by Nick Beres
HERMITAGE, Tenn. -- Dozens of homeless men and women have been told to vacate a large tent city located along Browns Creek in the Hermitage area off Lebanon Road.
"They've given them till Friday. That's when they will post the notice and then anything goes," said homeless advocate Steve Samra.
Many of those who live in the camp are transplants from Nashville's original tent city which was dismantled more than a year ago. That site was on public land. The tent city in Hermitage is on private land and the homeless there say the landowner now want them to leave.
The order to leave won't be easy for John Chetvak -- who lived in the area for years and has too many possessions to carry.
"Our tent ... the cots ... our blankets. It's pretty much everything we own that has to go,"
said Chetvak. He said there's no way he'll be able to move it all.
Samra said the concern now is where those displaced will now go?
"We have no housing for them in the city ... no way to move these people into affordable housing and to keep them there," said Samra. He worries many will end up back on street corners in the middle of winter with no shelter.
Newschannel 5 was unable to contact the landowner. Homeless advocates concede it's that person's legal right to have the property cleared. But they worry that with such short notice the homeless will have no place safe to go.
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