Homeless Facility Expands, Adds Apartments

The Room in the Inn’s Campus for Human Development broke ground Thursday on an 11 million dollar center that will substantially increase its capacity to help Nashville’s homeless.

Father Charlie Strobel speaks at the Campus for Human Development’s groundbreaking ceremony.

The Campus for Human Development’s Community Choir sang “Lean on Me” as local dignitaries and homeless people made ceremonial digs in the ground. The new, five-story structure will be erected immediately behind the modest brick box of a building that currently houses the charity.

The Campus’ choir, made up of homeless people and volunteers

A highlight of the new facility will be 38 affordable apartments. Room at the Inn founder Father Charlie Strobel says many people become overwhelmingly lonely when they leave the streets to live on their own. In contrast, he says the campus will provide a sense of community for the people who live in the apartments.

“It’s been my experience that what people need to not only make the journey but to thrive on that journey is a safe environment that contains relationships that are full of love, that are full of learning, and provide healing.”

The new building will also allow Room in the Inn to more than double its current programs of day shelter, education, free meals and dormitory style transitional housing for the homeless.

Comparing it to an altar call at the end of a church service, Father Strobel invited the audience to symbolically move shovels-full of dirt as a sign of support for Room at the Inn.

The organization has 9 million dollars in hand for the new structure. It still needs to raise 2 million for construction, plus another 2 million to cover operating costs.