Robert,
Jon Lawler told the South Knoxville residents at a meeting this year, 2009, that there will be only two case managers per 48 men and that there will NOT be a case manager on site in the evenings. He said that MAY BE some sort of security person to keep the men who live there safe at night. How come your website is saying that there will be case managers during the day and night and overnight?

Thank you,
Karen

Qualifying for permanent supportive housing begins with a person who’s homeless deciding that he or she doesn’t want to be homeless anymore, and asking for help. That’s where the case manager relationship starts, and where the real work of re-housing begins. It’s always done with respect to the dignity of the person who’s seeking to change, which is one reason it’s so effective.

Good questions, and thanks for asking.

“Will the caseworker offices be housed on site?”
Case managers will have offices onsite, and a case manager assistant will be on duty at night. There will be case management presence 24/7/365.

“Will it be DCS or a private care group?”
Case managers at Flenniken Housing will be employed by various agencies, and coordinated by Volunteer Ministry Center, the Ten-Year Plan’s designated agency for permanent housing.

“Who will manage the property?”
That is still to be determined. The owner will contract property management services to an organization with experience managing low-income housing.

“And what makes this different from Stonewall, Green Hills, Isabella Towers?”
There’s a huge difference, SD. Stonewall, Green Hills, and Isabella are low-income housing developments. They’re intended for anyone who needs affordable housing; anyone who qualifies for Section 8 rental assistance can live in those facilities. Flenniken will be permanent supportive housing. It’s a whole facility for people who are chronically homeless who have decided that they want to leave homelessness. They need affordable housing combined with the kind of support that will help them get out of a life of homelessness and stay housed, which is why every resident at Flenniken will have an ongoing relationship with a case manager.

“Why not add case management to already exisiting housing?”
Actually, we have, and will continue to. Agencies supporting the Ten-Year Plan (CAC, Helen Ross McNabb, and others) actively seek to find housing for chronically homeless people here, in those very places. That will continue to happen even as we develop more housing specifically for the chronically homeless.

“If a cascade of catastrophe has caused the homeless episode, as suggested, is there financial planning offered as well?”
That’s part of the plan.

Knoxville has resources, so homeless people come here. Rural communities surrounding our community don’t have those same resources, so we see a good number of folks here who come from the surrounding counties. This same scenario plays out in Chattanooga, Nashville, Atlanta, Asheville, and just about any other city of our size located in the midst of areas that are less-developed.

If you talk to people in any city who work with people who are homeless, you’ll learn that it’s a common perception everywhere that “we’re taking care of everyone else’s homeless people.”

You should remember, though, that many people who experience homelessness are helped out of it by agencies like KARM and VMC and the Salvation Army. Those people come through the system, get help, get back into their own housing, and get back to their lives. If you became homeless due to a cascade of catastrophic events in your life, you’d want to know that help was available for you. We’d all want that. Do people come here and abuse this system? Of course. Do we have a perfect plan for weeding them out? No we don’t.

But some people who are chronically homeless are stuck in a cycle they can’t escape on their own. They cost us a lot of money: almost $40,000 per person per year. We know we can help them get out of homelessness with permanent supportive housing, help them get back to work an connected with people in our community, and do it for less than that $40,000 a year.

Doesn’t fix everything, I know, but it’s a very good place to start making a difference.