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Nashville humanitarian and founder of Room In The Inn Charles Strobel dies at 80 years old

Courtesy of Room in the Inn
Charles Strobel, founder of Room in the Inn, died Sunday at 80.
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It was a cold winter night in 1985 when Father Charles Strobel invited the unhoused people sleeping in the church parking lot inside his parish. That act was the seed that one of Nashville’s most well-known shelters — Room In The Inn — grew from.

Strobel died over the weekend at the age of 80.

In a video posted to the Room In The Inn YouTube a few months ago, Strobel reflected on his legacy.

“Over the past 36 years, I’ve used many images to describe the importance of Room In The Inn,” Strobel said. “I’ve described the program as a sanctuary from the violence of the streets, or Ellis Island for urban refugees.”

Thousands of people have found shelter through Room In The Inn, and have accessed workforce training and even permanent housing help through its programming.

“Today, I join my fellow Nashvillians in mourning the passing of Father Charles Strobel,” Mayor John Cooper said. “His lifelong advocacy for the poor and homeless was a shining example to all of us of how to lift up those less fortunate than us.”

Paige Pfleger, Criminal Justice Reporter

Paige Pfleger covers criminal justice for WPLN News. She has investigated guns and juvenile justice as a fellow with ProPublica's Local Reporting Network, and her investigation into domestic violence and firearms dispossession won a regional Edward R. Murrow award and was a finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and a Livingston Award. She previously covered criminal justice and addiction in Ohio and was named the state's reporter of the year by the Associated Press. Her work has appeared nationally on NPR, The Washington Post, Marketplace, and PRI's The World, and she has worked in the newsrooms of The Tennessean, Michigan Radio, WHYY, Vox and NPR headquarters in DC.

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