There is, to put it bluntly, no one like Father Charlie Strobel when it comes to helping the less fortunate in our community.
NO ONE.
From Room in the Inn to battling with local authorities to finding new and innovative ways to assist people experiencing homelessness, Charlie's heart is always 110 percent into it.
Can't wait to see the new digs and am honored to work with you all over at the Campus......Room in the Inn puts first things first
Commentary by Gail Kerr
THE TENNESSEAN
The folks running the renowned Room in the Inn program scoff at chicken-and-egg syndrome.
For them, it was not "which should come first" for Nashville's homeless population. Housing? Or services?
Building? Or raising money?
"If we don't have the building, we can't do the services," Charles Strobel said with a shrug. And "the need for services is up, so we felt like we should go ahead and start," said Lisa Stetar, project manager.
It's nothing short of a loaves-and-fishes miracle, where so little becomes so much. In a year when headlines scream of layoffs and home foreclosures, Room in the Inn is raising $11 million to build a 45,000-square-foot building that will dwarf its existing facility. Fundraising is only $3.4 million shy of that goal.
The new building will have 38 affordable, furnished apartments for low-income residents who are successfully coming out of treatment, job and education programs.
"Isn't this fabulous?" said Rachel Hester, executive director of the nonprofit formerly known as the Downtown Campus for Human Development.
She must wear rose-colored glasses, because right now the empty parking lot behind the railroad trestle off Eighth Avenue South looks like a dust bowl. A tall red and black crane hovers over the men and women sitting outside, waiting their turn to eat lunch. The current building is so small, the homeless get fed in shifts.
It's a gated hard-hat zone that has wrecked havoc with volunteer parking. Yet hope and faith reign supreme.
The campus has programs including medical care for chronically ill, veteran's programs, GED classes, and access to mental health, alcohol and drug treatment.
When the new building is finished, clients will have day storage for their belongings. This is important, because many of the homeless work odd jobs. Carrying everything you own in a backpack does not impress a perspective employer, and it's not safe.
There will be showers. A place to get a cup of coffee. And, hope of all hopes, a real place to live.
"The participants are excited," Hester said. "If you get into a program right now, if you get into treatment right now, look what is there for you next June."
'They saved my life'
Allan Chasas, 43, has his eye on that possibility. A former food service administration employee, Chasas is an alcoholic who has been in recovery since November of 2008, when he went to the downtown clinic for help. He stayed in the campus' Guest House program for five months, and is now in the Odyssey program — an extensive set of classes and life lessons aimed at independent living and employment.
"I'm very grateful," Chasas said. "They saved my life. I was on the streets for about a year and a half. We're being prepared by our teachers to start looking for jobs in a few months. I can concentrate all my efforts on my recovery. I'm just glad God came into my life."
He said the new building will provide "a very safe environment" in which to live. He's looking forward to a larger dining hall, more classrooms, more instructors, and a place to do his laundry.
Room in the Inn leaders support the Metro Homeless Commission's goals to create 1,600 housing units and improve services. All told, that commission, created by former Mayor Bill Purcell, wants to raise $71.7 million in private and public money to eradicate homelessness in Nashville. But progress has been achingly slow.
"We have made sure that we are part of that bigger vision," Stetar said. "But we're not waiting."
Community responded
Times are tough. But the numbers are too: the 200 people seen at the campus daily has morphed into 400.
And so Strobel and Co. hit the road, speaking at community and civic groups, contacting generous individuals, filling out grant applications and asking congregations to support an apartment for a donation of $50,000.
It has not been easy. This is not a sexy subject. But who on earth can turn down Charlie Strobel when he makes the ask?
He is a retired Catholic priest who starting working with the homeless in 1977, offering peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to people at his church door. Room in the Inn, the signature program, started later.
Room in the Inn starts its 24th season Nov. 1, taking homeless men to area churches to sleep in a warm, safe place. It takes 29,373 volunteers at 150 congregations to house more than 1,000 individuals each season. In fact, they've changed the whole campus name to Room in the Inn, since it is the brand most people in Nashville know.
But the new building takes them far beyond warm beds on cold nights.
"Room in the Inn is great," Hester said. "Feeding programs are good. This is the 'what else.' We know their names. They know ours. We're more than a shelter. We give people reason to trust again."
When all is said and done, it doesn't matter which came first, the chicken or the egg. What's important is having faith both will happen.
