By Isabelle Stanley and Germania Rodriguez Poleo For Dailymail.Com
07:05 15 May 2024, updated 14:57 15 May 2024
Nashville residents say they are increasingly struggling to afford a home as an influx of out-of-state buyers drive real estate prices up, leaving many with no where to go.
Rates of chronic homelessness in the Tennessee capital have soared 77 percent this year, according to the city’s official stats.
There were 1,525 people experiencing chronic homelessness – where someone has been homeless for over a year and has a mental health condition or disability – in the city last month, compared to 863 in the same period a year prior.
Local nonprofit founder, Heather Young, told WKRN that the increase is driven by a sharp rise in the cost of living.
‘There is not a way for these people to get up and running. They can’t get affordable housing,’ she said.
Nashville has seen a population boom over the last few years with wealthy out-of-towners flocking to take advantage of cheaper real estate and lower taxes – pricing out locals.
In just 23 years, the metro Nashville region has gone from 1.3 million residents to 2.1million, per the US Census Bureau, increasing the value of property and the cost of living.
Between 2021 and 2022 alone, more than 22,500 former Californians moved to Tennessee, according to US Census migration data.
Young told WKRN that the homelessness problem is driven by a sharp increase in the cost of living.
She added: ‘I’ve seen an increase in women and children. I’ve seen an increase in mental health that needs to be addressed.’
Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the Nashville area soared $200 in the past year to $1,442 a month, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Young said without more affordable housing, the issue will worsen: ‘I guarantee you it’s going to double from where we are now.’
Prices have been driven up by an influx of people and companies moving to the state.
In the last few years, major corporations like Oracle have chosen to move their headquarters to Tennessee, bringing their workers with them.
Attracted by lower property costs and taxes, Amazon also announced it would set up major operations in downtown Nashville, and New York money manager AllianceBernstein said it would be moving its headquarters to the city, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The median home sale price in Nashville at the end of February was $414,012, compared to $290,983 five years prior.
Remacia Smith, who grew up in Nashville, told The Wall Street Journal she recently was forced to move to the suburbs with her five children.
‘It almost doesn’t look like Nashville anymore,’ she said. ‘Whew Lord, I wish people would stop moving here.’
Meanwhile lifelong resident John Michael Morgan, for his part, told the outlet he is concerned about Nashville keeping its essence.
‘Nashville’s always been a big town that felt like a small town,’ said Morgan. ‘Now we’re a big town that feels like a big town.’
The Metro Council pledged $50 million in American Rescue Plan funding to fight homelessness in 2022, but the problem has not gone away.
Open Table Nashville advocacy and outreach specialist India Pungarcher told WKRN: ‘If a one-time $50 million investment was going to end homelessness in Nashville, you know, homelessness wouldn’t exist anymore, right?
‘We need hundreds of millions of dollars in order to, you know, even just make a dent in homelessness here in Nashville.’
- Retirees are flocking to parts of southern Appalachia as Florida experiences an increase in the cost of living, natural disasters, and congestion
- Local governments are struggling to handle the rapid population growth
Thousands of wealthy retirees are ditching Florida and now choosing to spend their golden years in Appalachia instead – but not everyone is happy about it.
With its warm weather and low tax burden, the sunshine state has long been known as the retirement capital of the US.
Yet Southern Appalachia, known for its stunningly beautiful views, is increasingly giving Florida a run for its money, Wall Street Journal reported.
The population in counties in southern Appalachia designated as retirement or recreational areas grew by 3.8 percent between April 2020 and July 2022 – more than six times the national average, according to Hamilton Lombard, a demographer at the University of Virginia.
But while older populations are attracted by cheaper living and housing cost, lower crime levels and pleasant weather with fewer hurricanes, some locals are furious about the impact this influx is having on property prices, traffic and even restaurant bookings – with one resident saying ‘they should go back to where they came from’.
Ed Helms, 75, and his wife moved from Panama City Beach, Florida to a gated community, half of it in Dawson and half in a neighboring county, to escape natural disasters, congestion, and the rising cost of living.
‘Our property insurance was going sky high,’ Helms, who worked in mergers and acquisitions, told the Wall Street Journal.
‘We got tired of being unable to find a place to sit in restaurants. Everything was getting out of reason. We wouldn’t go back for anything.’
People like the Helms are often referred to as ‘halfbacks’ – a nickname for those originally from the Northeast and Midwest who moved to Florida before eventually settling somewhere in the middle.
The trend back in the early 2000s and then slowed during the recession – but has now picked up again in earnest.
Gayle Manchin, the The Appalachian Regional Commission’s co-chair and wife of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, told WSJ she believes the pandemic has fueled the retirees’ interest in moving back to more isolated, nature-filled areas.
According to Lombard of the University of Virginia, who has been tracking the pattern, an average of 328,000 individuals from other regions of the country have relocated to the five-state region of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee annually since 2020.
The Georgia county of Dawson has proven particularly popular, reporting a 12.5 percent population increase from 2020 to 2022, according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau.
But this huge influx has put enormous pressure on local services, leaving some lifelong residents like Helen Anderson unimpressed.
Anderson was born and raised in Dawsonville, Georgia, her family making ends meet by farming chicken and selling moonshine from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Atlanta.
‘They ought to go back where they come from,’ she told the Wall Street Journal when discussing the newcomers.
Manchin told the WSJ that demand for affordable housing has skyrocketed as more workers are needed to serve the influx of halfbacks.
The migration of these wealthy retirees has spread governments thin as they trying to extend healthcare, housing, and other services to its citizens, she added.
But chairman of the Dawson County Board of Commissions Billy Thurmond noted that some of people who stop him to complain about the traffic and development are ironically the same people who moved to the county in recent years.
‘People who have moved here now want us to put up a gate and stop anybody else from moving here,’ he told WSJ. ‘It doesn’t work that way.’
County Manager Joey Leverette said medical calls to eldercare facilities in the county are also taking up resources. For that reason, county officials are considering splitting up staff to dedicate some to just emergency calls, freeing up teams to respond to fire calls.
‘It’s a game changer,’ Leverette told WSJ. ‘If we don’t get the funding, we’ll just have to keep plodding along as best we can.’
The U.S. Census Bureau has projected further development for the county, according to a piece that the weekly Dawson County News recently shared on Facebook.
One person commented: ‘The entire south and southern living is being ruined.’
Linda Bennett, 81, has lived in Dawson County. Now that she is widowed, she resides in a home close to Georgia Route 400. She cherished being in the country, but she worries that North Georgia will never be the same with so many newcomers.
‘It has grown so much; it is just unreal,’ she told WSJ. ‘With all the houses and apartments they’re building, it’s not going to get any better. How could it?’
After her husband died, Delaware native Karen Rickards, 73, moved from Tallahassee, Florida to Dawson, Georgia.
A halfback herself, she is wondering how much more growth Dawson County can handle.
‘They are building house after house after house,’ she told WSJ. ‘Atlanta’s moving up here, no doubt.’