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

This meeting had been scheduled for 6pm tonight at Volunteer Ministry Center’s Resource Center. It will be rescheduled for a later date.

The agencies received a combined $1,240,464 in funding to continue the operation of existing housing and service programs. The multi-agency application process was coordinated through the Knoxville-Knox County Coalition to End Homelessness with support from the staff of the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness.

“It’s important to note the grant funding would not be possible without a coordinated effort,” said Knoxville Mayor Daniel Brown. “The work by the staff of the Ten-Year Plan and the Coalition to End Homelessness clearly shows what can happen when the community works together.”

Agencies and organizations receiving the funding renewals are: Catholic Charities of East Tennessee, Child and Family Tennessee, Helen Ross McNabb Center, Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee, Positively Living, the Salvation Army, the University of Tennessee and Volunteer Ministry Center.

“This award allows Knoxville and Knox County to continue the forward progress we’ve made since the community formed the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness,” said Jon Lawler, director of the Ten-Year Plan. “Because of the cooperative spirit arising from the Coalition, the grants will fund outreach, case management, and counseling, and will also support 193 existing units of transitional and permanent supportive housing. That represents real people no longer living day-to-day in search of shelter.”

Funding for the grant program is administered by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and is awarded directly to each individual agency. Communities across the nation competed for Continuum of Care grants.

Lawler noted the funding is awarded to allow agencies to continue the operation of existing programs and services. Those include permanent supportive housing programs for homeless women and children, services for outreach and case management, employment training, housing programs for homeless people with disabilities, and management of a database system to track and provide community-wide reporting on homeless service-related information.

Below is a complete listing of agencies, funding amounts awarded and programs.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Continuum of Care Funding in Knoxville and Knox County

Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee

2247 Western Avenue
Knoxville, TN 37950

Projects:
(1)Families in Need (Supportive Service Only) ($90,096)

(2)REACH (Supportive Service Only) ($104,580)

(3)SUCCEED (Supportive Service Only) ($139,050)

These programs provide outreach, case management, and housing placements for homeless families and individuals.

Child and Family Tennessee

1905 and 1909 Dawn Street
Knoxville, TN 37921

Project: PleasanTree Apartments (Supportive Housing Program) ($268,697)

29 units of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless women and women with children.

Positively Living, Inc.

1501 East Fifth Avenue
Knoxville, TN 37917

Project: Parkridge Harbor Apartments (Supportive Housing Program) ($70,204)

24 units of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals with disabilities

The Salvation Army, A Georgia Corporation (links to Knox Area Command website)

409 N. Broadway
Knoxville, TN 37917

Project: Operation Bootstrap (Transitional Housing Program) ($207,648)

66 units of transitional housing with supportive services and employment training and assistance for homeless individuals

The University of Tennessee (links to KnoxHMIS’s website)

1534 White Avenue
Knoxville, TN 37996

Project: Knoxville HMIS ($132,282)

Operation of the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), a database used by homeless service agencies, shelter and housing providers to coordinate services, securely track client data, and to provide community-wide reporting on homeless service-related information.

Helen Ross McNabb Center

201 W. Springdale Ave
Knoxville, TN 37917

Project: Helen Ross McNabb Center- Supportive Housing (Supportive Housing Program) ($61,209)

8 units of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals with disabilities

Catholic Charities of East Tennessee, Inc.

3009 Lake Brook Blvd
Knoxville, TN 37909

Project: Elizabeth’s Homes (Transitional Housing) ($116,698)
9 units of scattered site transitional supportive housing for homeless families.

Volunteer Ministry Center, Inc.

511 N. Broadway
Knoxville, TN 37917

Project: Minvilla Manor (Supportive Housing) ($50,000)
57 units of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals with disabilities.

If you have questions about HUD’s Continuum of Care program and its history here in Knoxville/Knox County, please contact Mike Dunthorn here at the Ten-Year Plan at (865) 215-3103.

Please note that tonight’s Ten-Year Plan Public Conversation meeting is canceled due to the threat of inclement weather. This meeting had been scheduled for 6pm tonight at Volunteer Ministry Center’s Resource Center. It will be rescheduled for a later date.

What: Ten-Year Plan public conversation: Permanent Supportive Housing Residents – Three Stories
When: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 – 6:00pm
Where: Volunteer Ministry Center’s Resource Center, 511 N. Broadway

The Office of the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness would like to invite the public to a public conversation at VMC’s Resource Center. We’ll be talking with three people who have experienced homelessness but who now reside in supportive housing.

