Statements
Mission
Rebuilding Together repairs homes, revitalizes communities, and rebuilds lives. Since 1995, we have provided critical home repair and home rehab assistance for low-income homeowners, and have made meaningful improvements at the homes of over 600 families. We work to preserve affordable housing, prevent the displacement of families, empower seniors to age in place, help our city recover from natural disasters, and retain the fabric of Nashville's neighborhoods.
Background
Rebuilding Together Nashville, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, restores, rebuilds and provides critical repairs at homes of low-income residents. For 25 years, Rebuilding Together has served the Nashville community by helping to preserve affordable homeownership and revitalize neighborhoods. The organization was founded as Christmas In April in 1995 and changed its name to Rebuilding Together Nashville in 2003. The organization remained completely volunteer run until the flood of 2010 when the organization was called upon to build its capacity and respond to the post-flood rebuilding efforts. Today, provide year-round critical home repairs and lead community revitalization initiatives. Rebuilding Together's Safe and Healthy Housing Improvement Program (SHHIP) is our agency's core program aimed at addressing critical home repair needs for low-income homeowners in Nashville. Our purpose is to remove health and safety hazards in the homes of local low-income homeowners with a special focus on serving older adults, individuals with disabilities, and Veterans. We work to achieve our vision of safe homes and communities for everyone through direct home repairs and homeowner education. Each home receives critical repairs according to each home's uniquely tailored work scope aimed at ensuring the safety and health of the household. Rebuilding Together provides these repairs through utilizing both volunteers as well as contractors on repairs requiring technical expertise, such as mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and roofing work. All of the work is completed with a special focus on making homes more accessible for aging homeowners. RTN is one of 130+ Rebuilding Together affiliates at work in towns and cities nationwide. In 2019, we launched our first Target Community Initiative in Bordeaux in an effort to focus our home repair and community revitalization work in a single neighborhood in the path of gentrification. In addition to serving homeowners in Bordeaux, RTN launched a Disaster Recovery Program in 2020 that served homeowners affected by the 2020 tornado and 2021 flood in Davidson County. In 2022, we ended our disaster recovery program and launched our second Target Community Initiative in the Dickerson Pike Corridor.
Impact
To date, Rebuilding Together Nashville has made meaningful improvements on more than 500 Nashville area homes. In the short-term, Rebuilding Together Nashville seeks to ensure that all immediate barriers to health and safety within the home are removed and health and safety hazards identified in the initial home inspection have been remediated though the course of our work. We track and measure this though using the Health and Safety Priorities as a post-work assessment. In the medium term, we seek to educate and empower homeowners to maintain their homes to prevent critical issues from developing. Much of this education happens on site during projects (i.e. while cleaning out air filters, installing smoke detectors, etc.) and through 1-on-1 educational sessions. For example, we include seasonal home maintenance checklists as part of our project close out packets for every homeowner. In the long-term, we seek to ensure that no homeowner feels pressured to sell their home or move to a long-term care facility pre-maturely due to unaddressed critical repairs or needed modifications within their current home. Every homeowner we work with will feel empowered to live with dignity in their current home and age in place. RTN keeps records of every home repair project completed including all demographic and income data captured from the application. Annually, we measure the number of homes we impact and the number of individuals impacted by our work. We additionally track the number of volunteers engaged and total volunteer hours. In 2018, we completed 26 total home renovations though our SHHIP program, directly impacting a total of 45 household members. We engaged 173 volunteers who gave a total of 1,243 volunteer hours. Year over year, we have grown our program capacity to serve more homeowners with more significant home repair needs than our previous program years. RTN successfully implemented a 5-year, forgivable lien for the full cost of repairs for each homeowner served through our SHIPP program. This provides a level of security that our program will not be used to help flip homes in light of Nashville's hot real estate market. If a homeowner chooses to sell their home within the five-year window, the funds are repaid back to RTN and invested in the home of another qualified homeowner. We met our goal of successfully integrating this process into our program. In 2019 we launched our first target community initiative in Bordeaux. We plan to serve 65 homeowners from 2020-2023, as well as, make improvements on four community spaces. To date, we have invested over $1 million in repairs in Bordeaux, impacting 51 households and 81 residents with an average income of $30,050. Using the framework from our national office, we believe this community-focused approach allows us to make the biggest impact with our resources and slow the rapid gentrification experienced by neighboring communities. In 2020, we launched our Tornado Recover Program to help homeowners rebuild after the March 3rd tornado. We serve on Davidson County's VOAD group, and after the 2020 tornado and 2021 flooding event, we were able to repair 20 homes totaling over $600,000 in repairs. At the end of 2022, we launched our new target community in the Dickerson Pike Corridor and have completed our first projects and completed over 70 hours of community outreach. We will follow our same model of service delivery in the Dickerson Pike community as we have in Bordeaux.
