Statements
Mission
Our Guiding Principle: Through the power of spirituality and the practice of love, Room in the Inn provides hospitality with a respect that offers hope in a community of non-violence. These seven core values assist us in carrying out our Mission: To provide programs that emphasize human development and recovery through education, self-help and work, centered in community and long term support for those who call the streets of Nashville home.
Background
RITI began in the winter of 1986, when our founder Charles Strobel, then the priest at Holy Name Catholic Church, opened the doors of his congregation to individuals seeking shelter. The following winter season, Charlie invited four congregations to partner with him in sheltering individuals experiencing homelessness. Those four turned into 31 by the end of March 1987. In a typical year, RITI partners with over 100 congregations representing many faith traditions, college campuses, community groups, and over 7,000 volunteers to shelter thousands of neighbors from November through March.
While RITI's roots remain in our emergency winter shelter program, RITI has evolved over its nearly four decades in existence to provide much more than just shelter. It is now Nashville's only comprehensive, year-round, single site of services for individuals experiencing homelessness, where individuals connect to a wide array of wrap-around services that address their multi-faceted needs and provide much needed stability in their lives. We offer crisis support and long-term solutions focused on four areas: Health, Education, Income, and Housing.
RITI has become a model of a successful public/private partnership, collaborating with local government, social service agencies, congregations, healthcare providers, businesses, and volunteers to support and build relationships with the unhoused in our community. Additionally, RITI works with community partners to bring specialized services to our campus; including mental health, recovery and addiction resources, VA services, and free legal support. Through our numerous strategic partnerships, we are able to lean on each other's expertise to improve access for our most vulnerable neighbors.
RITI provides day shelter and essential services such as showers, laundry, meals, education and mail services for Nashville's homeless community. We work to ensure access to permanent housing by employing a holistic, strengths-based approach to assessing the needs, by eliminating barriers to entitlements and housing, and by preparing our community for stability through education and continued support built on personal relationships.
Impact
RITI's Winter Shelter program partners with Middle Tennessee congregations who offer hospitality to their neighbors through overnight shelter at their facilities or at a central location on the Room In The Inn campus from November 1st- March 31st.
RITI's Hope University encompasses our daytime services offered year-round at our downtown campus. This includes supportive services, meal programs, education programs, and assistance with access to income and housing opportunities.
The Guest House is our comprehensive transitional recovery community. It houses Nashville's only recuperative care program for medically fragile individuals to stabilize after being released from the hospital, transitional programs for veterans (in partnership with the Veterans Administration), supportive living for older adults, reentry for individuals following incarceration, and other transitional recovery programs.
RITI's permanent supportive housing community now offers 48 permanent supportive housing apartments at our downtown campus. Through this model, residents receive ongoing support services while remaining in stable, permanent housing.
RITI serves the needs of men and women experiencing homelessness across Middle Tennessee. Our campus is located in downtown Nashville and serves as a point of entry for thousands of individuals experiencing homelessness each year.
We also serve unique populations that haven't been successful in or are unable to utilize larger shelters. Our population includes especially vulnerable residents, those struggling with addiction, the medically and cognitively fragile, aging adults, young adults, and special populations with limited shelter options including those with complicated backgrounds. For each of these populations, we have worked to create processes and systems where they feel welcomed, safe, and are able to access the essential services they desperately need.
Needs
We believe that informed citizenry for the greater Nashville community is critical to the future of RITI and to the individuals that we serve. The best way to become an informed citizen is to join us as a volunteer. Opportunities to serve at our campus or through your congregation's Winter Shelter program is a great way to connect.
Our daily meal program is an excellent opportunity for volunteers, congregations, businesses and organizations to be involved in serving our community. This allows the greater community to build relationships and become informed about the circumstances surrounding homelessness by engaging directly with individuals who are experiencing it.
Individuals and groups can also volunteer at our campus teaching a class, hosting an engagement activity, sorting mail or other activities that help us serve our unhoused neighbors.
For more information about our volunteer needs and next steps, contact us at: volunteer@roomintheinn.org.