They’ll discuss their housing and what it has meant to them and helped them to do. Presenters will be clients of VMC, Knox County Community Action Committee, and Catholic Charities of East Tennessee. This conversation will follow the same basic format as usual. The first half hour will be presentation while the second half hour will be devoted to conversation about the subject.

This is the eighth in a series of similar public conversations, and the first public conversation of 2011.

Please note the venue location. VMC’s Resource Center is located on the ground floor, accessible from the rear of the building.

We will keep these meetings concise to respect the time of attendees. We will continue to offer them on a regular basis, and invite presenters who can speak to their areas of expertise and experience and to the roles that they play in relation to addressing homelessness in our community. We’ll open up the floor for questions and conversation on the specific issue being addressed, and we’ll ask attendees for ideas about subjects they’d like for us to address in future public conversations. Comprehensive notes from all public conversations like this one are posted at the TYP’s website and are tagged “public conversation.”

The TYP held its seventh Public Conversation at 6pm on Wednesday, November 17, 2010 at New Harvest Park. The topic was “KCDC, Affordable Housing, and the Homeless.” Mary Thom Adams acted as moderator. Deborah Taylor, KCDC’s Section 8 Director, delivered a presentation about KCDC and the Section 8 program. Alvin Nance, Executive Director of KCDC, and Billie Spicuzza, Senior Vice President of Housing for KCDC were present and answered questions and offered input.  The meeting was attended by approximately 35 people and the conversation, once again, was respectful and extremely informative.

Notes

[These are my notes. If I've misrepresented anything here, or left out something you believe to be significant, please mention that in the comments below this post. Please tell us who you are and where you live.]

Attendees included several City Councilpersons: Duane Grieve, Daniel Brown, Nick Della Volpe, and former Councilman Barbara Pelot. Knox County Commissioner Amy Broyles and former Commissioner Mark Harmon were present. My apologies if I’ve missed anyone. The format of this meeting was one hour. The first quarter hour, approximately, was used for presentation. The remainder was for conversation with attendees.

Ms. Adams, in her role as moderator, introduced Ms. Taylor and focused this meeting’s topic on KCDC, Section 8 and affordable housing. Ms. Adams said that she participates in these public conversations because she has a home, is thankful and blessed to have it, and has the good fortune to be able to work with people who need help to gain access to homes of their own.

Ms. Taylor: KCDC administers public housing, the Section 8 Housing Choice voucher program, and the Section 8 Moderate Rehab program. Mod Rehab (these are “project based vouchers,” and as such are tied to a particular facility) is an old program and is being phased out. There are presently only 82 Mod Rehab units in Knoxville/Knox County.

There are about 3600 Section 8 Housing Choice vouchers in Knox and Knox county. Section 8 Housing Choice is federally funded, and the program allows people to seek housing with private market landlords. Landlords select a tenant, fill out the appropriate paperwork, KCDC inspects the apartment, and if it’s deemed to be acceptable, then the landlord enters into a contract for that apartment with KCDC. The landlord enters into a lease agreement with the tenant. KCDC does not control the lease. It is the landlord’s responsibility to screen the tenant. If a tenant using a voucher is evicted for reasons related to crime, then KCDC will terminate the assistance.

KCDC issues 50-100 vouchers per month. Their priorities, in this order, are: people displaced from their housing by government action (construction projects, renovation of housing development, etc.); people displaced from their housing involuntarily (domestic violence is one example of this); people who are homeless; people who are disabled. Since June 2010, KCDC has housed 516 families (a “family” can have only one member, and so might be a single individual). 366 of those people came right off the streets. The rest were disabled. If you would like to know all about eligibility requirements, click here to view complete eligibility information here on KCDC’s website.

Demand for housing assistance is high. Every day, KCDC receives applications from people seeking vouchers.

The voucher program receives funding around March of every year. Sometimes the level of funding is sufficient that KCDC can just keep on issuing vouchers, but KCDC cannot under any circumstances exceed 3667 units in a year. Once a tenant is housed, they can remain in their housing until HUD cuts funding.

At this moment there are about 300 vouchers that have been issued in Knox. The people who were issued those vouchers are out on the street looking for housing. There are over 800 landlords in Knox County who accept vouchers, and a lot of them operate multiple units. 800 may sound like a lot, but keep in mind that their properties are often extremely small. There is a great need for affordable housing in our community.

