The number of homeless veterans in Nashville has declined in the past few years. But there are still many former service members without a permanent place to live.
The city has 172 veterans experiencing what’s called “literal homelessness.” These are people sleeping in cars, shelters and other places where humans aren’t meant to consistently lay their heads.
In South Nashville, the Glastonbury Woods apartment complex was recently acquired by the nonprofit Community Solutions — to help unhoused residents — in partnership with the Metro government.
The property closed for $20.6 million. The nonprofit has a specific goal of housing veterans and turning the 144-unit complex into a mixed-income property that’s accessible to local residents.
“The reason why we come in and buy properties like this is because they don’t stay affordable for long,” David Foster says, who manages the group’s large cities housing fund. “What we do is kind of preserve them as affordable.
Foster says the property implements what’s known as social impact investing, where investors give up potential profits in order to make an impact in a specific community. The investors in the property will stay involved for 10 years. It’ll then be sold to a nonprofit.
“In this case, they’d be taking a lower financial return than they would on another real estate investment,” he adds, “but they know that they are working to end veterans’ homelessness in Nashville.”
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