CEO Statement
THE GIVERS AND THE RECEIVERS
When friends and acquaintances learn what I do for a living, they tend to have a lot of questions about the community we serve at Room In The Inn. I am always willing to engage in these conversations, knowing that stereotypes or isolated incidents are sometimes the only experience they have with the unhoused community.
In these conversations, I also welcome the hard and awkward questions and encourage candid conversation. That's how we learn and we grow together in community; even if it feels a little messy at times.
Room In The Inn is more than just a job; it is an intentional community that I choose to be a part of. Those we serve are not our clients or customers, they are choosing to be a part of this community as well. When someone walks through our doors they become our guest. They are participants in our education programs. They are residents in the Guest House recovery programs. Most importantly, they are our neighbors.
A neighbor can be defined by proximity-a person who lives next to or across from you. Merriam-Webster also defines neighbor as your "fellow man." I believe that is the meaning from the scripture "love your neighbor as yourself."
At Room In The Inn, we are a community of neighbors.
In the courtyard, near our front entrance, sits a bronze statue that we have affectionately named Skippy. Skippy isn't based on one specific person, but is representative of every person. In both hands, he holds half of a sandwich. The right hand is lifted to appear that the sandwich is being offered to another person. It could also be that the hand is lifted to accept the sandwich from someone else. It all depends on how you look at.
Charlie Strobel was very involved in the design and installation of the statue. He loved that Room In The Inn was an opportunity for the housed and unhoused to "share" in community together.
Being a part of the Room In The Inn community, I have learned that we are far more alike that we are different. We are called to meet people where they are and to accept people for who they are. Likewise, I am grateful that those in our community meet me and accept me just as I am. It is a gift that I humbly accept on a daily basis.
Thank you for giving and receiving as part of the Room In The Inn community.
You are a blessing!
Rachel Hester
Executive Director, Room In The Inn
Board Chair Statement
Dear Friends,
It is with immense gratitude that we gather together, once again, to continue the work of sheltering our neighbors who call the streets of Nashville home. Though never easy, we continue to grow in knowledge and understanding, by making the commitment to keep showing up.
Since 1986, Room In The Inn has been a consistent place of refuge for the unhoused community in Nashville. What started as a simple act of kindness-welcoming a stranger in for a night of rest-has become a community wide effort of radical hospitality and unconditional love. Your congregation is critical in offering this gift year after year.
Thousands of volunteers have shared their time and talent with the guests at Room In The Inn. Making beds, preparing and serving meals, playing games, folding laundry, leading recovery meetings, teaching art classes, or sharing cups of coffee and conversation; all of these acts of service are gifts to our community and to each other.
Richard Eyre is quoted as saying that "change begins with understanding and understanding begins by identifying oneself with another person: in a word, empathy." At Room In The Inn, we consider this gained understanding as an informed citizenry. When one sits across the table from someone experiencing homelessness and connects on a personal level, one's heart is touched in a way that allows insight and understanding of their situation and our common humanity.
Through the power of spirituality and the practice of love, Room In The Inn provides hospitality with a respect that offers hope in a community of non-violence. Thanks to the collective generosity of our community, we are able to work together to foster a better and more stable future for our neighbors experiencing homelessness.
We are better together. As we prepare for our 38th Winter Season, we are thankful for the diverse and loving community that surrounds and embraces us. On behalf of the Room In The Inn Board of Directors and staff, thank you for opening your hearts and your hands of compassion.
Faithfully,
The Rev. Gene B. Manning
Board President, Room In The Inn
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Human Services - Homeless Services/Centers |
| Secondary Category: | Housing, Shelter - Temporary Housing |
| Tertiary Category: | Education - Adult Education |
Areas Served
Room In The Inn is the only single site of services for people who are homeless in Middle Tennessee. We partner with agencies throughout Middle Tennessee to help those in need as well as serve many at our downtown campus who have arrived in Nashville from surrounding areas in need of assistance.
| TN - Davidson |
| TN - Sumner |
| TN - Williamson |
