Statements
Mission
Open Table of Nashville is a non-profit, interfaith community that disrupts cycles of poverty, journeys with the marginalized and provides education about issues of homelessness. Values:Compassion: We meet people where they are with non-judgmental compassion.Dignity: We respect the dignity of all people.Integrity: We work with integrity by aligning our values and actions and being transparent and accountable to one another and our community.Community: We strive to create a more welcoming and just community by journeying alongside people who have been forgotten or excluded.Solidarity: We take a stand on the side of people experiencing homelessness and work for justice by fostering personal and systemic transformation.
Background
Open Table Nashville was founded in 2010 and is an interfaith homeless outreach nonprofit that disrupts cycles of poverty, journeys with the marginalized, and provides education about issues of homelessness. Our journey, however, started long before 2010. In the late summer of 2008, OTN's founders were a ragtag team of homeless outreach workers, ministers, and volunteers who were introduced to Tent City, Nashville's largest homeless encampment that was located on the banks of the Cumberland River. Over time, we became friends with the residents, advocated with them for their rights, received hospitality from them, officiated at their weddings and funerals, and realized that a majority of the residents couldn't stay at traditional shelters because they were couples, pet owners, working non-traditional hours, or struggling with severe mental health issues. We helped dozens of Tent City residents move into permanent housing, but as these residents left their tents, others moved in who were trying to survive the country's Great Recession. In the late spring of 2010, about 140 people and over a dozen cats and dogs called Tent City home. Then, in May 2010, the unthinkable happened. After record rainfalls, the Cumberland River and many of its tributaries flooded. Tent City and large swaths of Nashville were completely engulfed. As the waters rose, we evacuated the residents and their pets to the Red Cross Shelter at Lipscomb University and made a promise that would change our lives: we promised that we would not abandon them. When the waters receded and the Red Cross Shelter closed, city officials condemned Tent City and failed to provide adequate solutions for the majority of the displaced residents, many of whom would be sent to the streets, only to be subsequently cited or arrested. Because we had promised the residents that we would stand beside them, we began organizing volunteers, collecting donations, and asking the city, churches, and landowners for land on which we could set-up a temporary encampment.
Impact
Top 5 accomplishments: 1. Over eight hundred people placed into permanent housing since Open Table Nashville's inception in 2011. 2. Collaboration with over 35 other housing resource providers through the Metro Homeless Impact Division to better serve our friends on the streets. 3. Because of our growth, in 2019 we have begun working towards a new organizational structure so we can better serve our staff and community. As a new organization, this is needed every 5 years or so to ensure our success and sustainability! 4. Provided education to 80 distinct groups totaling 2,500 people.
Needs
Open Table Nashville is in need of investors for our operational expenses and salaries. Our annual expense budget is approximately $735,000. We do not apply for governmental funding, so individuals, businesses, faith communities, and private grants fund everything we do. We continue to need in-kind donations for homeless outreach and move-ins such as furniture, specifically mattresses and dressers. We are continually seeking landlords who will accept Section 8 vouchers. Our strength is our relational approach to street outreach that is heavily dependent on our staff. Our funding needs are directly related to our outreach and our advocacy on behalf of and with our friends who live outdoors.
CEO Statement
Relationships make Open Table Nashville (OTN) distinctive. Relationships impact how OTN understands conditions that lead to homelessness and recovery, seeks funding and resources, maintains relationships with friends (who other agencies call 'clients') and service providers, and measures growth and success. First, OTN believes people experience homelessness not because they suffer from addiction, illness, or one streak of bad luck - many people suffer from those things and have not become homeless. Rather, OTN believes homelessness results when there is a lack of community around someone who is suffering. Often, people who are unhoused have either ostracized themselves or been ostracized from people who can support and nurture them back into health and stability. Most housed people know that if something happened to them, they would have people around to help them recover. But for unhoused people, that community has disappeared. OTN provides that community again, helping friends journey toward wholeness and rebuild around themselves the community they need. Second, OTN avoids government funding. Breaking the cycles of poverty and illness that contribute to homelessness requires loving people outside lines government programs are forced to draw. OTN advocates help people find ways to meet their own unique needs for food, shelter, and community. This support nurtures the stability and strength to find and claim one's place in any social structure. Sustaining this kind of longitudinal relationship requires flexibility, diversity, and patience that cannot always be supported by government programs. Third, where other organizations in Nashville provide just-in-time services of mercy like shelter, food, or clothing, OTN invites unhoused neighbors into our community, allowing them to be in relationship with others while partnering with an OTN advocate to obtain housing and employment. This program allows friends to set personal goals while building relationships; it also allows OTN staff and advocates to help friends collaborate with other providers while avoiding duplication of services. Finally, because of OTN's relationship-focused, longitudinal, and collaborative approach to recovery, OTN seeks to only grow to the extent that it can maintain relationships with friends, fulfilling responsibilities to not let any friend fall through the same cracks that lead to loss of housing the first time. In addition to quantitative measures, OTN measures success by watching friends live into wholeness as interdependent members of the Nashville community.
Board Chair Statement
As Nashville has exploded on the national scene as one of America's "It" cities, so have the number of individuals displaced by rapid housing redevelopment and diminished public services. At Open Table Nashville, we work to disrupt these cycles of poverty and advocate for and provide housing to people experiencing homelessness. As you can see from our recent annual financials, we are a growing and vibrant organization with an active Board, dedicated employees, and a focus on serving vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, the need for our mission is outpacing our growth, as the number of people experiencing homelessness in the Nashville area increases every year. I first became involved with Open Table Nashville years ago when I began serving as an Innkeeper at overnight OTN resource shelters. While serving at the shelters, I made many friends who taught me a great deal about urban poverty and the fine line so many of our fellow citizens walk between housing and homelessness. I met Beetlejuice, Papa Smurf, Charlie, Jimmy, Coyote, Karen, Alice, and countless others who taught and served me a great deal more than I taught or could serve them. From serving at those shelters, I moved to service on our Board, which consists of a diverse range of advocates, formerly unhoused individuals and professionals focused on improving the lives of Nashville's most vulnerable residents. We have recent successes to celebrate. We will completed the construction of the Micro Home Village at Glencliff in 2021, a community of micro homes. We housed over sixty-five individuals in 2020, responded to over 10,000 outreach calls, and made hundreds of visits to our housed and newly-housed friends. Over the last few years, we have tripled our operating budget without accepting any state or federal assistance. We truly believe we are Nashville's preeminent advocate for individuals experiencing homelessness. Our incredible Staff and our Board are focused not just on providing resources for the symptoms of urban growth and corresponding poverty, but more importantly on disrupting and permanently changing the systems that create thousands of new unhoused individuals and families every year. If you are seeking to partner with an organization that has and will continue to make a radical difference in the lives of our most vulnerable brothers and sisters, we invite you to join us.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Human Services - Homeless Services/Centers |
| Secondary Category: | Housing, Shelter - Housing Support |
| Tertiary Category: | Public & Societal Benefit - Alliances & Advocacy |
Areas Served
Open Table Nashville serves unhoused and unstably housed people in Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee. Because of the community nature of poverty and issues leading to loss of housing, Open Table Nashville also provides training and advocacy information to community groups in several Middle Tennessee counties, including Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, and Sumner.
| TN - Davidson |
