A groundbreaking ceremony was held this week at The Journey Home’s new facility site in Murfreesboro.
Since 2006, The Journey Home has been a resource for unhoused and disadvantaged people in Rutherford County. Several years ago, the organization’s leaders recognized that its current facility would not be able to serve the future needs of our community and they began dreaming bigger.
This week, Journey Home team members and community leaders broke ground of a two-story, 20,000-square-foot facility in Murfreesboro. Dow Smith Company is honored to be the design-builder for the project.
“I’m so glad we’re here in this place where we can build the right tools and the right resources to serve more people and serve them more effectively. We’ve been very blessed to have the old center down the street and it served us well, but it’s tired,” said Scott Foster, Executive Director of Journey Home. “When you can provide a nice place for somebody to be and you can meet a most basic need, whether it be hunger or clothing or a hot shower…those things help people understand that they’re not alone and that they have a community. That’s what will happen in this building.”
The Journey Home’s new 20,000-square-foot facility will open in Fall 2025.
The new facility, which is scheduled to open next fall, will feature 10 family suites, a kitchen, a cafeteria and a shower room downstairs with medical exam rooms, counseling rooms and office space upstairs. The building will have a wood frame with brick exterior on the first floor and insulated metal panels on the second floor.
Dow Smith Company Project Manager Aaron Fisher said the foundation of the building will start immediately and should take about three weeks. By the end of November, he anticipates that the slab will be poured and that framing will begin in December. “There’s a lot of plumbing under ground so that’s going to take a lot of time,” Aaron said.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Christy-Houston Foundation President Anne Davis said she began meeting with Scott in 2018 to discuss the project and she was excited to announce that the foundation would be giving $1.5 million towards the organization’s $6 million capital campaign.
“Each year, he was so faithful to keep us updated about this process. It was very helpful to us to be able to plan,” she said. “This building will serve people who find themselves, through a variety of extenuating circumstances, being down on their luck. It will help them where we can absolutely get them back into housing.”
Kelli Beam, Vice President of Membership Development for the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce, said she was grateful to live in a community with organizations like The Journey Home and she was happy to see it continue to grow.
Sitework is complete and a foundation will be poured within the next few days.
“Today is a special day that we get to celebrate,” Kelli said “They’ve already done a little dirt work and have some gravel here. These walls are going to start going up. Come by and check on this. They’re going to need the love and the prayers and the money and your time to do this.”
Kelli added that as our community continues to grow, so will the need for The Journey Home. “We are growing at a rate in Rutherford County that if we’re not doing more of this, our community is not going to look the same,” she said. “So we’ve got to take care of each other. As we continue to grow by 20 people a day, we’ve got to be able to take care of those who are already here, those who are passing through and those who may want to put down some roots here.”
Murfreesboro Mayor Shane McFarland agreed.
“We’ve got so many things that are right in this community,” Mayor McFarland said. “Today is not only a proud day for Journey Home, but it’s a proud day for Rutherford County and a proud day for Murfreesboro.”
