Ghetto Manhattan by Timothy Logan.
IN THE ISSUE
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Since The Contributor started in 2007, more than 3,200 different vendors have purchased $2.3 million worth of The Contributor and sold over six million copies, generating over $15 million in income for themselves.
In 2019, our C.O.V.E.R. Program (Creating Opportunity for Vendor Employment, Engagement, and Resources) was the natural expansion of our mission of removing obstacles to housing. We now offer full case management, assistance with housing and rental expenses, addiction recovery, health insurance, food benefits, and SSI/SSDI assistance.
This interview was conducted by Contributor Vendor Shawn L. with assistance from Judith Tackett. It was produced with the help of The Contributor’s Vendor Leadership Team: Lisa A., Keith D., Shawn L., and Pedro L.
As part of the 2025 State of Homelessness Symposium in Nashville, globally recognized advocate for ending homelessness Dr. Sam Tsemberis, came to town to deliver a short speech as a part of the daylong event.
Ahead of his speaking engagement on June 4, Tsemberis met with Contributor vendors and staff in a hotel in Hillsboro Village to chat about his experience in homelessness advocacy and leadership. Tsemberis talked about beginning this work in the late ‘80s.
“I was living in New York City during the early years of the Reagan Administration,” he said. “When Reagan took office, just like the current regime, they were going to cut federal services, like HUD (Housing and Urban Development) and HHS (Health and Human Services). They were going to cut funding for all of these services.
“Reagan’s economic policy was called ‘supply-side economics,’ that provided cut taxes for the rich and corporations, and the wealthy would create jobs and the wealth would ‘trickle down,’ to the rest of us — ‘trickle down economics’ right?”
Tsemberis said that many economists called this approach foolish and warned that if HUD programs, especially public housing were cut, the country would soon see people lose their homes and wind up on the streets. That prediction turned out to be true.
“Before this era, the U.S. was building 350,000 units of public housing a year,” Tsemberis said. “After that, it went down to practically zero. And that’s where it’s been all of this time, through Democratic and Republican administrations. No one’s building public housing. No one’s talking about it. That was the end.”
At that time, Tsemberis was living in the East Village in New York City. He is trained as a clinical and community psychologist and was working at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital. “I’m walking to work, and I start seeing people on the streets.”
He recalled seeing people under staircases, hiding. They were ashamed and did not want to be seen.
“Then I started seeing some of the people on the streets wearing Bellevue pajamas,” Tsemberis said. “People were just discharged from the hospital and they’re on the street. People I’d seen the week before in the hospital!”
That’s when he decided to leave his job at Bellevue Hospital and took a job as director of New York City’s Emergency Outreach Team for the Homeless at the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.
“Our team drove around the city in a van, going to different parts of the city where people who were homeless were staying, getting to know them, and getting to understand how they got there, and what they needed to get out of there.”
You are credited with developing the Housing First approach. How did you come up
Q&A with Dr. Sam Tsemberis
BY SHAWN L., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR
with this approach?
I’m credited with coming up with the Housing First approach, but frankly, I never called it the Housing First approach when we were doing it. The group of us that was working on the streets, were trying to help people who were on the streets get housed.
There were already some housing programs for people who were homeless and had mental health or addiction issues. But these programs required that the person on the street to be sober, to take medication in order to get the house. Then they had to follow rules, curfews, and a lot of requirements.
The people who were on the street weren’t interested in seeing a psychiatrist or going to rehab. They wanted a place to live — just a safe, decent, affordable place to live. So we were [saying], “Alright, let’s see if we can make that happen.” Because we were committed to helping them with what they wanted most, which was housing not treatment. I was a little bit out of my league there because I know about treatment. I didn’t know much about housing.
We wrote a grant. There were grants available through the New York State Office of Mental Health for a program called supported housing, which provided funding for rent and case management services. We were awarded the grant, and we started. We went back to the people on the street and said, “So, you want an apartment? Let’s go find one.”
And we just started putting people in apartments. It was very scary because we didn’t know if they would do well, or if the neighbors were going to be OK. All these other programs were not housing these people, and maybe there was a reason for that.
But there was no reason. People did extremely well in housing right from the start. They had a place that was safe and secure. The housing itself was medicine. We called it “the apartment program”. We have an outreach
program, now we have an apartment program.
People from other cities started to visit this program to see what we’re talking about, “Hey, you don’t have to put people in a shelter and then a detox, and transitional housing and respite housing and emergency housing, and then provide housing maybe at the end. You can have people go right from the street into an apartment,” I said. “After they are housed, then we provide treatment. We visit with everyone in the apartments asking, ‘How are you doing?’
[The response we got from these visits was,] “Oh, you’re doing it backwards. You’re doing the housing first, instead of the treatment first.”
So we said, “Yes! We’re doing the housing first because that’s what people want.” And that became a kind of shorthand catchy way to describe the program: Housing First — as opposed to treatment first. So, that’s how we came up with it.
It was really because we were honoring the thing that mattered most to people who were homeless: housing, first.
What city doesn’t have homelessness, meaning that they make sure everybody has housing and has a place to go to?
There’s lots of cities that don’t have homeless people. They’re usually small cities in Europe. European cities, especially in the north and west of Europe. I’m talking about the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland. In those cities, the smaller cities especially, there is enough housing and of course every citizen has a right to health care. Every citizen has a right to housing. Those countries still have strong public services and safety net services and sizable public or social housing programs.
We’re the only country that has stopped building public housing. We still don’t have healthcare as a right. And we certainly don’t have housing as a right. So, in countries that have robust support services, they don’t have
as many people who are homeless to begin with. If anyone loses their house for whatever reason, they can help get them back into homes.
In this country, the way that for profit housing and the real estate market works, housing supply is low and demand is high so rents continue to go up and since wages are not increasing as quickly as the rents, people don’t have enough money to pay the rent. There is more homelessness in the bigger cities, especially those cities are being quickly gentrified. Nashville is rapidly being gentrified, and the risk is that homelessness will increase here. Homelessness is also related to income disparity. We have the very wealthy and people who don’t have anywhere near as much. And then there’s the people who have nothing at all on the streets.
The income disparity is much less in Europe because in most countries, the tax system is one where the more you earn the more tax you pay. Millionaires pay 80-90 percent of their profits in taxes. We used to have a similar tax system here. That was changed with supply side economics. A fair tax system makes for more equitable societies. There are funds for social services. In this country, we have a huge deficit because the wealthy and corporations do not pay a fair share. The real estate market is unregulated. So all the new housing going up around Nashville is being built for people with money.
This kind of construction, the modernization and gentrification of American cities, which is going on pretty much everywhere, creates more homelessness. Homelessness is the product of very successful cities. Most homelessness is on the coasts — from Seattle to San Diego, down through California, and on the east in New York, in Washington. Now Nashville is getting into that kind of economic boom, and you’ll see homelessness going up here because in every city where the rents start going up, so do the homeless numbers.
Dr. Sam Tsemberis speaks at the 2025 State of Homelessness Symposium in Nashville.
Many cities say they’re doing Housing First, but are they really? What is lacking?
For most places that say they’re doing Housing First, if they’re not, it’s usually because what is lacking are the support services for people. In a housing program where a case manager has 40 clients, that’s not nearly enough support. You need to have the client-caseload ratio of 1 to 10 [or] 1 to 15 because the people housed by housing first program, just coming in off the streets, they have complex needs and need a lot of visiting, a lot of support to settle in and to begin to get their lives back on track.
The whole point of the support services is to be able to check in on the person. Are they eating right? Are they keeping the place clean? If they’re using drugs, is it safe? Or what else is going on in their lives? Do they have too many guests or guests that overstayed their welcome? Is the unit being kept well and is the person safe and secure? That’s what the social services do. They keep an eye on the person and ensure they are adjusting well to being housed.
That’s what a good Housing First program does: visits frequently, cares about how the person is doing, cares about the condition of the unit. You don’t want people to get evicted because they’re hoarding or they leave their garbage in the hallway. These are the main violations [we see when] the service support is not sufficient.
But there’s also the fact that Housing First always had two rules. One is, you have to meet the terms and conditions of the standard lease. The lease for you is the same as the lease for me. We all have to do the same thing as tenants because we’re living in a building with other people as a community. We have a responsibility to that community. We’re not going to bend the rules for anybody. If it’s hard for you to manage the rules, we’re here to help you. But you have to meet the terms of the standard lease. That includes paying 30 percent of your income for the rent. Usually it’s SSI, or public assistance, and if it’s nothing, people pay nothing. But you have to pay 30 percent of your income. There’s some sense of ownership and responsibility in that.