KCDC educates people about housing resources available to them in the community For example, when people are looking for information about affordable housing, KCDC directs them to Tennessee Housing Search, a website that a lot of landlords use to list their housing. And KCDC also has literature for people at their offices.

There are over 3600 units of public housing in Knoxville. There is a very long waiting list for those, just as there is for Section 8 Housing Choice vouchers.

Ms. Taylor concluded her remarks and said that she would welcome questions about the Section 8 program. Ms. Adams introduced Billie Spicuzza and Alvin Nance at this point in the conversation, and mentioned that they are here to answer questions about, too.

Ms. Adams ended the presentation phase of the conversation and moved it into question and answer.

Councilman Della Volpe: KCDC’s direct relationship is with the landlord. Does KCDC continue to supervise quality of housing? Taylor: We inspect once a year as part of the recertification process, and each year the tenant has to be recertified too. We also interface directly with tenants’ neighbors. If we get a complaint, we contact the landlord, and where appropriate, law enforcement.

Councilman Grieve: How is the number of vouchers issued to Knoxville determined? Taylor: There are federal NOFAs (notices of funding availability) issued annually. We can apply for however many vouchers are made available in the NOFA. I also want to make clear that as far as KCDC is concerned, there is no distinction in types of homelessness. For purposes of our local preferences, we don’t distinguise between chronic homelessness and other types of homelessness.

Question: I come from Boston, originally. It sounds to me like you have a lot of vouchers in Knoxville. How many are project based? Taylor: None are project based anymore. Housing Choice vouchers simply go out into the market. Question: Is there a specific neighborhood oriented group that can give people info about how to get a voucher. Taylor: Our office is located in the Old Vine Middle School. They come in to apply. They are called in to a briefing, and that’s where they learn what they need to do.

Councilman Brown: How do you contact people who are on the waiting list? Taylor: They have to have an address. That could be at KARM, for instance. We have a good working relationship there. Most prospective tenants have some contact info. The vast majority of them are not very hard to get in touch with.

Ron Peabody: Of the 800 landlords you have, how many units does that represent in total? Taylor: Several landlords have multiple units. Peabody: Of the 366 vouchers issued since June, the bulk of those, how were they certified homeless? Taylor: Any social service agency can verify homeless status. Peabody: How will Hearth Act redefinitions affect availability? Mike Dunthorn: The Hearth Act was passed by Congress to make changes to McKinney Vento, but HUD hasn’t yet issued regulations. I understand your question, and it can’t be answered until the regulations are issued. Linda Rust: The definition of chronic homelessness will change to include families. Billie Spicuzza: HUD determines eligibility. They issue regulations that define eligibility for assistance. When that happens, we change how we make offers of vouchers. It won’t expand our number of units available, but it will reshuffle priorities. Rust: Hopefully HUD will make accommodation for that. Maybe there will be vouchers made available to help people in those new categories.  Spicuzza: I don’t see a great impact on us. We’ll simply continue to house those people who continue to apply.

Councilman Della Volpe: Among the people housed by KCDC since June, is there a number that reflects the percentage in the total number housed who were homeless? Have you interfaced with HMIS (the Homeless Management Information System database) to find out how many were chronically homeless? Taylor: When we bring people in, we don’t distinguish types of homelessness. There are three preferences: Displaced by government action, involuntarily displaced, and homeless— doesn’t matter what kind. Then, permanently disabled. They apply for a voucher with verification of status. All of those services that verify homeless status use HMIS.

Councilman Grieve: The people moving into Minvilla right now—are they using vouchers? Will the rest have vouchers? Taylor: 12 do have vouchers. Anyone who has a voucher right now could move into Minvilla.

Joe Minichiello: Does my addiction have any effect on my application for assistance? Taylor: All applicants are screened. If any illegal drug activity has occurred over the last three years, the application will be denied. KCDC also screens through KPD and NCIC.

Question: Are there geographical restrictions for landlords? Taylor: That’s a good question. For KCDC, property has to be within in the Knox County. Others rental assistance providers, such as THDA and ETHRA, house outside Knox county.

Councilman Brown: Do you keep stats on people who come in homeless and then later become employed, and move back into society? Alvin Nance: That information is in our system and is used for purposes of recertification. We don’t mine the data, though, to track trends or anything like that.

