'Idol' Alum Danny Gokey's Foundation Buys 60 Acres to Help the Homeless

Christian music artist and American Idol alumnus Danny Gokey has set up a nonprofit foundation, Sophia's Heart Foundation. The foundation has paid $1.4 million for 59.3 acres in Antioch with plans to eventually build a transitional housing complex. It plans to use an existing building on the property for an information and referral program for homeless families. An equestrian therapy program and a community garden also are planned for adjacent land.

Construction plans are being drawn up for the transitional housing facility, which would house up to 30 families, said Lakesha Jones, CEO of Sophia's Heart Foundation. That complex is expected to be completed in late 2017.

"It's a beautiful oasis that gives us the opportunity to enter into the next phase of our mission," Jones said about the property. "Families won't just find a place to stay, but a place of serenity, a place of peace, a place of healing, a place of hope and a place to start a new life as they walk with God."

The Antioch site is less than a mile from where religious nonprofit group Men of Valor has approval to build a separate transitional housing complex. That project, which targets former prison inmates, excluding sex offenders, faced opposition from some neighbors.

"This organization demonstrates how it should be done as opposed to the other organization," Metro Councilwoman Tanaka Vercher said, contrasting Sophia's Heart engaging the nearby community about its plan versus what she described as Men of Valor's refusal to meet with neighbors.

Sophia's Heart Foundation used some of $5.9 million in proceeds from selling its former transitional housing facility at 1034 W. Eastland Ave. in East Nashville to Birmingham, Ala.-based LIV Development LLC to buy the 59.3-acre Antioch site. Multifamily developer LIV is building The Cleo, a 291-unit apartment community, on that 4.66-acre site where the former Nashville Rehabilitation Hospital building once stood.

Sophia's Heart's information and referral program for homeless families should be up and running in Antioch within six to nine months after renovations to the home at 4157 Moss Road, Jones said. Operations would follow for the equestrian therapy program and community garden.

No rezoning would be required because Sophia's Heart plans to retain the agricultural zoning on the 59-acre property, Jones said. The nonprofit foundation bought that land from J. Randy York, Peggy Y. Miles and Charles D. York, co-executors of the estate of Mignonette York Bearden.

 

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