The other thing – and this one often gets lost or is misunderstood because in this program you don’t have to be in treatment, and you don’t have to be sober. But still, you have to agree to a home visit. Treatment is an option. Treatment is not required. But the home visit is not an option. It has to happen.
Staff has to figure out a way to visit the person, make sure they’re doing OK. That’s not punitive. That’s not like, “Let me see your place or else.” You’ve got to make yourself useful and be someone that the tenant sees as a helpful person, so they’ll open the door for you. You have to finesse your way to the visit. You can’t coerce your way to the visit. So you have to do it with kindness, you have to do it with compassion and respect. Not with authority or a threat. But the visit is a requirement. The staff has to be trained well enough to figure out how to make the visit happen.
And if you have just given someone an apartment from the street, and they don’t want to see you, there is something wrong in that relationship; and I’m going to look at the staff member who’s getting paid to do his job [and ask], “What went wrong here?” Because most people are like, “You just gave me an apartment, of course I want to see you. Thank you!” You’ve got a big
running start there. Mostly the visits go well but there are always situations that are challenging. So, most programs that say they’re doing Housing First, and they’re not doing it, they usually do not provide enough social services, caseloads are too high, and they misunderstand the concept of choice.
In Nashville, we have a lot of handoffs between organizations on the path to supportive housing. How do you retain and maintain that relationship from street into supportive housing?
The best way, and the most effective way is when you can have the same person who’s doing outreach hand you the keys to your apartment and also be the person that’s knocking on your door to visit. That’s optimal. But because we live in bureaucracies, money is for outreach and money is for this, or money is for that. You have people handed off from outreach to the coordinated entry system, and from the coordinated entry system to the provider and then the case manager, who’s not part of the housing provider but a different organization – it’s like we’re treating people as if they’re packages. This isn’t FedEx. These are people, and the relationship matters.
For every handoff, you risk losing the person’s trust, you lose immediately all the goodwill you’ve built up on the way there, and you lose the opportunity for the continuity of knowing the person that you’ve housed and knowing something about them [that could] give you a running start. It’s a terrible system.
It really requires a lot of effort on each of the players’ parts to try and create this through-line. I introduce the person to you, and a couple of times we see them together, and we do it gently, and we do it thoughtfully so that we can assure the person that we’re all on the same team. We’re all going to treat them the same way.
I mean one of the problems is you have outreach workers who are kind and engaging and friendly, and then you hand them over to [other transitional supports] and [there are a lot of different rules to follow]. It’s different philosophies, different approaches. It would be good if we were all on the same page because the system we’ve set up is riddled with gaps where people can fall through those holes.
What is one thing that cities like Nashville could improve to make a difference?
Same thing that any city could do. If we can create more housing opportunities for people by having more housing choice vouchers that are paying the rent. Where you can actually find rent and rent the affordable units, the few that are still remaining. There are a lot of organizations doing good work, but the provision of affordable housing it’s nowhere near the scale that is needed.
We’re doing a lot of work getting people who are already homeless into housing. And yet, there are many more people who are homeless than are being housed. The other piece of it, that we never talk about, is that every day, the construction we see, all this [booming industry], is creating more and more housing that is unaffordable for people on benefits or working for minimum wage and there are more and more people falling into homelessness. Even if we got everybody housed today, six months from now, we would have a whole bunch of new people who are homeless because we need the prevention piece.
So I would say, the one thing that cities like
Nashville could improve on to make a difference, is to figure out a way to bring more resources to the problem so that the resources are sufficient to address the magnitude of the problem and use the right approach to do it.
Programs give up on people. They don’t stay long enough with people. That’s what we see.
What are your recommendations, and do you have specific recommendations for Nashville? I have specific recommendations, and they’re for everyone, Nashville included.
And I am sorry I didn’t say this at the start because I was talking about the apartments in terms of Housing First. But the thing about Housing First is that it’s actually not about the housing.
Housing First is all about the relationship with the person. Housing First commits to this person to help them in whatever way they need.
Let’s say the person says I want a place to live. OK, that’s perfect. You’re in the right program. We’re going to go and get you a place to live. [Now] they’re in the apartment and then things don’t go well. Their friends are calling them, saying can I come over and get a shower? Well, you can’t say no. The friend comes over, then asks, “Can I sleep on the couch?” Another friend and yet another friend come over and say, “You’ve got the house, let’s have a beer, let’s celebrate, man!” They have a party, and then no one wants to leave. And the landlord is pushing, and the person is evicted. That happens a lot — like 20 to 30 percent of the time.
Now, what does the program do? “Oh, we tried to tell them if the party doesn’t stop, you’re going to lose the place.” But I couldn’t tell my friends no. I should have been more careful in the beginning.
It’s a huge, expensive, terrible lesson. But the program is not about that apartment. The apartment is just the vehicle for helping the person get their life back together. So, if the person loses that apartment, that’s OK. We’re not going to lose that person.
You stay with the person, and you say, “What do you want to do now? Do you want to go to detox? Or you want another apartment? What’s our next step here, because we’re on this journey with you and we’re going on this journey with you.”
The apartments are things along the way of a much bigger journey. So the commitment is to the person.
How can people with experience of homelessness be heard and truly integrated into the decision-making process?
The Housing First program is a really good program, not from a personal perspective, but from having seen it work so well in so many different places around the world. I think the ingenuity of the design of the program was only made possible because we included people who were homeless in the conversations about how to operate this program. They were there at the table from the very beginning.
[We asked] what should we do? — “I need a place to live.”
But you have a mental health diagnosis. — “I’ve been diagnosed with mental illness since I was 18. I know what I need. I need a place to live.”
What about the drinking? — “I’ve been drinking since high school, man. I need a place to live.”
OK! We’re going to get a place to live.
“How are we going to pay the rent?” Well, you’ve got to pay 30 percent of your income. It was all co-designed. And the people would say, “OK, can you give me this apartment? I don’t want charity. I want my apartment, and I don’t want to put my beer under the couch when you come. Is that alright?” Right, you want a house with dignity, that’s your place, like everybody else [who has a place].
All those conversations were part of weaving the program design: harm reduction, Housing First, trauma-informed [care] - all that stuff came about because we included people that knew what they were talking about from the very foundation.
And we still hire people with lived experience. Part of the support staff is people with lived experience. And not only the support team but also case managers, supervisors, people on the board of directors, you want the voice of the people you’re serving through every level of the organization.
We find that having to pay one third of an income that is very low already is often a burden. Do you hear that from other people? What do you think is the solution, so that people are able to stay in housing, pay bills and pay for their living expenses? What do you think we could do to advocate for that?
Frankly, I’m not a big fan of paying one third of your income towards the rent, but that is the condition of the housing contracts that we get from the government. That’s a requirement.
We’ve talked about homelessness a lot, and the word “homeless” is not a good word for what we’re really talking about, which is poverty. The extreme of poverty is homelessness.
The idea that we’re going to hold people, who are struggling to make a few bucks a day, to pay 30 percent, to me, you have to do it because it’s part of the contract, but it’s not the right thing to do. Some apartments have utilities that are separate, and now people have to pay for utilities, which cost a fortune, they’re just going up all the time.
The question is, how are you really addressing the poverty, if you don’t have some way to be able to actually support people fully in their housing? Even though I think the Section 8 model is a great model. I mean, it’s the best thing we have. But it’s not housing as a human right where people have a right to housing because the society we live in believes that people should have housing. You don’t make it a hardship for people by including all of these other bills.
I would do whatever I could to try and wrap the utility costs into the rent, so that the person pays a third of their income, but then that third includes the utilities and the landlord covers that piece. I think that every program should do as much as they possibly can to address the poverty of the person who is struggling. I mean, we talk about mental illness or addiction as a disability. Poverty is a disability.
Poverty sets the ceiling so low of what you can do. Programs that are working with people who are that poor need to address that just like they address addiction or mental health or everything else. You’ve got to be doing something about it. It’s hard.
That’s what I would advocate for. I would advocate for housing as a basic human right. And let’s get rid of these money conversations. We’re talking about chump change from a government perspective anyway.
