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.

First, I want to mention your numbers. As you might imagine, it’s very hard to know exactly how many homeless people we have living in Knoxville at any given time. It’s in the nature of things that it’s difficult to count people who don’t have a permanent address. Our estimates for 2004 were about 1900 per month. At the time these estimates were made, projections would have put the total number of people experiencing homelessness during the year at somewhere around 8000 to 9000. That’s pretty imprecise, but it gives you a number of around 800 chronically homeless in Knoxville. That’s an estimate, and it’s four times the 200 you projected from the monthly homeless estimates. So 800 is what we’re assuming. In fact , one of the goals of the Ten-Year Plan is to get 800 chronically-homeless people housed in ten years. You can read more about this starting on page 2 of the Ten-Year Plan.

Also, we’re about a year-and-a-half into the Ten-Year Plan.

1. We don’t tell people who are cold and hungry, “Sorry, but you’ll just have to wait ten years.” That’s not how it works. The ten years is the scope of a plan that seeks to bring a lot of change to a big system. In the meantime, people are being housed. Close to 80 people were put into permanent housing in 2007 by Volunteer Ministry Center alone. Others have been housed by Knox Area Rescue Ministries, the Salvation Army, by KCDC, and by other agencies. We want to see that happen for more people. Why doesn’t it now?

2. Two big reasons: Not enough available low-income rental housing and not enough funds to pay for the necessary supportive services.
* Housing: It will take time to build or rehab low-income housing. Development doesn’t happen fast, as much as we might wish that it did. Who pays for it? Well, as you probably know, HUD pays for most of it. Most homeless people qualify for subsidies that will pay to keep them in a home. But they’ve got to have places to live, and those places have to be located and developed. That’s a major challenge.
* Supportive Services: As you pointed out, most chronically-homeless people are mentally ill, addicted to drugs, or both. That’s why we believe that for them to succeed in housing, they’ll need to be in an ongoing relationship with a case manager. In most instances, case managers are social workers. They will need to be paid, and right now, there’s no funding source to pay for delivery of those services. HUD will use federal dollars to house people, but right now there’s no state or federal agency that funds service delivery to the necessary degree. That’s a challenge we’ll need to meet locally, whether through private funding sources or government sources, or some combination of those.

3. Benefits: You’re right. A lot of the people we’re talking about DO receive various kinds of disability benefits. They are used to pay for necessities in addition to those related to mental health care, but those benefits don’t usually go very far. Mental health services are available, but getting access to them is not super-simple for someone who is mentally ill. Think about it. If you’re extremely mentally ill, schizophrenic, say, how does it help you to have insurance that you really don’t even remember is there, that you don’t even know how to think about? If your mind is disconnected from reality, how are you supposed to navigate our mental healthcare system? How do you manage to keep yourself on your medication? For a lot of folks, it just doesn’t happen. That’s why the case manager relationship is so important. It’s that relationship that is the key to keeping people housed, and moving them towards reintegration in the community.

I hope this is helpful. Thanks for visiting the site, and for your comments and questions. Don’t hesitate to make more and ask more.

Robert