07/11/2025
Earlier this summer, reporters broke a story that exposed the practice of using tax dollars to pay a private company to hire off-duty state troopers to target, arrest, and remove people experiencing homelessness from downtown Nashville.
These tax dollars are collected and distributed downtown through Business Improvement Districts, or BIDs. A local ordinance that would consolidate two downtown BIDs and expand their geographical footprint is up for a vote in Metro Council on July 15th.
Here's what you need to know...
A Business Improvement District (BID) is a geographical area where additional sales taxes and property assessment fees are collected in order to fund services. The purpose of these services is to maintain a “clean and safe environment” through security, infrastructure improvements, and “beautification.” These services are provided by private companies or nonprofits.
Locally, the Nashville Downtown Partnership receives BID funds in order to provide most of these services or to contract with other companies to do so. This includes their “ambassadors” who wear yellow shirts and ride on Segways, an outreach team, and private police through a contract with Solaren, a company mired in controversy that uses off-duty police officers and state troopers to patrol downtown.
Without oversight, protections, and accountability, BIDs can facilitate the takeover of public spaces by private companies, wealthy property owners, and even the tourism industry.
Too often, BIDs use public funds to police and punish people who are perceived to interfere with the profits of businesses and property owners. In practice, this looks like harassing, citing, and arresting people who are experiencing homelessness and have nowhere else to go.
“Ambassadors” force unhoused people to move along at the threat of arrest. Private employees make public parks inhospitable and usher people experiencing homelessness out if they overstay their welcome. Off-duty troopers hired by private companies arrest people who are sitting in front of bars so they don’t inconvenience tourists, bachelorettes, and bar-hoppers.
Some BIDs like Nashville also have funding allocated for outreach support, but that amount pales in comparison to the funding allocated for policing. Likewise, outreach workers are limited by the lack of resources like affordable, accessible housing units that allow people to move off the streets.
In Nashville, there are two BIDs: the Centralized Business Improvement District, or CBID, and the Gulch Business Improvement District, or the GBID. The bill that is currently before Metro Council (BL2025-846) consolidates these two BIDs and expands their footprint to also include the Capitol View neighborhood.
The problem is not only that publicly-funded discriminatory practices are “cleansing” downtown of people experiencing homelessness, but that there is currently no oversight or accountability for these projects.
Despite a Metro Code that requires the Nashville Downtown Partnership to bring their budget before the Metro Council every year for a vote, advocates and council members recently discovered that this has not been happening. In other words, millions of tax-payer dollars are being spent with no public input.
Take Action!
1. Share this post and tag your council member and Nashville’s council members at large (Burkley Allen, Olivia Hill, Delishia Porterfield, Quin Evans Segall, and Zulfat Suara)!
2. Join us on Tuesday, July 15th at 6:30 p.m. for the next Metro Council meeting where there will be a public hearing for this bill (BL2025-846)! Come to the Metro Courthouse at 1 Public Square Park and prepare to speak for two minutes about your concerns. Amendments are still in progress and we’ll post any updates on our story!
