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

Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee (CAC) has placed case managers in four KCDC properties with the specific objective of preventing evictions, especially evictions “to the street,” or back into homelessness. This initiative has been an amazing success. Evictions to the street averaged 67 annually prior to its implementation. In the time since these case managers have been at work in these facilities, that eviction rate has dropped to near zero evictions to the street.

Mike Dunthorn recently spent some time talking with CAC prevention specialist case managers who work with residents in these four properties. They discuss what they do and the impact it has on their clients. Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What do case managers do? As discussed at length here, case managers often facilitate “…coordination of services at a community level. Case managers connect their clients with the resources they need to take control of their lives, and are focused on the goals of the individual client. Case management is about empowering them to meet their goals. Case management is a way for you to go from one place to another place that you could not have gone on your own.”

Mike Dunthorn recently spoke with four of Volunteer Ministry Center’s case managers who work with residents of supportive housing. They talk about what they do, the folks they work with, and what they see happening in the lives of people who are given the opportunity to get off the streets and into housing in our community. Listen to what they have to say.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This plan recognizes the need to do things differently, and to coordinate local, state, and federal resources to address chronic homelessness, which is the most challenging kind, in a way that is both more cost effective and also more humane.

Homelessness is an issue with a big local impact. Many homeless individuals and families go unseen by the general population, but others are very visible, sleeping on streets and suffering from sickness, addictions, and mental illness. Nationally, the issue might seem abstract: fleeting images, statistics and sound bytes on the nightly news. Locally, homelessness is real, embodied in people we see and meet every day.

This is a critical problem that demands community attention. Despite available services that provide emergency care, the number of persons experiencing homelessness has steadily increased. Knoxville and Knox County have witnessed an increase from 800 homeless persons during any given month in 1986, to approximately 1,900 homeless persons per month in 2004. Many of these individuals have multiple problems: chronic mental illness, substance abuse, and domestic violence. Many lack the skills and resources for self-sufficiency.

A small segment of this population is chronically homeless. These are people who have been homeless for over one year. While the chronic homeless represent only 10% of the homeless population, they consume over 50% of the resources. These include emergency medical services, psychiatric treatment, detox facilities, shelters, law enforcement, and correctional facilities. Given the complexity and magnitude of this problem it is essential that Knoxville and Knox County seek new ways of preventing and ending chronic homelessness.

On a nationwide level, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) has brought together federal agencies and other resources to coordinate the national effort to combat homelessness. USICH has challenged communities across the country to do something different—to address the problem of homelessness at its core: the chronically homeless.

The ten-year plan to end chronic homelessness in Knoxville and Knox County is part of this national movement to end long-term or chronic homelessness. The plan offers a long-range, comprehensive approach to help people who are homeless gain stability in permanent housing.

Implementing the actions recommended in this plan will cost money, but that cost is considerably lower than the cost of addressing homelessness through public emergency systems. While the ten-year plan focuses on chronic homelessness, it will also reduce the incidence and length of homelessness among youth, families, and individuals who are homeless or are at risk of becoming homeless.

The Mayors’ Office of the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness will use this website to keep you informed about the implementation of the plan. We also hope to hear back from you, to aswer your questions and to engage you in a conversation about the plan. The Ten-Year Plan represents a shift from managing homelessness to ending it. Ending it is the better thing to do, and everyone benefits as we move down that path. So stay tuned, and speak up. We’re not just talking: we’re listening, too.

This material is adapted from THE KNOXVILLE AND KNOX COUNTY TEN-YEAR PLAN TO END CHRONIC HOMELESSNESS