Just over a year ago, City Road Chapel partnered with Community Care Fellowship (CCF) to open one of the first Mobile Housing Navigation Centers (MHNC) in Nashville. The MHNC is designed as a transitional living facility that works to move those experiencing outdoor homelessness from the streets to a more stable living situation. During the past year, we have had over 60 individuals come through the program and half have moved on to a more permanent housing arrangement or to other programs that are better able to meet their needs.
This past Spring, our pastor Jay started meeting weekly with our residents to help address the trauma and the behaviors that arise for those experiencing homelessness. This has developed into a program designed to help our residents “recover” from that experience and unpack the situations that have often kept them on the streets. We are in the process of moving aspects of that program into the other MHNCs around the city.
This past fall, City Road Chapel and CCF were contacted by representatives of the Nashville Rescue Mission and Metro Social Services to see if we might be able to provide space for a MHNC designed to help homeless families with children. Nashville is currently experiencing a sharp increase in the number of families experiencing homelessness that exceeds the capacity of existing providers. They knew that our former daycare space was not being utilized and wondered if we might be able to fill a need for some of these families.
We have been in conversation with CCF about the possibility of transforming our first floor space into a family shelter for 8-9 families. While the rooms are well set up for children, we realized that the bathroom facilities were inadequate, so we are looking at a major renovation of the bathrooms on the first floor. Community Care Fellowship will be responsible for funding these renovations (totaling around $40,000) and operating the program once the facilities are in place. CCF will also pay a monthly fee to City Road Chapel for the use of the facility.
We have had some early conversations with The Community Foundation about the possibility of funding a 1 or 2 room daycare for children that are a part of our program. Our hope is to provide a stable environment for children and their parents to recover from their experience of homelessness.
This Sunday, as a part of our worship service, Pastor Jay will be talking about the MHNC program and our hope and dream for expanding these services. If you have any questions you would like answered, please email Jay at jvoorhees@cityroadchapel.org.