News Briefs
Metro Releases Annual PIT Count Numbers
Nashville showed a small uptick in homelessness in the annual Point-in-Time Count done in January. Metro’s Office of Homeless Services 2025 Point-in-Time Count released this data on June 10 after submitting the data to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is a requirement of any Continuum of Care (CoC) organization in the United States that receives HUD funding. The county, which is always done in the last days of January during the coldest time of the year, was performed this year on Jan. 23-24, which also happened to be a night the city opened its emergency shelter due to cold temperatures. Teams also canvassed all over the county, ultimately recording 2,180 people experiencing literal homelessness that evening, up from 2,094 in the 2024 count. “Each year, on a single night, we get a glimpse into the number of people experiencing homelessness in our community through the Point in Time count, and that single number in time tells us a small piece of the realities of homelessness in our community,” said Mayor Freddie O’Connell in a release from Metro. The head of OHS April Calvin said in the release that homelessness is a growing national crisis “driven by economic pressures, housing shortages and systemic barriers,” and said the 4.1 percent increase was worthy of reflection, but remains “below the national average of an 18 percent increase.”
Nashville PRIDE slated for last week of June
In addition to several ticked events from June 27-29, Nashville PRIDE will host a free parade downtown on June 28. The parade kicks off at 10 a.m. will take place on Broadway between 8th Ave and 2nd Ave. The parade is no longer accepting entrants to walk the parade route, but you can set up anywhere along that stretch to take in the sights. Check nashvillepride.org for the full roster of ticketed events.
TN to Issue One-Time Food Payment in June for Select Counties
Tennessee Department of Human Services will provide $120 one-time payment directly to families in 15 counties through the Summer Nutrition Initiative beginning mid June. “The Summer Nutrition Initiative marks another step in the department’s work to strengthen food security for Tennessee children,” said TDHS Commissioner Clarence H. Carter. “Our fiscally sound strategy
will serve families by providing additional nutritional benefits to those who need it most during the summer months.” Fifteen counties will be served through the Summer Food Service Program: Benton, Carroll, Carter, Cocke, Fayette, Grainger, Houston, Humphreys, Johnson, Lauderdale, Marshall, Moore, Rhea, Sequatchie and Sumner. The funds will be automatically issued to families already receiving SNAP benefits. Tennessee chose to opt out of a summer EBT program that has been issued since the pandemic that was more wide reaching and served more children. The state’s plan cuts out benefits for counties with the largest populations.
Oasis Center Names New CEO
The Oasis Center, a nonprofit serving youth in Nashville, has announced Dr. LaRhonda S. Dingle Magras as its new CEO beginning in July, according to a release from the center. Oasis Center works with thousands of young people every year as well as their families, providing resources, training and a community. “The Board of Directors are thrilled to welcome LaRhonda as the new CEO,” stated Jill Heyman, Oasis Board President. “After an extensive search, the Board unanimously agreed that LaRhonda’s visionary leadership, proven track record, and deep commitment to our mission make her the ideal leader to guide our organization into its next chapter. We look forward to partnering with LaRhonda to expand our impact, deepen our community engagement, and build on the strong foundation already in place.” Dr. Magras is a Trevecca Nazarene University, where she earned her Doctor of Education (EdD) in Leadership & Professional Practice. She has previously served as Executive Director at the Tennessee Food Bank Association, CEO of YWCA Central Alabama, SVP of Programs at YWCA of Nashville & Middle Tennessee, VP of Youth Development at Martha O’Bryan Center, and Director of Children and Youth Initiatives in Mayor Karl Dean’s administration, among other roles. “I am honored to join the Oasis Center as its next President and CEO. For more than 50 years, Oasis has been a beacon of hope and possibility, offering young people a safe space where they are seen, heard, and supported,” Dr. Margras said in the release. “I look forward to listening and learning from the youth, staff, board, and partners who make this work possible, and to building a future together where every young person can thrive.”
Planet Fitness High School Summer Pass Program
This program encourages teens to stay active during the summer break by letting them work out for free at any Planet Fitness location in the U.S. from June 1st to August 31st.
Eligibility: Any teen between the ages of 14 and 19.
Sign-up: Teens can sign up online or in-club. Parent or guardian approval required for those under 18.
Access: Participants can access any Planet Fitness location in the U.S. and Canada, but they must sign up at the location they plan to use.
Free Workouts: Participants gain free access to the gym’s equipment, fitness training from certified trainers, and workouts designed specifically for high schoolers through the Planet Fitness app.
Thicker Skin Gonna Push Back
Written by Chris Scott Fieselman, Vendor #0015
No-one’s going to talk, To me that way. You can’t take back, The things you say. Like sticks and stones, And angry words. Someone always ends up, Getting hurt. It doesn’t really matter Who’s right or wrong? When you back up your words, And get back at someone. You may end up, Winning an argument, But to prove your point, You lose a friend.
Be Ye Not Offended...
Get a Thicker Skin... It doesn’t matter what others do?
Did you do the right thing?
Find all the good that you can in them, And choose to speak ill of no man.
Be Ye Not Offended...
Get a Thicker Skin...
Now, ask yourself this question, When you’re free, To speak your mind? Is it Necessary?
Is it Truthful? Is it Kind?
When a fool, Vents his frustration, Tries to cut you down to size. Be merciful and patient, Show restraint and realize. We’re not all in the same place, Some have got a ways to go. Sometimes it takes more Grace, To overlook, What they don’t know. Your words can be your weapon, Or a tool to change their Life. Slander your fellow man, Or show them, The Love of Jesus Christ.
Be Ye Not Offended...
Get a Thicker Skin...
It doesn’t matter what others do?
Did you do the right thing? Find all the good that you can in them, And choose to speak ill of no man.
Be Ye Not Offended...
Get a Thicker Skin...
Written by Chris Scott Fieselman, Vendor #0015
This world’s been pushing down, Real hard on me, But there’s a beast that won’t be bound, That they don’t see. Back a man in a corner, And he’s gonna attack. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, And I’m Gonna Push Back.
I’m Gonna Push Back, Just watch and see... I’m up for that, If you bring it on me... Ain’t about to quit. I’m gonna stay on track. You can count on it...
I’m Gonna Push Back...
You never see it coming, Cause, you don’t know me. But you better start running, If the beast gets free.
A man can only take so much of that. Something’s got to break, And I’m Gonna Push Back.
I’m Gonna Push Back, Just watch and see... I’m up for that, If you bring it on me...
Ain’t about to quit.
I’m gonna stay on track. You can count on it...
I’m Gonna Push Back...
Talk is real cheap, there’s a time to act. Promises to keep, and words to back. You can turn and run, Or you can bust-a-move.
When you’ve got to “Git-R-Done,” There’s no time to lose...
Cross that line or push me too far, And the trouble you find, Wish you’d never start.
I’m a very patient man, and that’s a fact. There’s only so much I can stand, And I’m Gonna Push Back.
I’m Gonna Push Back, Just watch and see...
I’m up for that, If you bring it on me...
Ain’t about to quit.
I’m gonna stay on track.
You can count on it...
I’m Gonna Push Back...
THEME: SUMMER VIBES
ACROSS
1. Baking ingredient
5. Accounting pro 8. Depletes
12. ____ reflection
13. Painter Chagall
14. Feeling of resentment
15. Member of Germany’s NSDAP
16. ____ lily
17. Light shade of blue 18. *Summer thirst quencher
20. Same as tsar
21. Subside
22. Tierra ____ Fuego
23. Taken without consent
26. Even greener, as in fruit
30. Dot follower
31. Largest hot dessert
34. Australian palm
35. Evian, backwards
37. A in FANBOYS
38. *Like a lightning bug
39. Prima donna
40. *Midsummer’s maypole dance, e.g.
42. *William Blake’s “To Summer,” e.g.
43. Any voting citizen
45. *Sun to ice cream
47. Feeling of veneration
48. Two-door
50. *Beach bag, usually 52. *Summer rays
55. Rock bottom
56. Altar location
57. Milk ____, candy
59. Small stream
60. Turned to the right, like a horse
61. Starchy tuber
62. *It’s knee-high by the 4th of July
63. Ctrl and Delete partner
64. Type of tide
DOWN
1. *____-kissed
2. Birthstone after sapphire
3. Nod off
4. Kind of instinct
5. Diamond weight unit
6. Bluenose
7. Climber’s destination
8. *Intensely hot
9. Greenish blue
10. Make like a cat
11. “Monkey ____, monkey do”
13. Sometime in the future
14. Indianapolis basketball player
19. With BMI over 30
22. Piece of evidence, acr.
23. Type of probe
24. *Summer hiking path
25. Nose of a missile
26. Pakistani tongue
27. Sitcom trial
28. Lyric poem
29. Less experienced
32. *Boat ____, don’t care!
