This Ten Year Plan website has stayed pretty quiet while we deferred to the public discussion conducted under the auspices of Compassion Knoxville (www.compassionknoxville.com). The Ten Year Plan has continued during this time. While no work has been done in the controversial area of identifying new sites for development of permanent supportive housing, everything else identified in the strategies of the plan are ongoing. Continued efforts include things like CAC’s homelessness prevention efforts coordinated through their Office on Aging, support from the faith community through the Compassion Coalition’s Circles of Support initiative, coordination of services and efforts through the Homeless Coalition and through the UT College of Social Work’s Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), coordination with the Veterans Administration to implement their goal of ending homelessness among veterans in the next five years, VMC and CAC’s implementing permanent supportive housing efforts through the use of existing housing stock, and much, much more.
Homelessness in our community remains a serious issue. The public input and discussion engendered through Compassion Knoxville’s efforts have been a welcome thing, and it is my hope the community interest and serious discussion of this issue will continue. The level of coordination and accountability around this issue has improved significantly over the past five years, but there is still a lot of work to go towards achieving the goals of preventing, reducing and ending homelessness in Knoxville and Knox County.
Mike Dunthorn
Project Manager
Ten Year Plan