By Logan Langlois
NASHVILLE, TN — The average unhoused person must walk between 10 and 15 miles a day in Music City, and Open Table Nashville (OTN) is trying to make that journey a little easier. The outreach and advocacy group will be hosting a one-mile walk to raise $20,000 for their daily efforts on Saturday, April 6th at 9:30 a.m. at Cleveland Park. The fundraiser named Walk With OTN will be a family-friendly event meant for community building, and for supporters to talk together while enjoying popsicles in the park.
As a part of the event, OTN challenged its supporters to walk 15 miles from the beginning of April up to the community walk. Digital Communication Coordinator Cal Gurley said this event is exciting as it will be the first time the non-profit has hosted an in-person event during the Spring. They said they’ve been promoting the event daily over the past couple of months online, and that it has thus far been a great opportunity to talk to community members about what many of those experiencing homelessness face daily.
“Homelessness creates a lot of trauma on the mind, and it also creates a lot of trauma on the body,” Gurley said. “So, it’s a lot that folks have to navigate when they’re in that situation.”
Gurley said there are a variety of compounding factors that lead to homeless people having to walk great distances every day. They mentioned one example of a homeless friend who takes the bus to work every morning and still must walk five miles both to work and back to the bus stop every day. Gurley said Tennessee’s anti-camping laws also lead to many being told to relocate to another location in Nashville’s already not-very-walkable city.
Gurley said though OTN has been around since 2010, events such as these still help the non-profit tell citizens who they are and what they do. They said events such as this also help the small team of ten afford to continue their outreach. Gurley said OTN’s direct action includes outreach work like giving homeless people on the streets supplies, helping people acquire homes to get off the streets, and giving people supplies who are moving into a home off the streets for the first time. They said their advocacy work includes work with state legislators to combat the criminalization of homelessness taking place in Tennessee, as well as making housing acquisition easier.
Gurley said advocacy is often time-consuming and costly, as simple processes like ordering the paperwork needed by an individual to begin the process of moving into a home can cost money. They said OTN has been excited to secure national partners to help with their advocacy regarding legislation. Gurley said even with this newfound support, legislative advocacy is still a daily battle with at least one bill OTN thought they had defeated passing after several amendments were added.
Gurley said they were very excited to see that OTN is already halfway to meeting their fundraising goal before even starting the event. They said OTN is currently taking donations for both people on the streets and those moving into housing, and that a complete list of suggested donations is available on OTN’s website. Gurley said anyone who would like notice for future OTN events or news can do so at the organization’s Facebook or Instagram pages as well as their website opentablenashville.org.
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