33. *Uninvited picnic guest
36. *Break from summer routine
38. First in Hebrew alphabet
40. Fish eggs
41. Entertained
44. Twist plus jerk
46. City in Netherlands
48. Precious metal extraction cup
49. Early stages
50. #61 Across cousin
51. ____-Eaters
52. Literary genre
53. In the buff
54. Collection of Norse mythology
55. Oldest of the “Big Three” TV networks
58. Dip into liquid
As I make my way across Nashville, I notice something that is somewhat troubling to me. That is TRASH. All kinds in all places. Cans, bottles, cardboard, food trays, clothes and cups. What is upsetting to me is the amount of trash that I see in doorways, bus stops, alleyways and on business stoops and around our places of worship. We all are aware that our unhoused community is responsible for some
A Vendor’s View
BY CHUCK C., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR
of the trash found in the areas I just mentioned. I see bags of trash near places where The Contributor is sold.
With the onset of The Contributor getting started and 18 years later, I feel great strides have been made with the general public on who we are and what we represent. Folks who used to lock their doors and roll up their windows when encountering us now extend warm hands
of fellowship when engaging our vendors in the public and private spaces in our city.
I believe it is our responsibility to look out for each other and to encourage our fellow vendors and unhoused friends to keep our areas neat and clean and engage our customers in a polite respectful manner. After all, as we begin to transition into permanent housing we would hope our homes would be a place to be
Street Tips
BY FREEPRESSGMA, CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR
proud of, so likewise we should leave our work spots in a like condition.
We have been given the wonderful gift of The Contributor and in these uncertain times with cuts of all kinds in social programs, grants and tariffs being levied, we should all work together to preserve what we have for this who come after us. At least that’s this vendor’s view. How about you?
What to share with vendors in the heat:
• Spray bottles with water in them to wet down hats and shirts.
• Pickles for hydration.
• Drinking water or hydration + water.
• Food or snacks.
• Sun hats.
• Translucent or clear sunglasses because it’s hard to sell the paper if people can’t see your eyes.
• Umbrella for shade.
• Sparkly things to pin to shirts or hats to increase visibility.
• Bright vest, hat or belt etc.
• SUNSCREEN
• Money. Buy our papers or zines and get a glimpse into our work
BUSINESS OWNERS:
• Turn on your outside tap and offer it. Convenience stores especially can afford to do this. In Western states it is illegal to refuse someone water when they ask. Nashville might as well be a desert for all the available water there isn’t.
• Offer bathroom use.
• If a vendor has a vehicle, offer them free parking for a few hours. If not, offer them a place to rest in the shade.
• Look into the needs of your vendor and research solutions. Follow through.
• Get to know your vendor and buy the paper. Your vendor is way cheaper than one of those blow up toys that wiggle around, attracting customers to your store.
A Short Story of my Life
BY JOHN H., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR
I remember back when I was a kid I used to see my dad go out in the fields and plow cotton or whatever needed to be done in the field. He would stay all day, come home, eat dinner and shower. But what was so amazing was he would then spend five or six hours studying God’s word. I come to the conclusion and wonder, how can someone be so devoted to God like he was? I would say to myself, I wonder when I get up in age can I be that way?
When I finished school I worked at a 7-11 store for about a year. Afterward, I went to Chicago and stayed with my oldest sister. I couldn’t find the work I wanted, so I came back home. I was walking down the street one day and a guy asked me if one day I think I could be a truck driver. That was a big question but interesting. I talked to my parents and got advice and the next day I went to Dave’s office. He signed me up. A week later I was headed to Crystal City, Mo., to a school named AMTEC. I spent two months taking a driving course and a classroom seminar on rules and regulations of the road. Two weeks before I finished the course, J.B. Hunt contacted me and asked if I would work for them. I drove for them a year and a half, then I went to Digby in Memphis. I ended up driving for numerous companies through 48 states and Canada. Coming from California, God spoke to my heart. God told me that I would lose my job when I got back to Nashville. It happened, people. I knew it was the time to change my life. Getting old, I let God have the rest of my days. I got on my knees and asked God to show me a sign that this is what he wanted me to do. I started with The Contributor. The same month I started, I wrote an article. My second customer was a very nice lady and I shared God’s word with her, and I was stunned. God spoke through me to her. I spit out a whole paragraph of 1 John. I started to shed a couple of tears because I knew God was speaking through me. Since that day 15 years ago I will never stop doing what I do today. I’ve never stayed on no job more than two years. I struggled many times and I actually think it’s because I don’t get very close to anyone. So today I will ask God to bring people into my life. B&B, it’s been a long time but I love y’all.
STORIES OF AN UNHOUSED WOMAN
One day I decided to park my unairconditoned truck and ride the bus. The driver was courteous and gentle on the brakes. The air conditioning was delightful. The riders were friendly, but not invasive. A few jokes were passed around.
I arrived downtown and headed for the post office. About half way there I needed the restroom. Thankfully I was near the library. Of course the bus station has one, but I had skipped out of there rather than do defensive bathrooming. I certainly learned better than to stray too far from the bus station or, once in town, the library.
Then it dawned on me. There are only two public restrooms downtown ... and even
fewer in the ‘burbs.
What civilized countries do, we don’t. No wonder we are called Ferengis by the rest of the world. The only people allowed to enjoy “free activities “ such as strolling our streets or visiting a park - must find somewhere to spend money in order to use a restroom — after they’ve paid and said pleasantries to the staff. So the next time you pass a grumpy or smelly person on the street, consider that they may not have been able to make it to a restroom in time. It is high time Nashville joined the international community that spends so much money in our city and install public restrooms. Even porta-potties would be better than the dearth of hospitality Nashville citizens and visitors currently endure.
Joke of the Issue
BY HOWARD P., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR
How many cars can be found in the Bible?
Well, first there’s an old Plymouth that God had in the Old Testament, You know, it says God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden in a fury. Oops.
Then there’s the Triumph sports car that was at the battle of Jericho. Because the triumph of the children of Israel was heard throughout the land.
Then in Psalm 83 God owned a Pontiac and a Geo, because it says chase them with your tempest and terrify them with your storm
Then there is the Honda that Jesus owned he never liked to talk about it. He said, "I came speaking not of my own accord ." You know he passed that Honda to the apostles and they fit 120 people in it. In Acts chapter 1:15 Peter stood up and read the number of names together and they were about 120 disciples. Acts chapter 2:1 they were again all in one accord
“No Man’s life, liberty or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session.” - Benjamin Franklin Jim's Journal
BY JIM P., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR
How Good?
Nashville artists struggling with housing know what’s good at Julia Martin Gallery
During Delia Seigenthaler’s decades-long career as an artist and educator, she’s built a reputation as a multimedia magpie with a feel for materials and an eye for the visual surprises afforded by unexpected combinations of elements and objects. Working fluidly between 2D and 3D media, she approaches art-making like an archaeologist of the everyday, assembling personal narratives from found objects and fragments that others might discard. Her puppets and doll-like sculptures are
BY JOE NOLAN
unsettling, but in her collage works similar characters take on the look of colorful cartoons. Her process is intuitive — compulsive collecting followed by assembling sculptures over time. It’s a process that can look more like excavation than creation.
Since retiring from her post as a beloved art teacher at University School of Nashville, Delia Seigenthaler has scratched the teaching itch by bringing her love of intuitive art-making to unhoused Nashville artists as the leader of Room In
The Inn’s arts program. Room In The Inn’s welcoming downtown campus includes a spacious art room with lots of natural light, courtesy of an enviable window view of downtown. That’s where Seigenthaler led, encouraged and coaxed her students through their creation of the work in “Do You Know How Good You Are?”
Seigenthaler calls herself a “closet artist,” and there’s something pleasantly contradictory about that admission given that her latest curatorial project is putting
less represented artists under a spotlight at Julia Martin Gallery. The one-time residential home is the perfect place for a show about struggling with affordable shelter, and the popular spot hosted a packed house in the Wedgewood-Houston arts district during the exhibition’s First Saturday opening. The exhibition includes a variety of paintings, sculptures and collages that tell the artists’ own personal stories in visual expressions of pain, joy, sorrow and hope.
Flower Girl by Angie Duncan.
Our Beautiful World by Rea Cawthorne.
Self Portrait by Joe Spence.
