Homeless Camp in Nashville (Photo Essay)

Picture Show: In the Shadows of Progress

Good Magazine

The stark reality of this moment in time is that many people are losing their jobs, their homes, and their ways of life. Yet amid what can seem like ceaseless news of loss, there are those who refuse to surrender hope. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Tent City, a temporary encampment below a freeway in Nashville, Tennessee, where hard-pressed and otherwise homeless strangers have come together to form a community.

Photographed with disarming intimacy by Scott McIntyre, the people of this encampment keep homes of plywood and tarp, unsure how long they’ll be able to stay on the land, part of which is owned by local ministries, part of which is owned by the Department of Transportation. But according to McIntyre, who formed a number of friendships while photographing the camp, that uncertainty doesn’t diminish their resilience. “I learned a lot about what happens to people in rough periods of time,” he says. “And if you take care of your neighbor, your neighbor might take care of you.”

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Sosa, one of the many dogs living in Tent City, watches over the tent home of Cowboy, his owner. Cowboy has been in Tent City in Nashville, Tennessee for five years.

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BJ Edlund (center), and his wife, Kristy, are newcomers. BJ lost his design business and his home due to lack of work and money. “I never thought it would get so bad I lose everything,” said Edlund, whose friends have lived in the encampments along the Cumberland River in Nashville and helped the couple get established. One of them, Ed, is seen at left.

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Like a lot of their neighbors, Brandon met his significant other while living in a homeless shelter in Nashville. The couple says the camp has more of a home feel to it than any shelter they ever lived in.

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Mark May, 47, broke his back and both of his arms during a work-related accident. When he left the hospital, he came here with no money and no place to stay. Theresa Gordon and Rick Cole offered him a place to stay and since then he has been contributing whatever he can. Sometimes that involves going to market dumpsters to retrieve discarded produce and any other foods.

Please visit the source link for the entire article. This doesn't look like a very large tent city but some of these people have been here for five years.

I liked the photography. I found it difficult to not judge. I better look into what that's about soon. When I saw a beer can, my pea brain went nuts. One of the guys in the article says he wouldn't ever want to live in a house again. I'm not pretending to understand it, to be above it. I'm just pointing you to the article.

One thing my husband and I have noticed over the past few months is that there are a large number of "young" homeless people popping up more and more here.
What is even more odd is that we know for a fact there are at least 500 of these homeless people around and they are hiding out during the day. We see them at night if we run to the store and on garbage day they hit up the recycling cans at night for stuff to take in for money.
One guy up the street really upset my son wen he started yelling at a homeless teen to get out of his garbage! For christs sake he was throwing it all out but wouldn't let a homeless teen grab a few cans to turn in...
Our neighbor across the street says he is hearing them again out back where the river is at night they are being very quiet and respectful. He can only hear them if he takes his dogs out back at night. ( they bathe in the river, it is terrible water but I guess it is all they have right now)
I just hope the jerk five doors down doesn't start walking over there again and calling the police on them like he has done in the past. They aren't making a mess, being noisy or harming anyone.
If I wasn't on a shoestring myself I would give them more. But right now it is down to a few bucks here and there due to hub's wages getting cut by the company.

For the most part, homeless people choose to be homeless because they dont do anything about it. I live a couple miles north of Detroit (thank God i lived there all my life up until a few years ago and the whole city has gone right down the drain) and i see so many bums who have ciggaretts boose drugs and are buying hookers instead of trying to save money to get a place for themselves. Bums do it to themselves. There are a small percentage of people who go homeless for reasons like losing a business or something of that nature, but they still have the option to do something about it instead of looking for handouts and free stuff.