
Family Homelessness in the “It City”
As the Resource Coordinator for Open Table, I talk on the phone often with people trying to navigate the complicated web of social services in Nashville. I talk to folks with all sorts of different experiences and life stories, but lately I’ve been noticing a recurring theme in my work: family homelessness. It seems like every day, I receive a call from another family who has lost their housing because the landlord decided to sell, new management raised the rent, or a vague eviction notice simply provided an “out-by” date. Families who had a home within their budget have been forced out with little opportunity to find a comparable rental property to accommodate both their budgets and the size of their families. In these situations, the only immediate option, the local rescue mission, isn’t even an option for many families. The mission provides a very important service for unhoused folks in our community, but for some families—such as single fathers, families with teenage boys, families with parents who need to be together for emotional or other needs—it isn’t a viable option. In these cases, parents are left without a safe place to take themselves and their children.
Full disclosure, I am a mother of a toddler. This colors my view of the world, and I hope it can be an asset in some situations. A lot of parents joke (though with some truth) about “surviving” parenthood. I certainly have days where survival feels like an accomplishment. For families experiencing unstable housing, displacement, and homelessness, survival takes on a whole new meaning. Survival means not just getting through toddler meltdowns and sleepless nights; it means finding enough to eat, doing whatever it takes to have a safe place for your children to sleep at night, fighting to keep your family together, hoping to avoid illness, and praying that somehow this broken system won’t overlook you and your family.