As Nashville’s winter weather has hit its ultimate lows, the homeless community has been struck with even more adversity — but that’s nothing Green Street Church of Christ and Open Table Nashville can’t help diminish.
“It’s really heart-wrenching to see the amount of suffering that there is in our own city — in our own backyard — when we’re so warm,” said Lindsey Krinks, Director of Street Chaplaincy and Education of Open Table Nashville.
Wednesday night the temperature plummeted into the negatives, but organizations like Open Table and Green Street alleviated a lot of the suffering. But even with all of Nashville’s warm shelters, Krinks said the city has already seen six exposure-related deaths in the homeless community this winter.
“In the last couple of days I’ve tended for four people with frost-bitten feet and we’re finding so many people out still,” she said.
Krinks said the need is overwhelming, but as a non-profit, interfaith community, Open Table is working hard to put a dent in Nashville’s homeless community.
“We help people navigate the very complex social services and housing systems,” Krinks said. “Instead of people coming in to us — like the mission [Nashville Rescue Mission] and Room In the Inn [where] people from the streets come in and receive services – we go out to where people are and we take that [services] to them.”
Krinks and the Open Table team are on the lookout, especially with more snow and low temperatures on the way for Friday.
“We do outreach canvasing at night, so when it gets this cold we go out on the streets and we’re driving around, and we go check on the campsites and we make sure people have the supplies they need to stay warm,” Krinks said.
Though Krinks and the team at Open Table are working hard to provide warm places for the homeless — with 16-hour workdays — not everyone is reached.
Lipscomb alumnus Caleb Pickering sees the homelessness first-hand as he works with the Green Street Church of Christ in inner city Nashville. Pickering said that serving is a community effort, but anyone can lend a hand.
“We’re no experts here [at Green Street],” Pickering said. “We don’t know what we’re doing.”
Of course, what they are doing is providing comfort for the city’s vulnerable.
Green Street’s congregation was formed first as College Street Church of Christ. David Lipscomb served as an elder as the congregation made major transformations. In 1930, the church moved to its current location on Green Street.
For the last 15 years, Green Street has provided a place for the homeless to camp just outside the church’s building.
“One of the things we try to emphasize, just to ourselves, at Green Street is this isn’t us [church] and them [homeless],” Pickering said. “It’s us and us, because we’re all people – God made all of us.”
Pickering, along with other Green Street volunteers, work jobs outside of the church, but always choose to keep the doors open to the community. Krinks agreed, and said that Christians and communities are called to open their doors, no matter what the consequences.
Krinks said that some of Nashville’s most broken and lost people are turning down bigger shelters because of the authentic atmosphere created at Green Street.
“Living on the streets and living this life, you start to discern the genuine people. Fake people tend to shine real bright, and at Green Street there’s nobody there that’s fake,” Green Street camper Richard McGuigan said.
“That’s the reason why so many people want to be there, and so many people, honestly, want to stay there,” McGuigan said. “This is not a place to live forever, but the atmosphere that the church gives us is a sense of security you can’t find anywhere else.”
The warmth and security provided by places like Green Street, Room in the Inn and Nashville Rescue Mission remain invaluable to the homeless.
“Every year people freeze to death in our city and the need is overwhelming,” Krinks said. “And it’s not just a shelter issue, it’s a systemic issue. We don’t have enough affordable housing, we don’t have enough employment, we don’t have enough adequate healthcare. This is a bigger thing than just getting people into shelters for a night.”
For the present issue, Krinks and Pickering said that volunteers are always needed to serve in Nashville.
“Just go where there is a safe environment where you can interact with people who don’t have as much as you and just kind of experience their world for a little bit,” Pickering said.
Krinks added that the volunteering shouldn’t stop when the weather warms up. She said there will always be a need for helping the homeless.
“Yes, people will be warmer, but the systemic issues are still going on and, if we don’t change anything, there’s going to be more people next winter that are freezing,” Krinks said.
TV meteorologists predict a 60 percent chance of snow on Friday, with rain to follow on Saturday. Several shelters have opened their doors to all, but Open Table is seeking to not only open the doors for the current time but also repair the systemic issues for the future.
“We’re out there, and we’re doing as much as we can to make a dent in this.”