“Do You Know How Good You Are” includes an impressively detailed model of a greenhouse flower shop (“The Little Flower Shop”). It’s really delightful — traditionally feminine and pretty, and bursting with colorful, fantastically over-sized blossoms. It’s by an artist named Ray McMinnis, and a selection of paintings he created for the show are even more intriguing. McMinnis puts pastels to paper and acrylics to canvas to evoke stylized landscapes with dramatic light and vibrant, unreal color palettes. “Magic Hour” is an electric mustard sunset in a magenta sky. Long black shadows retreat from the treeline, and a mountain range is gilded in last light. A comparatively still and muted scene of a cypress tree in a courtyard (“Cypress Tree”) is made almost as dramatic as “Magic Hour” with McMinnis crowding his feathery green branches across the paper, their ends extending past the edges.
A self-portrait by Joe Spence is detailed with glowing yellows, whites, reds and turquoise set against black. The effect is like a DIY black velvet painting made with just pastels on paper. “Joe’s Self Portrait 1” is one of the most stylized in a show full of style, and it makes a good complement to one of Do You Know’s most memorable works.
Kenyatta Jones’ “Man with the Blue Bow Tie” is a small collage on paper. It pictures the dapper title figure standing in a blue-green room. There’s a fireplace mantle behind the man and there are paintings hanging on the wall in the background. Above the man’s crisp collar cinched with the cool-colored bowtie, his head looks like it’s completely wrapped in bandages. The scene is surreal and unsettling. Has there been a tragic accident? Does the Invisible Man have a new reality show? It’s no surprise that both “The Man with the Blue Bow
Tie” and “Joe’s Self Portrait 1” have both sold to collectors. All of the sales from the exhibition benefit Room in the Inn, giving these artists an opportunity to support their creative practices while they build their audiences, just like any other artists finding a way to make a home while making art in Nashville.
One of the most inventive works in the show combines painting and collage in a unique combination of found object art and brushwork.
Lanzell Drew’s “Irving Berlin” is a record sleeve of the album “The Best of Irving Berlin” by Reg Owen and his Orchestra. The original LP was released in 1957 and the cover art is emblematic of the period: all 30 tracks are listed at the top of the cover alongside the famous RCA Victor puppy dog logo; the background is a marbled beige; Berlin is pictured in a bronze-colored
jacket, a white shirt and a black tie — the image looks like a colored photograph combined with illustration. Drew uses acrylics to paint over the portrait, leaving the rest of the album cover as-is. The result flattens out the portrait and turns Berlin’s bemused expression into the inscrutable gaze of something like a mime with a lounge gig. It’s weird and funny, and it’s a cool combination of elements for an art gallery in Music City. I hope to see more.
Room In The Inn’s founder Charles Strobel’s philosophy was that everyone is worthy of love and remembrance. Strobel was a native Nashvillian and a renowned nationwide advocate for the disenfranchised. He passed away at the age of 80 in 2023. Strobel believed that — along with food, shelter, warmth, and human connection — creative expression is a
fundamental part of the human experience. The phrase “Do you know how good you are?” is one of the mottos you’ll hear a lot about at Room In The Inn. It’s a question Strobel would ask the men and women he served, friends, family and others he ran into around town, and you can buy the words emblazoned on stickers, hats and T-shirts at Room In The Inn’s website. In the context of an art exhibition, the question reads “Do you know how talented you are?” And Seigenthaler — the program leader and the curator — sees the display as a showcase for our too-often overlooked neighbors and fellow artists. It’s an exhibition that gives Nashvillians — and Nashville’s art scene — a reason to look: To look at these fantastic objects, and at the unique, resilient, complex creative people who made them.
Images courtesy of Room In The Inn.
City Closes ‘Old Tent City,’ Encampment Along the Cumberland
At the beginning of the June State Homelessness Symposium in Nashville, the public information officer for the Office of Homeless Services kicked the meeting off by saying it had been a “very big week” and a “big win for people living outside.” Just a couple days before, the city closed the encampment at Anthes Drive, long known as Old Tent City.
Demetris Chaney Perkins went on to say at the symposium that the city had housed 107 people during the closure with the help of community partners. At the time of closure, 86 of those folks were said to have moved into Rodeway Inn, a transitional housing option,
BY AMANDA HAGGARD
while 16 found permanent housing and two moved in with family or friends.
“We are very fortunate for many of you in this room who helped to house 107 people,” Perkins said.
A week after the symposium, advocates with Open Table Nashville weren’t feeling like the closure was as much of a grand success. They, and other service providers, have spent years doing outreach at Old Tent City. Some of their first experiences advocating for unhoused people predated Open Table as a nonprofit and began when the city was trying to close the encampment in 2008. Since the encampment was slated for clearing earlier this spring,
Open Table was among those hustling to find places for people as their eviction dates loomed.
“Closing an encampment is not a success story unless we also address the underlying issues that fuel homelessness like the affordable housing crisis in our city,” reads an release from Open Table Nashville. “When the shelters are full, Section 8 vouchers are halted, and the housing waiting lists are long, we echo the concern we’ve heard on the streets again and again: ‘Where can we go? Where can we safely exist until we get housing?’”
The closure of Old Tent City that moved the majority of the encampment’s residents into Rodeway Inn may
show progress, but to many it is a shortterm solution. More than 100 people moving from unsheltered homelessness to sheltered transitional housing or permanent housing is no small endeavor, but real solutions would require less short-term triage.
Years of temporary fixes, not all recent, have led to the neglect that keeps Nashvillians going back to encampments as a solution for shelter — the challenge will be sustaining the effort beyond this crisis response and measuring not just how quickly and efficiently an encampment is cleared, but whether every option offered was stable and dignified.
PHOTOS BY ALVINE
Micro Rainbow’s Sebastian Rocca on aiding LGBTQI+ asylum seekers
Micro Rainbow is a UK-based social enterprise that provides safe housing, employability and care services for LGBTQI+ asylum seekers. INSP sat down with CEO Sebastian Rocca.
There are 64 countries in the world where being LGBTQI+ is illegal. Every year, about a thousand flee to the UK, where, since 2015, 10,974 have claimed asylum. However, that comes with its own challenges.
“LGBTQI+ people will come to the UK from, say, countries like Uganda and Pakistan, and they will be housed by the government in houses shared with people from the same countries that they left behind,” explains Sebastian Rocca, CEO of social enterprise Micro Rainbow.
“So, for example, let’s be stereotypical here. A gay, effeminate man from Uganda might find himself in a house with other people from Uganda or Nigeria who will still hold very strong anti-LGBTQI views. Imagine a trans woman being housed in a house of men because her passport still says that she’s a man. Many people will be beaten up, abused and sexually abused as a result.
“As a result, not only would people be beaten up and abused and raped in their housing, but a lot of them who accepted this hous[ing] would leave to avoid this violence, and others who knew about the potential of violence and abuse would reject this housing, making them-
BY NIAMH BROOK
selves homeless and willingly sleeping rough.”
He, “created Micro Rainbow 12 years ago to provide a holistic approach to integration.”
Now, Micro Rainbow is the UK’s national organisation that supports LGBTQI+ people fleeing persecution. The organisation offers three pillars of support, based on housing, social inclusion and employability.
“We started very small with one two-bedroom house, but now we have the capacity to offer more than 35,000 safe bed nights every year,” says Rocca.
“It’s not just that people are safe because they are with other people who are queer. What also happens is that people start exploring their LGBTQII+ identity, most of them for the very first time. They are able to be themselves to start experimenting with mannerisms, clothing, makeup and eventually making friends. What’s important here is that they express themselves in a safe place.
“Our beneficiaries have to prove their identity to the Home Office to claim asylum, which is hard when you’ve spent your life hiding yourself. When people are able to be their true, beautiful selves, it helps them to articulate themselves and make their case better.”
But what then? It is incredibly difficult for asylum seekers to find community in the UK, Rocca says, as they may be discriminated against by people from their own countries. At this point, it is not just them but their families back home who are endangered.
Micro Rainbow runs a substantial social inclusion programme, offering everything from yoga and exercise to art and writing to therapy.
“It’s a way to gain back freedom, and power, and control,” says Rocca.
“It’s a program that helps people to connect and builds a community around people who don’t have one, so their support networks start to become other refugees that are also queer. They will connect with other organisations that might not be necessarily LGBTQII+, but that are supportive of LGBTQII+ people. So people in our community start building those safety nets that are crucial for anyone to really live and survive.”
To this end, Micro Rainbow also offers an employability service. Asylum seekers are not allowed to work for at least a year after arriving in the UK, so most LGBTQI+ asylum seekers are living in poverty, on about £40 pounds per week, which has to cover everything from food
to medication to transport. Research shows that 40% of those who become refugees end up becoming homeless again.