Linda Rust: Do you get a lot of complaints about behavior? Taylor: No. Some weeks we get zero complaints, and others we get two or three. We subsidize rent, but we don’t enforce the lease. We’re not the landlord. It’s up to the landlord to enforce lease. If we get a complaint about a tenant’s behavior, we contact the landlord about their tenant. The lease is between tenant and landlord. Rust: Are there any landlords who have a preference for tenants who have case managers? Taylor: Anytime a tenant has a case manager attached to them, it’s a good thing for the landlord. They don’t tell us that, but that’s my opinion.

Councilman Della Volpe: Do you ever decertify landlords because they’re not doing a good job? Taylor: I’ve done that twice.

Peabody: My understanding is that tenants in the Section 8 program, if they’ve got income, they can actually only take up to 30% of their income. Taylor: If a tenant has income, they’ll pay no more than 30% of it for rent. If they rent a more costly place, HUD will let them spend up to 40%. Our voucher payment standards are 100% of fair market rent. Billie Spicuzza: All units don’t rent for the same amount. We compare a unit to other units like it, and we won’t approve you to get rent greater than what someone who’s not a subsidized property is getting. We’re never paying more than a private landlord is getting. We negotiate with the landlord.

Question: Is there a mechanism by which a landlord can lose a Section 8 contract due to neighborhood complaints? Sometimes landlords don’t care about what goes on with their property. Taylor: You can contact us and complain, and we’ll investigate, and if the landlord’s not doing what he’s supposed to do via the tenant, then he’s in violation of his contract.

Ron Peabody: Do you know how many chronically homeless you have housed? Mary Thom Adams: That question has already been answered. Peabody: How many different social service providers can get tenants into housing through KCDC? Taylor: Any social service agency can.

Joe Minichiello: Is there is a higher incidence of police activity among Section 8 voucher users? Lieutenant Pappas (of the Knoxville Police Department): Our investigation doesn’t uncover whether or not a person is using a voucher. We don’t ask a person, “By the way, are you using a voucher to help with the rent?” We just don’t capture that.

David Massey: Case managers have been assigned to some KCDC tenants, and the success rate for those tenants has been very high. Before, people who had been homeless turned over really fast. Having case managers has prevented people falling into homelessness again or being evicted to the streets. Mike Dunthorn: CAC has provided case management services in some KCDC towers. Prior to that program’s implementation, there’d been about 67 evictions per year. That’s now down to zero evictions to the street. Case management has clearly proven itself effective.

Ron Peabody: I thought the homeless were at the top of the preference list. Billie Spicuzza: KCDC’s local preference choices for the homeless have existed for a long, long time. If there were a disaster, or a road project, or something like that, then priorities would shift. Alvin Nance: It’s important to understand that the preferences we’re using are much older than the Ten-Year Plan, which isn’t a regulatory agency anyway. KCDC is federally funded, and we have regulatory oversight that’s not local.

When: Wednesday, November 17, 2010 – 6:00pm

Where: New Harvest Park

Contact: Robert Finley, 215-3071

The Office of the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness would like to invite the public to a conversation at the New Harvest Park community building from 6pm until 7pm on Wednesday, November 17. New Harvest Park is located at 4775 New Harvest Lane, 37918.

The topic of this public conversation will be KCDC (Knoxville’s Community Development Corporation) and how it helps to make affordable housing available to qualified residents in Knoxville and Knox County. We will pay special attention to housing for people who have experienced homelessness. Deborah Taylor, KCDC Section 8 Director, will present for the first half-hour with a moderated Q & A to follow.

This is the seventh in a series of similar public conversations. We will continue to offer them on a regular basis. We do not plan to hold a public conversation in December due to the fact that most people’s schedules are so full around the holidays.

We plan to announce our next public conversation in January 2011. We like to keep these meetings concise to respect the time of attendees and invite presenters who can speak to their areas of expertise and to the roles that they play in support of the TYP. We’ll open up the floor for questions and conversation on the specific issue being addressed, and we’ll ask attendees for ideas about subjects they’d like for us to address in future public conversations.

Comprehensive notes from all public conversations like this one are posted here.

“The condition of where the building was to where it is today is symbolic of where the plan ends,” said 10 Year Plan Director Jon Lawler. “We started in the beginning and everyone thought, ‘How could this ever come together?’ And it is coming together.”

The News Sentinel anticipates publishing a feature-length piece in tomorrow’s paper.

Minvilla’s official ribbon cutting happens tomorrow, October 30, at 11am.

Click here to learn more about Minvilla Manor.

