{Null_Results} “I Cannot Compromise My Integrity”: Case Manager Resigned After OHS Partnership Created Ethical Conflicts
A resignation letter obtained by {Rich Text} reveals that a Step Up case manager quit in October 2025 after witnessing homeless families “repeatedly re-victimized” through OHS’s promises
In October, 2025, a case manager at the support services provider Step Up’s put in her notice. She turned in a letter explaining her resignation.
The letter was brief, but pointed:
When I was hired, I understood the role to involve providing supportive services for permanently housed individuals. However, since partnering with the Office of Homeless Services, the expectations and responsibilities have shifted significantly. These changes no longer align with the values and principles of social work.
I have witnessed clients repeatedly re-victimized—through late rent payments, 14-day notices being placed on their doors, and not receiving the opportunities that were initially promised to them. Additionally, I was recently asked to perform tasks that I feel conflict with my professional ethics and core values as a social worker.
The letter concluded:
As social workers, we are called to advocate against injustice and support vulnerable populations. I cannot compromise my integrity or professional values in order to accommodate practices that conflict with those principles.
{Rich Text} is redacting the case manager’s name to protect them from potential retaliation, but has obtained the resignation letter, contemporaneous documentation, and recorded interviews detailing the events that led to this resignation.
The Context
Regular readers will recognize the backdrop: What OHS calls “Non-Traditional Rapid Rehousing” or now “MRRF,” the shadow housing program I’ve been documenting where Director April Calvin personally selected families from Nashville Rescue Mission, promised them a year of paid rent and Section 8 vouchers, then systematically failed to deliver.1
In a November 10 response to the Homelessness Planning Council obtained by {Rich Text}, OHS has now stated that these families were not actually housed using the Metro Rapid Response Funding program, but rather using “bridge funding (Emergency Specific Assistance to Individuals)”—emergency assistance funds that OHS diverted to pay rent throughout 2024 and early 2025.
It seems that “non-traditional rapid rehousing”, despite being the term used in the FY26 metro budget (and seemingly appearing no where else in the world before this term was spoken by Director Calvin at a Metro Council Meeting), it has now been rebranded to “MRRF.”
MRRF appears to have been introduced to the Homelessness Planning Council on Nov. 10 with a brief overview that, to anyone familiar with AI-prompting, looks suspiciously like ChatGPT drafted it. Note the double-spaced bulleted content, the <hr> lines that actual people rarely use, and the excessive bold wording for emphasis.
What seems to be the point of this document is that MRRF offers the city leadership an offer that OHS, and perhaps Mayor O’Connell, thinks they are too weak to refuse.
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