‘Just overwhelming’: Nashvillians struggling to afford homes inside city limits
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – This isn’t your grandfather’s Music City, and it definitely isn’t your grandfather’s housing market. Over the last two decades, this sleepy southern city has grown up, and up, and up.
Sparkly high-rise apartment buildings are now situated between landmarks like the Batman building and the Capitol. However, what happens when the people who call Nashville home can’t afford to live here?
“The whole ‘American Dream,’ white picket fence with two kids and a dog,” described Diamond Bell.
Franklin, Nashville renters have highest monthly rates in Middle Tennessee, report finds
However, sometimes it’s not as easy as it sounds.
“That’s so out of our reach right now. I cannot see that. I’m literally trying to figure out how I’m going to make it to Friday right now, let alone buy a house. That’s the reality of most the folks living here,” Bell continued.
When it comes to housing affordability, we hear it repeatedly. Affordable housing has been a top concern for years.
“Make affordable housing for all. Fair housing for all,” said Bell. “The immediate ask is how can you help me get into a house right now? To go home every day knowing that I can’t do that is crazy because I’m going through the same thing, but also just what we have to deal with here in Nashville.”
It’s hard to truly know how the average Nashvillian works and lives until you sit down and ask them. So, we talked to Bell about her experience.
“I’m 24 and right now I cannot afford to live here by myself,” explained Bell.
It wasn’t always like that. Bell, like many others, was born and raised in Nashville. In a family of four with her brother, sister, and mother, Bell described living in the city as normal and affordable, until it wasn’t.
Renters descend on TN Capitol to advocate for affordable housing, action from legislators
“She [my mom] lives in a house; at first that was $1,500 and it’s just her and my brother, so she was having to work two jobs. My mom has Lupus, which is an autoimmune disease, so that’s not feasible for her, but also she had to pay rent; you can’t just not pay your rent, so she ended up finding another house in Bellevue that was right around $1,347. She’s still having to work two jobs.”
The idea is to go to school, graduate, and move out of your guardian’s home and into you’re own place. However, it was at that point in Bell’s life when the reality of living in Nashville hit.
“In East Nashville, West Nashville, on the south side, and I just saw a lot of high, high, high,” she described when she thinks about all the different areas she looked at living in once she moved out of her mother’s home. “The application fees were high on top of the rent being high, everything that goes in it to move, having to switch the lights into our name and they add extra fees like the trash fees, like it’s so many fees that’s added in, and it was just overwhelming.”
It’s for that reason that Bell now lives outside of the city with her sister.
Metro Nashville’s population growth has created an almost never-ending need for affordable housing. Earlier this year, renters wrote an open letter calling for federal renter protections, citing limits on rent increases.
| READ MORE | Latest headlines from Nashville and Davidson County
“I see so many people, especially in my generation, my age range, going through the same exact thing. They’re having to work double jobs just to survive,” said Bell. “I’m literally born and raised here. Like my family, born and raised here, I don’t want to have to go somewhere else. Strictly because I can’t afford to live here. That’s so crazy to me. I don’t want to have to do that, and I know other people don’t want to have to do that.”
Bell explained her dreams of owning a home within Nashville no longer exist. She now works with Stand Up Nashville, hoping to make a difference in the city’s future.
Sadly, her story is not unique. News 2 continues to explore the reality of living in Nashville, and the everyday struggles many go through just to call Music City home.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
