Summer has only just begun, and Nashville already experienced a dangerous heat wave that has left outreach groups concerned about how the high temperatures are impacting the city’s unhoused population.
Will Compton, a resource specialist with Open Table Nashville, explained that without access to air conditioning or running water, unhoused people are especially vulnerable to this kind of extreme weather.
“The main concern is exposure-related illnesses: heat stroke, heat exhaustion and severe sunburn, severe dehydration and, at its worst, death,” he said.
Compton pointed out that over a dozen people across the southwest have died from this heat wave already.
A few times a week, Open Table Nashville makes trips to the major homeless encampments around town to drop off supplies like cold water, food, medical supplies and clothing.
The TA encampment, located just a few a few blocks from Nissan Stadium, is one of their regular stops. Named for the nearby truck stop, it’s made up of dozens of tents and tarps clustered around a narrow path leading back to an overpass.
As he walked through the camp, Compton stopped periodically to let residents know that he had arrived and to meet him at his car for supplies. Just as he was about to head back to the main road, he ran into Trey, who lives at the far end of the path.
As they walked back to the car together, Trey said that the recent high temperatures have been hard on the community.
“I think a lot of us can get irritable too, with the heat,” he said. “It’s hard for everybody out here.”
Still, Trey said he and his neighbors usually try to look out for each other.
He explained that many of the people living in the TA encampment have health issues, which sometimes flare up in the heat and make it hard to move. So when someone like Compton comes around with supplies, it’s important to help out.
“If you know somebody is coming with supplies and has food and water and stuff, it’s like, make sure everybody gets the opportunity to go get it. Let people know that may be sleeping or, you know, have a tough time getting out of their camp area,” he said.
The TA encampment is one of the biggest in Nashville, and Compton said that it’s gotten bigger.
“It’s definitely grown since I was last here,” he said.
A recent performance report from the Metro Homeless Impact Division shows that between 2019 and 2022, the number of people experiencing homelessness for the first time increased by almost 75%.
Greg Shinn, one of the authors of the report, explained that these numbers reflect broader national trends.
“This comes at the end of the pandemic and also at the realization in communities across the country that there is a lack of affordable housing,” he said. “Even with the eviction moratorium that was in place, more people were falling into homelessness and so you’re seeing these increasing numbers that are quite startling, actually.”
Expanding resources to fight evictions before people become homeless could be key in bringing those numbers down, he added.
On the other hand, the report shows that, in 2022, people spent less time homeless before they made it into an emergency shelter, safe haven or transitional housing compared to past years, and they were less likely to return to homelessness within six months of getting into permanent housing.
The long-term picture is bleaker.
People were just as likely, or even slightly more likely, to return to homelessness after that six-month mark, in part because of a lack of long-term affordable housing.
As temperatures remain high this summer, groups like Open Table Nashville and the Metro Homeless Impact Division will continue to make supply runs to distribute food, cold water and bug spray to communities, including the TA encampment.
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