A monthslong transition at the Gatewood Community Trailer Park on Dickerson Pike in East Nashville is coming to a close.
Tenants at the mobile home park have been seeking new places to live and, after an end-of-May deadline, just one family remains. According to Cecilia Prado, co-director of advocacy group Workers Dignity, that family is set to move out on Sunday.
Local real estate developer Wedgewood Avenue bought the East Nashville site for $6.8 million last year and plans for the property a market-rate 500-unit residential complex with retail space.
Wedgewood Avenue official Beau Fowler said that tenants were allowed to stay on for several months rent-free as they searched for new housing, and the developer communicated with potential new landlords and helped with utility bills.
“We've been happy to accommodate their request for additional replacement housing ,” he said. “We wanted to try to make this transition as easy as possible by allowing them to live rent-free and also allowing them time to find replacements.”
Fowler added that the project is necessary to add building and people density to the Dickerson Pike area.
“We're really excited to bring much needed residential density to the Dickerson Pike corridor," Fowler said. “There is a large deficit of housing in the urban core generally, especially in East Nashville and on Dickerson Pike. And so we think we're filling a need for the East Nashville community by substantially increasing the amount of for-rent housing that's available.”
Overall, 17 families had to search for housing and last week it was down to four families looking to relocate, with the final family set to move out on Sunday. Several families held a community gathering at the property late last month.
Workers Dignity is a local organization primarily focused on labor and immigrant rights. In recent months, Prado said, the group has refocused on housing and displacement. Workers Dignity has also helped tenants organize at another Dickerson Road mobile home complex, formerly owned by the same former owner as Gatewood.
“The same workers that are building the city are the same ones that are coming home to eviction notices,” Prado said. “The city is not investing enough in affordable housing."
The extensions helped the families stay in the neighborhood through the end of the school year and were the result of negotiations with the landowner, Prado said. Still, there is more work to be done to support low-income renters in Nashville, according to Prado.
“It's time for other people from the community to see the faces and humanize who's getting evicted,” she said. “By being in community with each other is how we can fight together and build the unity that we need to push. Ultimately, what is our advantage as working class people? Our advantage is, there's more of us and so we need to start seeing each other as humans and connecting on that level.”
KateLynn White graduated from Tennessee State University, where she was an editor of the student newspaper. She interned for The Tennessean and The Tennessee Tribune before joining the Nashville Post in 2022. She also contributes to the Nashville Scene.
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