MHC/CoC Governance

Dear community member,

​

You were directed to this site because at one point during the past year you indicated your interest in the current discussions about homeless governance in Nashville.

​

Simply stated, Nashville/Davidson County has a dual governance structure around homelessness. In other words, there are two boards with the same goal, which is to build a Housing Crisis Resolution System that outlines how we effectively end homelessness in Nashville. 

​

Ending homelessness does not mean that no person or family will ever lose their housing again. Rather, it means that we have built a system that allows us to prevent homelessness whenever possible, and when not possible, to move individuals or families back into a permanent housing situation as quickly as we can, thereby making homeless occurrences rare, brief, and non-recurring. 

​

To build such a systems approach, we need all types of programs involved and we must work as a community to determine how we should deploy our limited resources to most effectively assist people with their particular needs. 

​

Nashville currently has two boards tasked to do this work: the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission and the Continuum of Care Governance Board. The Homelessness Commission is locally funded while the CoC Governance Board has focused on federal funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) CoC funding source. 

​

The scopes of both boards are too narrow to build an effective Housing Crisis Resolution System. That's why our community is now engaging in discussions of how we can take the best of both boards and build a new, unified board structure.

​

This website is a temporary site to help keep you updated on what is happening in our governance discussions. Even if you cannot attend every meeting, you can still obtain the relevant information here. The Metropolitan Homelessness Commission staff will post brief meeting recaps in the blog on the home page and provide you with links to external resources for more in-depth information.  In this way, you can follow the governance discussions as they occur.

​

This is an informational site only, not a forum or tool to engage in online discussions. if you are interested in being a part of the conversation, we encourage you to participate in the meetings, which are open to the public. 

​

You are also welcome to email me directly with input and questions at judith.tackett@nashville.gov.

​