Wendell Segroves, a skilled craftsman and a former member of the Metro Homelessness Commission and Homelessness Planning Council, moved to Old Tent City in 2004.
“There were only five people there and I had to be invited in,” he said. “It was Nashville’s best kept secret.”
In those days, the camps were spread out. “We kept to ourselves,” explained Wendell. “Most of the trouble came from people who didn’t live there. But in 2008, people really started coming.”
The first home Wendell constructed at Tent City was out of billboard tarps, metal fence posts for stakes, and the elbow of a tree. He even received permission from the billboard company to tap into their electricity. Things weren’t easy — he was stabbed and jumped twice — but it was a place he and his dogs could call home while he was getting back up on his feet…