During this time, Micro Rainbow also provides laptops to facilitate online training, mentoring, and connections with corporate organisations where service users can find work.
“Our beneficiaries will have to learn new skills in order to be able to compete in the UK job market,” says Rocca. “When they are told all their lives that they are against God, against nature, they have very, very low self-esteem, which impacts their applications and interviews. We can now even provide legal advice as well.
“We’ve been noticing an increase in asylum seekers from Ukraine and Russia in recent years, and in countries were anti-LGBTQI+ legislation is becoming stricter. Big geopolitical events and harsher laws cause a real change in who comes to use for help.
“This is why we call it our ‘holistic approach’ — we try to consider all the needs our beneficiaries may have.”
Learn more at microrainbow.org
Courtesy of INSP.ngo
PHOTO COURTESY OF MICRO RAINBOW
LA NOTICIA
“The Contributor” está trabajando con uno de los principales periódicos en español La Noticia para llevar contenido a más lectores en Middle Tennessee. Nuestros vendedores de periódicos han pedido durante mucho tiempo que nuestra publicación incluya contenido que apele al interés de residentes de habla hispana en nuestra comunidad.
“The Contributor” is working with one of the leading Spanish-language newspapers La Noticia to bring content to more readers in Middle Tennessee. Our newspaper vendors have long requested that our publication include content that appeals to the interest of Spanish-speaking residents in our community.
DHS Incluye a Nashville en Lista de Jurisdicciones Santuario—y Luego Elimina Publicación
El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional de los Estados Unidos (DHS, por sus siglas en inglés) publicó recientemente una nueva lista de ciudades, condados y estados designados como jurisdicciones santuario y Nashville, Tennessee, se encontraba entre los nombrados Según funcionarios del DHS, estas jurisdicciones fueron acusadas de obstruir la aplicación de las leyes federales de inmigración, poniendo en ries go la seguridad pública Este anuncio se dio tras la fir ma de una Orden Ejecutiva por par te del presidente Donald J Tr ump, el pasado 28 de abril de 2025 La orden instr uyó a la secretaria del DHS, Kristi Noem, y a la Fiscal General de los Estados U n i d o s , Pa m B o n d i , a i d e n t i f i c a r públicamente a las jurisdicciones que se nie gan a cooperar con las autoridades federales de inmig ración "
Los políticos de las ciudades santuario están poniendo en pelig ro a los estadounidenses y a nuestras fuerzas del orden para prote ger a inmig rantes ilegales que han cometido crímenes violentos," declaró la secretaria Noem “Estamos exponiendo a estos políticos santuario que albergan a inmig rantes ile gales criminales y desafían la ley federal El presidente Tr ump y yo siempre pondremos la se guridad del pueblo estadounidense en primer lugar Los políticos santuario están advertidos: cumplan con la ley federal”
De acuerdo con los funcionarios del DHS, las políticas de santuario que limitan la cooperación con el Servicio
interactuar con la policía, sin temor a re presalias relacionadas con su estatus mig ratorio
No obstante, la administración actual sostiene que dichas políticas impiden el cumplimiento efectivo de las leyes federales de inmig ración, lo que, se gún
nidades
Foto: La Notic a Newspaper Nashvi le
de Inmig ración y Control de Aduanas (ICE) per miten la liberación de personas que han cometido delitos g raves, lo que debilita el estado de derecho y r e p r e s e n t a u n a a m e n a z a p a r a l o s agentes de la ley y las comunidades en general
Cada jurisdicción incluida en la lista del DHS recibiría una notificación formal de su incumplimiento y de las posibles violaciones a los estatutos penales federales El DHS exigió que estas jurisdicciones revisaran y modificaran de inmediato sus políticas para alinear se con las leyes federales de inmig ración
Sin embargo, pocos días después de su publicación, la lista fue retirada del sitio web oficial del DHS sin explicación pública La página indicaba originalmente que “el DHS exige que estas jurisdicciones revisen y modifiquen de inmediato sus políticas para alinearse con las leyes mig ratorias fe-
Conoce tus derechos:
¿Que hacer en caso de una redada?
Mantenerse callado
Sólo dar nombre y apellido
No mentir
Nunca acepte/lleve documentos falsos
No revelar su situación migratoria
No llevar documentación de otro país
En caso de ser arrestado, mostrar la Tarjeta Miranda sados en la Quinta Enmienda de la Constitución, derechos de guardar silencio y contar con un ogado fueron denominados Derechos Miranda go de la decisión de la Suprema Corte de Justicia Estados Unidos en el caso Miranda vs Arizona, 4 U S 436, de 1966
derales y renueven su obligación de p r o t e ge r a l o s c i u d a d a n o s e s t adounidenses, no a inmig rantes ile gales pelig rosos ” Nashville, que aparecía como una de las ciudades en la lista, ya no figura en el sitio web al momento de esta publicación Tampoco aparecen otros estados y ciudades o condados
A nivel local, algunos funcionarios continúan defendiendo las políticas de santuario como mecanismos para prote ger a comunidades vulnerables y fomentar la confianza entre los inmig rantes y las autoridades policiales Argumentan que estas políticas ayudan a ase gurar que las víctimas de delitos y los testigos se sientan se guros al
L a i n c l u s i ó n i n i c i a l d e N a s h v i l l e e n l a l i s t a, a u n q u e ya r e t i r a d a , h a ge n e r ad o i n q u i e t u d e n l a c o mu n i d a d i n m ig r a n t e l o c a l , q u e t e m e u n a u m e n t o e n l a p r e s i ó n f e d e r a l y u n c l i m a d e i n c e rt i d u m b r e A d e m á s , e x p e r t o s s e ñ a l a n q u e a ú n n o s e h a n e s p e c i f i c a d o l a s c o n s e c u e n c i a s c o n c r e t a s q u e d i c h a d e s i g n a c i ó n p o d r í a t e n e r e n t é r m i n o s d e e l e g i b i l i d a d p a r a r e c i b i r c i e r t o s fo n d o s f e d e r a l e s
Con la eliminación re pentina de la lista y la falta de una aclaración oficial, crece la especulación sobre el impacto l e g a l y p o l í t i c o d e e s t a m e d i d a
Mientras tanto, en Nashville y otras ciudades señaladas, el de bate sobre inmig ración, autoridad local y se guridad pública sigue tomando fuerza
La Noticia Newspaper Nashville continuará infor mando sobre este tema en desar rollo
Envíenos sus sugerencias por e-mail: news@hispanicpaper com ó 615-582-3757
Por Yuri Cunza Editor in Chief @LaNoticiaNe ws
Año 23 - No 415 Nashville, Tennessee
“DONDE OCURREN LOS HECHOS QUE IMPORTAN, SIEMPRE PRIMERO... ANTES”
Alcalde Freddie O Connell habla sobre las acciones y deténciones de agencias federales (THP ICE) en el sur de Nashville
The Importance Of Making A Connection
I’ve often spoken of the importance of making a connection with people while selling The Contributor. I’ve even gone so far as to say it’s more important than the amount of money you make. I was recently asked what I meant by that. Aren’t you trying to make money? The short answer is yes, but there are times when other things take priority over that. I will do my best to explain what I mean by that here citing examples of things that have actually happened while selling the paper.
Example #1: I’ve been visiting public schools recently to highlight articles I’ve written about education and to show the variety of ways The Contributor could be useful in the classroom whether in printed or in digital form. I’ve also used this opportunity to introduce people to our newest product: The Zine, which is a cross between a comic book and a magazine.
On one of my recent outings I met Cinnamon, who was familiar with The Contributor and me — she even knew I sold the paper at Old Hickory Boulevard and Central Pike, though admittedly, she had NEVER stopped for me before. It was a pleasant surprise!
When I finished my presentation, I encour-
BY NORMA B., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR
aged her to honk and wave when she came by if she saw me out there. The following Sunday after we met, she did SO much more than that! She brought her whole family by for a visit: her husband John, her son John Jr., who I learned is REALLY into Minecraft, and her daughter Simone, who shared with me her LOVE of Hello Kitty! After asking their parent’s permission, I gave each of them a Zine of their own to color. They were happy and so was I! It was VERY special to me. A connection was made for each of us.
Example #2: A young woman was stuck in traffic at my spot. I could tell just by looking at her that she was stressed out, and I got the feeling it was from something more than the traffic.
I smiled at her and tried to get her to do the same. She tried but I could tell she just wasn’t feeling it.
