Panel tells Committee on Contributions that homelessness and housing instability are widespread; agencies point to data and coordination

At a Committee on Contributions meeting, panelists from United Way, the Murfreesboro Police Department, Murfreesboro City Schools and the city’s Recreation Services department presented local data and described coordinated responses to homelessness and housing instability in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County. Committee members were told the panel’s findings as the committee prepares to receive nonprofit funding applications.

Kristen Swan of United Way opened with an overview of ALICE — “ALICE stands for asset limited income constrained and employed,” she said — and told the committee that people who earn above the federal poverty line but below a local cost-of-living threshold face severe instability. “In Rutherford County, the folks below the ALICE threshold … represent 43 percent of those living in Rutherford County,” Swan said, and she reported that the city of Murfreesboro’s ALICE rate is higher, with one downtown ZIP code at 57 percent.

The data put several other numbers before committee members. Swan said the community estimates about 12,000 eviction filings in Rutherford County each year based on civil-court activity; United Way’s 2-1-1 helpline recorded more than 3,500 inquiries from the Rutherford County School District and 2,086 from the Murfreesboro City School District in the last fiscal year. She said 51 percent of 2-1-1 calls in the Murfreesboro City School District year were about housing and shelter and that 53 percent of housing requests were for rent assistance.

United Way also summarized case-management and service-tracking data. Swan said…