On Friday, Pam Strickland’s op-ed column addressed the issue of excluding possession and consumption of alcohol from permanent supportive housing facilities. The KNS editorial board addressed the same issue in its Sunday editorial. This issue surfaced in a Knox County Commission work session a week ago, in which Mayor Tim Burchett discussed withdrawing County support from the TYP if alcohol is allowed on the premises of supportive housing developments connected with the TYP.

The KNS also published on Sunday a report on a roundtable discussion about the TYP. The discussion took place several weeks ago and covered a lot of territory that will be familiar to people who’ve followed the TYP.

Permanent supportive housing remains the most effective strategy in combating homelessness, and communities around the country have found ways to locate housing developments in scattered neighborhoods. These developments have a record of success for both the residents and the neighborhoods.

The TYP can point to success in our own community, and Lyons and Martin underscore some of it:

Jon and his team have done a very good job of working with agencies to align their services to avoid redundancy and more effectively move folks toward getting the help they need. They are working effectively with faith-based organizations to make sure that assistance for the homeless leads folks to a path toward personal responsibility rather than enabling a culture of dependency.

Stephanie Matheny, of Citizens for the Ten-Year Plan, adds in the comments below the op-ed, that

In addition to the successes mentioned in the editorial, there are approximately 300 people who were chronically homeless who now have an apartment and a case manager because of the TYP. There are an additional nearly 300 people who were at-risk of becoming homeless, but who were able to remain in housing through the TYP’s homelessness prevention efforts. These quiet successes are easy to overlook.

Credit for these “quiet successes” rightly belongs to the people who do the work on the ground. Partners like Volunteer Ministry Center, Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee, The Salvation Army, Knox Area Rescue Ministries, Catholic Charities, to name a few, provide the housing and case management support that helps people move off the streets and into housing, keep their housing, and begin to rebuild their lives in the community.

We’re grateful for the support, and and for the support given by so many of Knoxville’s people to the organizations that make it possible for people who’ve been trapped in homelessness to make such significant changes.

Knoxville City Council invited the Ten-Year Plan to a workshop last Thursday evening to discuss the TYP’s communications plan and to hear from Brad Greene, the systems engineering consultant who is helping to refine the system of service delivery to people who are homeless. We’re grateful to City Council for the opportunity to provide a significant update, and we’re also grateful for the meaningful engagement offered by Council members in attendance.

Council held a public forum at the end of the workshop and several members of the community spoke, most of them to express support. One remark calls for some illumination.

In his public forum comments, Ron Peabody reported that Sam Tsemberis’ New York-based group, Pathways to Housing, had housed a mere 600 people there. Mr. Peabody asked how can that be considered success, given the size of New York’s homeless population.

Once again, Mr. Peabody misinterprets and misuses data in what seems to be an effort to create false impressions. The report that Mr. Peabody referenced was Pathways to Housing’s 2007 annual report (you can get your own copy here at Pathways’ Research Library), which notes 585 people housed by their organization. What Mr. Peabody appeared to insinuate in his use of this figure is that Tsemberis, a noted leader in the Housing First movement, and his organization, Pathways to Housing, represent the failure of the Housing First approach.

What Mr. Peabody left out of his analysis is the fact that Pathways to Housing operates in a number of cities, and that the number reported in their 2007 annual report is for their organization in all those locations. Mr. Peabody insinuated that the referenced number was the sum total of people housed in supportive housing in New York City. This is a substantial misrepresentation.

In fact, New York City has made great strides in reducing chronic homelessness and serves as an excellent example of the success of Housing First. Pathways to Housing is only one of many organizations offering permanent supportive housing in New York City. According to New York’s 2009 Continuum of Care report to HUD, NYC has 13,167 Permanent Supportive Housing beds for single individuals, 6,299 for mixed populations, and 4,651 PSH beds for families.

Dr. Tsemberis is a nationally respected leader and researcher in efforts to end homelessness. In fact, he was a featured panelist at a HUD conference in Atlanta attended by TYP staff member Michael Dunthorn this week. In Dr. Tsemberis’ presentation on “Housing First” as an important component of the national effort to end homelessness, he noted that research evidence continues to demonstrate that Housing First yields high residential stability, with 85% annual retention rates in this type of housing; reduction in residents’ utilization of publicly resourced services; improved mental health status for residents; reductions in drug and alcohol consumption, and cost effectiveness as compared to the status quo.

Thank you

Thank you for taking the time to be engaged with the issue of homelessness and our community’s work to address it. If you have questions or concerns about anything related to the TYP, please do not hesitate to let us know.