I thought to myself, I’ve been there, I get it. What could I do? I started making all kinds of faces, acting goofy. Everyone else in that line probably thought, what’s wrong with her? Has she lost her mind? Is she going crazy? It was worth it though, because in practi-
cally no time at all I accomplished my goal. She busted out laughing! She mouthed the words, “thank you,” and made a heart with her hands. I bowed my head, tipped my cap, and gave her a thumbs up and away she went. Again, a connection was made and even though the window never came down, I’m confident I will see her again. Hopefully the next time she’ll be smiling without being prompted to do so.
Example 3: The last example involves a young child maybe five or six years old whom I encountered on the sidewalk running quite a bit ahead of his mom. He ran up to my chair breathlessly telling me his name.
I thanked him for talking to me, but I told him he should ALWAYS listen to his mama because she’s knows what’s best for you. I asked if he understood what I was saying and he nodded yes.
By now his mom has gotten to my chair, she was clearly irritated, telling him, “Boy, didn’t I tell you not to be talking to strangers!” Again he nodded yes. She then asked, “What did she say to you?” In a loud and clear (but respectful) voice he said, “She told me to listen to you.”
At first she didn’t say anything, but I thought I saw her tear up a bit.
When they came back by a while later she explained they’d just moved here, they didn’t know many people yet, and she apologized. I assured her there was no need for that, telling her, “In the world we live in today, we have to do ALL we can to protect our kids. I’m certainly NOT going to fault you for that!”
She asked what I was doing and I explained about the paper. She said, “The move has taken EVERYTHING I had.” I offered to comp her a paper so she could check it out and see what it’s all about for herself, but she declined.
The best part of this interaction for me was that when we finished, I told her son, “Now that I’ve actually met your mom, you and I ARE NOT strangers anymore, and you can talk to me ANYTIME you want!” Looking up at his mom for approval she agreed, and they BOTH left me that day with a smile!
Though I DIDN’T make a sale that day, the connection was firmly established, and I have NO DOUBT that if/when she IS able, she WILL buy a paper to see what it’s all about. And even if she doesn’t, the connection we made that day will remain firmly in place!
My Spiritual Journey From Nashville and Back
Do things happen only by accident and fluke chance? Or, is there a plan and a purpose and things that are “meant to be?” Here is my story — the short version.
I was born in Nashville in 1954. It might sound strange, but for some years as a boy I actually lived right downtown (Fort Nashboro was in my backyard). Later as a teenager I lived in west Nashville. Upon graduating from Hillsboro High School I dove deeply into drugs, taking our motto, “I’ll try anything once” to the extreme. One particular night in the summer of ’73 was the climax of that extreme and my eyes became opened to the dark side of one of my cliques of friends. As if the drug they had given me backfired, I saw myself in hell. God’s Holy Spirit had taken hold of me and for the first time, I turned down a hit from a marijuana pipe.
We went for a ride and there was an accident, which I later found out was only minor, but this was my cue to leave. I don’t know if I fell or kneeled, but I found myself in a suburban backyard expecting to die from an overdose. In my mind’s eye I saw the image of a man crying (praying) to God — Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane — and
BY GARY B., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR
I knew to do likewise. “Please help me go to heaven.” I regained consciousness and knew God was giving me a second chance. You see, I had been living an immoral lifestyle (I won’t go into detail). Amazingly, I walked all the way home from that backyard and even went to work the next day. The day was unforgettable! There were tears of joy and repentance as I sensed God’s love; I was born again. Some days later I took an 8-track tape that I had stolen back to the store.
Although I never saw any of that clique of friends again, I had three other “best” friends who were all staunch atheists. One friend suggested my experience had only happened in my head and I too began to doubt. Later that summer I decided marijuana was good for the world and I bought a pound for resale. BOOM. I was immediately busted in my dorm in UT Knoxville, but while waiting for that verdict, I did what Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your closet.” I took that literally. The verdict turned out to be 15 weekends in jail so as not to interrupt my studies. God, in sovereign grace, was separating me from the influence of those friends.
But drugs, particularly LSD, had destroyed
A Calling
BY MARK P., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR
As a believer in Jesus we’re called to live a life worthy of the calling we have received. Ephesians 4:1 says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you, walk worthy of the vocation where with ye are called .…”
Apostle Paul says that includes being completely humble, gentle and patient, bearing with one another in love and making every effort to live in peace and unity with each other (Ephesians 4:2-3). We don’t know every challenge people face or are facing but we need to be patient with them.
Let’s be an expression of Jesus’s love to everyone that we encounter on our daily path. Ephesians 4:4-7 says, “There is one body and one spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord one faith one baptism, one God and father of all who is above all and through all and in you all. But unto everyone of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.”
How can we be more patient with others? Ask God for his help and let him guide you.
my life. Later, after dropped out of college and doubting my faith, I was useless to the world and myself. I did not read my Bible and had no Christian friends. This went on for two years. I was in philosophical limbo; spiritually sick, and even considering suicide.
Then in the spring of ’75, as I sat in the grass in front of a church on Church Street, some gracious folks found me and invited me to their home. They prayed with me and oriented me in the biblical faith. One woman in that home was as if I had known her all my life. (I grew up mostly without a mother or sister.) To address my doubts, they quoted Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist with regard to the “theory” of evolution. A light came on in and I began to read my Bible.
Christian life seems to happen in three phases: Coming out of Egypt; through the wilderness (It took the Israelites 40 years); and into the promised land (a life of faith in the many promises of God). I stayed in the “wilderness” a long time like a doubting Thomas. I can only say, God was patient.
In 1998 I had lived in Florida, California and had traveled — and lived — on two other continents. I was driving a taxi in Seattle when I met
a man who had been the victim of a house fire which had so traumatized his life that for a while he had been homeless. Yet God had miraculously redeemed his life so that when you saw him, all you saw was Jesus: gentle, kind, loving and understanding. He invited me to his church, which had a small group that reminded me of the original people I had met in Nashville.
I was baptized into that church and later managed a transitional housing program for them. I also found a better job as a night crew grocery clerk, which I did for 18 years. Seattle, of course, is “the blue bubble” but as an ex-wanna-be-hippie, I had no problem with a “save the planet” mindset. I became more “Seattlelite” than most natives: bicycling/carless, composting, etc.
Older Americans who have traveled around and lived elsewhere, will tell you, “We always return home.” So, yes, I came back to Nashville, a city I believe still has a “heart,” unlike Seattle. Politeness is not the same as friendliness. Today, as a vendor for the Contributor in the city with the most churches per capita in the USA (where I originally came to faith), sometimes I wonder, did I really need to leave? Maybe not.
Community
BY MARK N., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR
When selling The Contributor I notice a few people — not all — acting as if they are fumbling around like they are going to make a purchase, but then they just drive off. This is kind of funny.
My Dad was from Nashville, and if anyone has traveled to other cities you would know there is no place like Nashville. Where I’m from, an operation like the Contributor doesn’t exist. At The Contributor, a person can sell papers, write and apply for food assistance, hous-
ing, health care, and other programs. The haves and have-nots-so-much can communicate and mainly it’s a good read. But the best aspect of The Contributor is that participating in it relieves hopelessness, which may affect situations in ways a person can’t see.
Like maybe with more hopefulness there’s fewer robberies or other crimes. Not saying this is the only factor, but it’s a possibility. I’m sure the donors and staff and community already know this, so I guess I’m impressed.
HOBOSCOPES
GEMINI
I wasn’t born yesterday, Gemini, but I don’t hold it against anybody who was. I’m sure there were some fantastic people born yesterday. I hope it was some of the best people yet. Me and you, though, we were born a good bit further back. And we may not be any wiser than the people that come after, but for now, we’ve got a responsibility to get things ready for them. I hope the people that were born yesterday will have a better world to live in than we did. And I think if we set our minds and put our backs into it, we may be able to build them one.
CANCER
I was gonna write you an inspirational horoscope about how sloths can hold their breath underwater for 40 minutes. That’s longer than a dolphin can stay underwater! So you should never underestimate your ability to survive circumstances that you don’t feel equipped for. It was going to be great, Cancer, but it turns out it’s not true. Despite that factoid appearing all over the internet, it’s just a contorted version of a scientific study that involved immobilized sloths in arrested respiration for up to 15 minutes. So I guess if you’re a sloth in this scenario, you can still do more than we expected, but I don’t think you should have to. Take a deep breath in, Cancer, and maybe try to get out of the circumstance that’s asking you not to.
