NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Homelessness in the Nashville area has increased within the past year, and city leaders are revisiting whether COVID-19 response pods could provide shelter.

The pods, purchased with a state grant during the pandemic, have been sitting at the Nashville Office of Emergency Management for two years, collecting dust. Metro’s Homeless Planning Council sought nonprofit partners to operate them earlier this year through a request for proposals, but no groups applied.

“[With] this economy and everything going on, there are more people on the streets,” said Meredith MacLeod Jaulin, co-founder of Shower the People, a nonprofit that provides mobile showers and laundry services across the Metro area.

Jaulin said her group would be interested in running a pod program — if the city provided help with funding. 

“It would be a great solution, but we don’t have the funding to be able to support adding that new program. We'd love to help run it if somebody wanted to give us a bunch of money to run the program, we'd happily do it. We just don't have the funding,” MacLeod Jaulin said. “The RFP doesn’t have that support with it, so it’s basically like, 'Here, you can have these buildings, but you got to find the land.'”

Metro Councilmember Erin Evans has pressed for answers on the pods, saying nonprofits need more clarity before taking on the responsibility. 

“Probably shouldn’t have bought them, number one,” Evans said.

Evans cited reduced federal allocations and funding uncertainty as major barriers for nonprofits.  She said the city needs to address staffing, security and location concerns before the pods can be a viable option.

Advocates like Jaulin said stable housing, even small-scale, can be life-changing.

“Whether it’s small or not, gives them such ownership and responsibility and purpose,” Jaulin said.

Metro has until 2026 to decide whether to use the pods locally, reallocate them to other cities in Tennessee or keep them for disaster response.

News Source : https://www.wkrn.com/news/covid-19-response-pods-future-options/