Needs
1) Unrestricted funding to account for inevitable contingencies that come with home rehabilitation projects and to cover the true administrative costs to deliver our high-quality home repair program. This also includes funding to support staff in providing wrap around services and homeowner education workshops. 2.) We are seeking professionals with communications, fundraising, and PR backgrounds to join our Development committee. 3.) Mission-alligned contractors and construction professionals to partner with us on complex home remodels.
CEO Statement
Born and raised in the Nashville area, I previously served as a Disaster Case Manager after the 2010 flood and working with senior refugees. I bring extensive experience managing diverse teams of staff and volunteers in office and field work settings with a trauma-informed approach. Andrea holds degrees in Social Work from University of Tennessee-Knoxville and a Master's in Social Work from Columbia University. Since I joined RTN in 2021 as the director of programs, my goal has been to keep the work and homeowners at the center of all we do. I have been proud to help lead the organization in completing over 50 home repairs and 4 community revitalization projects in our first Target Community Initiative in Bordeaux. This translates to over 1 million dollars invested in the community! Last year, we also selected our new Target Community area of the Dickerson Pike Corridor. I am so proud of our team, who has been committed to outreach and starting our home repair projects. We have a growing list of interested homeowners, and our first home project completed in the books.
Now as executive director, my focus is to continue providing high quality, person centered services. Particularly, I am interested in growing our wrap around services to support homeowners and the communities we work in with the resources they need. We are lucky to have homeowners that allow us to come into their most valued spaces, their homes. As we go behind the screen door, we may find that while someone have a leaking roof, they also might not have enough food in the cupboards. I believe Rebuilding Together Nashville has the potential to create partners and bring resources to ensure a homeowner is truly safe and healthy in their homes. I am looking forward to the positive growth and impact RTN will continue making in Greater Bordeaux, Dickerson Pike Corridor and beyond!
Board Chair Statement
As a Nashville Native, I see this issue of affordable housing as one that effects my family, my friends, and the people that I relate to the most. Simply put, I know that there are people who are being burdened so heavily by the pressures of this housing epidemic and the overall impact of Nashville's growth - I know that there are things that can be done and there are ways to be helpful. I am motivated by my desire to be helpful to an organization dedicated to helping people who are some who are the most in need and to further a mission to preserve the homes and better the lives of those in our community where a little can go such a long way. Understanding that a lot of the objectives of Rebuilding Together are representative of the best traits of a community; the desire to help those who are unable to access the resources for all their needs, and to engage people and show them the impact that they can make on someone's life. As our organization grows, I wish to celebrate the progress that has been made internally and recognize those who have been instrumental to this growth. I also have a goal of celebrating our external partners and highlighting the impact that is made possible by their contributions to RTN. As Board President I feel RTN's brand and our network of support for the organization must grow. The need and challenges faced by the families and communities we serve, while already substantial, continues to grow. Therefore, we must grow to meet the level of service required in these times and for our neighbors and neighborhoods to be sustained. I aim to help tell the story of those homeowner's and those families in our communities who are doing what they can with what they have, and the amazing impact that a group of good neighbors, volunteers, supporters, caring businesses - [Re]builders - can have on the lives of those in need. A group of helping hands can lift so much!
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Housing, Shelter - Housing Rehabilitation |
| Secondary Category: | Public Safety, Disaster Preparedness and Relief - Disaster Preparedness and Relief Service |
| Tertiary Category: | Housing, Shelter - Home Improvements/Repairs |
Areas Served
We are currently serving low-income homeowners in the neighborhood of Bordeaux and it's surrounding communities as well as the Dickerson Pike Corridor area that include council districts 2,3,4 and 5.
| TN - Davidson |