LEO
The late sage Brian Wilson once said, “Here’s another great song I wrote that everybody loves,” and then he played “California Girls” for an adoring crowd. I find this inspirational, Leo, because those are the words of a person who is doing the exact thing that they ought to. You’re not always so sure of yourself, Leo, but I think it just takes practice. Keep moving in the direction the wave wants to take you. And when you find yourself on the shore, know that you still haven’t arrived. Take your board, turn around, and swim back out to catch another.
VIRGO
Remember when the whole family used to go over to the Campbell’s house because they had a swimming pool and a bigger grill than ours? Dad and Gene would fire up the coals and get some burgers on. Mom would chase us around reapplying sunscreen. And somebody would always float the watermelon in the pool where it bobbed around and probably soaked up chlorine through its thick rind. By the end of the day we’d be falling asleep in the deck chairs with water in our ears and one sunburned arm that mom missed. You’re gonna be tired at the end of today too, Virgo. And probably tomorrow. Why not get tired doing something you love?
LIBRA
In 1966 Mohammad Ali told a reporter his strategy for keeping opponents off balance was to use “different strokes for different folks.” It’s unclear if Ali invented this phrase, but he certainly popularized it. In the boxer’s formulation it’s less about allowing unique approaches to life for all types of people. It’s a strategy of having more than one way of getting the job done. If you’re sure of your objective but find yourself falling short, Libra, you may need to change your approach. It’s not just about hitting the target harder or faster, it may take a different angle altogether.
SCORPIO
I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse, Scorpio. Sorry, did I say “offer?” I meant “omelette.” I’m going to make you an omelette you can’t refuse, Scorpio. Lately, I like to use pepper jack cheese and some fresh tomato. What you’ll probably find surprising is the sauteed garlic and green chilis. It takes a little more time to get them gently browned, but I promise it’s worth it. Once I get this bad boy flipped and plated, we can have a seat and talk through whatever that deal was you were wanting to talk through. Just remember that even in business, people are people and we deserve to be seen as our whole, complicated, omelette-eating selves.
SAGITTARIUS
There are people out there who believe they’re superhuman. They think they’re in the tiny percentage of humanity that have it figured out. They think the rest of us are only here as the muscle to build the world they’re going to rule. I think we’re all superhuman, Sagittarius, but only because we’ve ingested so many microplastics that we’re more synthetic than any of our ancestors. But despite our ever-increasing percentage of artificiality, I think it’s more important than ever to treat each other as fully-human. I think that’s better than superhuman. I think if you and me and our neighbors can see each other as whole people, we increase the chances of a more human future.
CAPRICORN
Somebody gave me one of those smart speakers. I’ve just been using it to play ethereal music from my phone, but now I got a new lightbulb for the kitchen and it turns out it’s one of those smart bulbs. So I guess now I’ve got a smart home. “Eugene, turn on the kitchen light.” I command, and Eugene (I call my smart home “Eugene”) can do naught but obey. “Eugene, play ethereal music,” I decree. And Eugene fills the well-lit kitchen with exquisite tones. It makes it hard to remember, Capricorn, that the world was not made to obey me, nor I to command the world. Me and you and perhaps even Eugene are each simply a part of this planet and to find our place in it, we may need to offer fewer commands and more help. Let me get the light for you this time, Eugene.
AQUARIUS
“What do you get when you cross a spare tire and a fig?” That’s the question on the end of my popsicle stick and I simply do not know the answer. In the past, Aquarius, this kind of thing might have really sent me into a tailspin. I would have felt unequipped to even begin eating this orange-pineapple popsicle if I didn’t at least have a guess. But I’m less afraid of not knowing than I used to be. So I take a bite and I hope that when I get to the end of this chilly experience of eating sweet artificially flavored ice, I will know more about myself and care less about the answers. And if you want to know, Aquarius, what secrets are in store for you, you’d better start eating as well.
PISCES
This is like the part of the concert where the singer holds the microphone out into the audience and hopes that the chorus is thrown back in full voice. And there are so many people in this audience. And you’ve never been as strong a singer as you wish. But this is your chance to go on record as the singer of the song. Sure, your voice may get lost in the crowd, but that’s what the crowd is. The chorus might not last long, Pisces, so go ahead and sing with your whole chest.
ARIES
When you picture yourself on your deathbed, Aries, surrounded by friends and family and that one nurse who you just met and the thought occurs to you that you might have done things differently, what will you wish you’d given more time to? Will you wish you’d put more energy into running from task to task, putting out fires that you didn’t start, making sure every number in the spread sheet is correct? Or will you wish you’d given more time and attention to the people you love and the nurses you haven’t met yet? What efforts you make today will pull you in that direction?
TAURUS
When life hands you lemons, Taurus, and you make lemonade, don’t be surprised when nobody else is too excited. Because, honestly, what you’ve really made is more of a lemon juice. I’m not criticising, you were working with what you had. What I think you might need to do is find somebody to whom life has given sugar. And, if you’ve got time, find someone else who’s been given a good amount of water. And if you’re really in the spirit, find out who life is giving all the ice to. Now you’ve got three friends and a pitcher of something everybody wants. Life is looking up.
Mr. Mysterio is not a licensed astrologer, a trained omelettier or a certified sloth scientist . Listen to the Mr. Mysterio podcast at mrmysterio.com Or just give him a call at 707-VHS-TAN1.
Animated film adds a killer new chapter to the Predator-verse
The subtitle of Predator: Killer of Killers comes from the Yautja Codex — a cultural document of the extraterrestrial species movie lovers know as Predators. Hunting and collecting trophies from dangerous prey — including humans — is a societal imperative for a young Yautja who is encouraged to become a “killer of killers” as a path to honor and glory. In his latest addition to the Predator-verse, director Dan Tracthenberg follows-up on the success of 2022’s Prey with an R-rated animated anthology of Predator films that’s as broadly creative as anything we’ve seen in the Predator cinematic universe. And it's another winner for Tracthenberg, who single handedly revitalized the filmic world of the Predator by transporting its iconic alien monster to the historic action genre.
The film’s three chapters all involve lots of violence and bloody action. The movie is soaked in crimson and numerous sequences are filled with severed limbs and heads tumbling through the film’s frames. Killer of Killers earns its R-rating, but it also features some of the best fight choreography I’ve seen this side of John Wick. And Trachtenberg excels at bringing his cartoon characters to life and delivering real emotional ballast to these brutal stories about troubled heroes facing their most deadly challenges.
"The Shield" begins the triptych of terror on the longboat of a 9th-century Viking raider named Ursa whose quest for vengeance gets brutally interrupted by our favorite dreadlocked trophy collector. The animation here channels the look of the Netflix animated show Arcane and several artists from that series contributed to Killer of Killers. The style and design transform Nordic brutality into artful savagery. “The Shield” is a revenge saga, wrapped in space horror, that references Beowulf and takes place in an animated world designed with video game software, Unreal Engine. The results are sometimes mesmerizing.
"The Sword" shifts the setting to feudal Japan, where a ninja's family betrayal becomes exponentially more complicated when a samurai-hunting Predator pays a visit. This segment leans hardest into the franchise's core theme, the lesson from the Yautja Codex – that honor in hunting transcends species. Some of the most fun details in these stories are the portrayals of the title monster. In “The Shield” the predator is almost like a Hulk creature, massive and powerful. In “The Sword” the interstellar hunter more closely resembles the villain from the original film. The samurai segment here can’t help but recall the katana battle in the Predators film by Robert Rodriquez, and it's a great example of how Trachtenberg celebrates the best of the Predator universe while simultaneously remaking and revitalizing the brand.
"The Wing" closes the trilogy with a WWII fighter pilot whose aerial investigations turn into a dogfight for the ages. Here the Sci-Fi historical action film feels like Top Gun meets The Thing, and watching a P-51 Mustang duke it out with Predator tech is the kind of absurd spectacle that reminds you why this franchise endures, and why Trachtenberg’s genre-jumping films have done so much to unleash the monster’s latent box office potential.
BY JOE NOLAN, FILM CRITIC
Like any anthology film, Killer of Killers offers something for everyone: You don’t like war stories? How about ninja pictures? Everybody loves Viking films. I love movies like New York Stories and Paris, Je T’aime. Criterion Collection will release 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould at the end of the month. Anthology movies/omnibus films, featuring multiple movies within the context of a greater cinematic project, are the chocolate box movie experience — you won’t like them all and you’ll always pick favorites. It’s all part of the fun. “The
Sword” is my favorite tale among these three great shorts, and there’s even more to Killer of Killers that I’ve left hidden with my cloaking device. I wouldn’t want to spoil one of the best movies of the year.
Predator: Killer of Killers is streaming on Hulu
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.
