The debate continues over COVID-19 money to clean up homeless encampments in Nashville parks

A proposal to use coronavirus relief money to remove some homeless encampments in Nashville is facing criticism from councilmembers and advocates.

Last month, Metro Parks requested nearly $2 million for equipment to clean up several encampments, as well as to place surveillance cameras in parks where people sleep. That ask has since raised multiple concerns about how the city is handling its housing crisis.

At a COVID-19 Oversight Committee meeting last month, Metro Parks Director Monique Odom said the pandemic had greatly increased the number of people living in city green spaces. She said her department is working with both government and community partners on a long-term solution to the homelessness crisis.

“If we don’t resolve the homelessness issue in our city, it’s just going to show up in someone else’s city,” Odom said. “It will show up somewhere else. Or they will come back to that space.”

In the meantime, though, she says the department needs to keep its parks safe and clean.

But Councilmember Colby Sledge thinks cameras and Bobcats are not the best use of government money. He’d rather see the funding go to the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

“The biggest solution to homelessness is housing,” Sledge says. “If you just remove the cameras, right? If you just remove the $480,000 — that amount, if it were given to the Barnes Fund, could build 10 affordable units, or it could rehab almost 50.”

Sledge points out that, while the city is contemplating funding to clear homeless encampments, it has yet to break ground on a permanent supportive housing project that received funding back in 2019. The site, which was proposed during then-Mayor David Briley’s administration, would provide both homes and support services for those experiencing homelessness.

Sledge proposes giving some coronavirus money to the parks system, but not for surveillance. He thinks the cameras would violate people’s privacy and could have unintended consequences if proper safeguards aren’t in place to manage how the footage is used.

Another councilmember has asked to slash the funding for bulldozers, too.

Metro Parks says the equipment would not be used to clear occupied encampments — just those that have been abandoned. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office also defended the cameras, saying in an email that they are “intended to protect unhoused individuals by detecting and deterring possible criminal activity.”

But, beyond the funding request, some community groups have criticized officials for inviting councilmembers to tour homeless encampments before voting on the funding proposals. Open Table Nashville, a nonprofit that supports people experiencing homelessness, said on Twitter that those who “consented and contributed to this plan should be ashamed.”

“The idea of a ‘tour’ of homeless encampments that doesn’t involve the voices, input, or leadership of residents and treats human beings like wild animals is not only problematic, it’s utterly demoralizing,” the group wrote. They added that coronavirus relief funding should be used to provide housing, not destroy it.

If Mayor John Cooper is truly committed to providing housing for our friends in the lowest income brackets, he would put his energy into beginning construction on the 80+ units of low-income housing just north of downtown that was promised over two years ago.

— Open Table Nashville (@OpenTableNash) November 8, 2021

The mayor’s office noted that it has devoted funding to multiple other initiatives to address homelessness and said the purpose of the visits had been “misinterpreted.”

Meanwhile, the office also made a last-minute request of its own at the latest COVID-19 Oversight Committee meeting Wednesday. It wants the Metro Council to set aside more than $20 million in COVID funds for affordable housing. The money would include $10 million for the Barnes Fund, $10 million for a catalyst fund that would allow developers to quickly buy properties and transform them into affordable units and $200,000 to create a centralized and user-friendly website with all of the city’s affordable housing listings.

The funding proposals are expected to come up for a vote in the coming weeks.