.” Francis is a single mother with three children, two of whom are living at home. Her family has embraced the couple and converted their living room into a nursery. I asked Francis what we could do to help. “Well, we have all of the baby things they need, I signed them up for Food Stamps, WIC, and TennCare, and we’ve been watching videos about birthing, nursing, and parenting. The 23-year-old has been looking for work and has applied at Goodwill, but we are taking care of them and they are welcome to stay at the house right now. I want to eventually help them get back on their feet, but the baby is due any day, so we’re taking it one step at a time.” I was stunned. A librarian who is also a single mother and probably struggles financially herself, had taken in a pregnant handicapped couple in need. We talked for some time, going over resources, housing possibilities, and their situation. Francis said she wants the couple to have support and thinks this might be the first time they’ve been in a trusting, healthy relationship with someone else. She explained that she was just doing what needed to be done. I told her that we would support them any way we could and we talked about how one of the “common denominators” of homelessness is, to use a Wendell Berry term, “community disintegration.” If a falling away of community contributes to someone becoming homeless, then part of the solution must be building community back around the person.

Ethos didn’t see Popcorn as a “problem to be fixed,” and Francis didn’t see the homeless couple as a charity project. Both Ethos and Francis fully embraced these individuals and committed to journeying with them through thick and thin. Popcorn passed away and there is no telling what is in store for the soon-to-be-parents, but true mercy and love are never contingent on outcomes and results. In other words, if we glue together all the cracks of the world, how will the light get in?

Oscar Romero, former Archbishop of the capitol of El Salvador, was fiercely committed to standing beside the impoverished and oppressed and even publically condemned his country’s corrupt government and military from the pulpit. He was finally assassinated by government allies in 1980 while celebrating Mass. The “Romero Prayer” was later composed in his memory and reads, “We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing this. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”

May we all have the courage to take a step in the direction of embracing others, living among the cracks, and rejoicing in the glimpses of hope, hospitality, and community discovered therein.