Listen Now:

Homeless men and women line up for a night off the streets

A soft-spoken 67-year-old priest dressed in jeans and a tie-dyed t-shirt is having a rock star moment. It’s a Monday evening and Father Charles Strobel is on a second story balcony smiling ear-to-ear.

About 100 homeless are gazing up, cheering. It’s the first night of Strobel’s Room In The Inn, now in its 25th year. He leans over the railing and shouts to the men and women huddled below, “We’re back!”

The crowd is waiting for congregations from all over Nashville to pick them up and take them in for the night, providing a bed and a meal. Though Strobel hopes for more than cots and casseroles.

“Oh yeah, vending machines can feed people,” he chuckles. “The spirit is to engage people and in the process of that engagement learning how alike we are.”

This idealism stems from his experiences as a kid growing up in Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood.

Charles Strobel

An Unlikely Childhood Friendship

Strobel walks down a brick sidewalk near his childhood home. He notes that sixty years ago trendy condos and refurbished houses were not around.

“A lot of these lots had some beautiful stately homes,” he says. “But a lot of them also fell into disrepair.”

There were struggling families. Homeless people lived in the area. His mother, Mary-Catherine, always invited them in for a meal. She called them her friends. She had no idea her 10-year-old and a pal were tearing through a homeless camp on bikes with firecrackers, a game they called fighter pilot.

“We said let’s ride through there when they’re asleep and throw the cherry bombs in the campfire and let them explode,” recalls Strobel.

Even as a boy he knew it was wrong. When he went to apologize, he met Clayton Massey, an ex-Marine with tales of war and a failed shot at the major leagues. The sixty-year-old who drank paint thinner and soda and the catholic schoolboy became buddies.

“I used to say Clayton that’s going kill you. He’d say ‘no, no it won’t kill you if you know the formula,’” Strobel says imitating Massey’s low, grizzly voice.

“Well, I never knew the formula and I never drank it either but he must’ve known the formula because he lived a long time.”

Strobel says Massey was a severe alcoholic. He was also kind, funny, more than a so-called “bum.” Room In The Inn is Strobel’s way of encouraging others to peel off that “bum” label.

The Enduring Success and Early Tragedy of Room In The Inn

“We’re excited to have you guys,” Pastor Roy Carter says as he takes a seat in his church van. He turns around to the seven men and makes small talk.

“Are you originally from Nashville?” he asks.

The van is headed out to Carter’s Green Hills Presbyterian church.

It took a year to convince his congregation that having potential addicts and ex-felons sleep over, wasn’t a bad idea. He says fears have diminished after just a few nights spent eating and talking with homeless guests.

Pastor Carter chats with overnight visitors

“You going have a homeless shelter in the middle of Green Hills probably going to have petitions and everything else going on,” says Carter. “But when you bring the people here it’s sort of like, hey you’re going to have to deal with it now. They’re right here with us, you know?”

The idea is that that may lead to acceptance and forgiveness – pillars of Room in the Inn. During its second year, both were severely tested.

“We were just beginning the first week of Room In The Inn when we as a family learned mom had gone missing.” Strobel quietly recalls.

Mary Catherine Strobel was found murdered on December 9, 1986, her body stuffed into the trunk of her car that was found near the Rescue Mission. The police, the public assumed the killer was homeless.

“We had to go through all the grief, trouble, anxiety and all that followed,” says Strobel who still has a tough time talking about it.

His niece, Amy Seigenthaler, remembers feeling numb after the murder. When her uncle and the rest of the family publicly asked that anger be set aside, it jolted her.

“ I remember being so shocked by what had happened,” she says. “But also being so shocked at the position they took and how quickly they took it. Within a matter of hours they were talking about forgiveness.”

It turns out a homeless man wasn’t guilty. It was an escapee from a mental hospital. Still, Strobel’s reaction drew many to his side. Room In The Inn started that year with four churches providing shelter. The following year there were 80. The number continues to rise. And eleven other cities from Charlotte to Calgary have now adopted the program. In Nashville, Strobel still greets the often familiar crowd.

For One Night At Least

“You haven’t been around too much,” he says to a burly homeless man carrying a red backpack.

“I went to Birmingham, Alabama. I built a house,” the man replies. He goes by Moose. His large grin shrivels when he says work has dried up. As names are called to meet waiting church vans, Moose struggles with goodbye.

“You saved me from dying in 1998. Remember that?” Moose asks leaning into Strobel. “When you sent me to alcoholics anonymous? When I almost died? You saved my life son.”

It’s hard to tell if Moose is still sober but Strobel doesn’t judge. He’s happy to have run into Moose, and it’s good to know that tonight he’ll get a warm bed, hot meal, and hopefully some friendly conversation.

(Note: Charles Strobel is not an active minister in the Catholic Church)

More: