1. Flenniken Housing: Parking variance request withdrawn. Southeastern Housing Foundation, the TYP’s nonprofit real estate development partner and developer of proposed permanent supportive housing at the old Flenniken School, has withdrawn its request for a zoning variance that would have permitted a smaller parking lot than what zoning requires. The project will go forward with a 58-space parking lot.

2. Recap: Compassion Coalition’s Salt & Light Luncheon. On Thursday, June 24, over 150 attendees at this luncheon learned about the Ten-Year Plan and how the faith-based community is engaging with its movement to help end chronic homelessness.

3. Recap: TYP Advisory Board Meeting. The TYP’s AB held its quarterly meeting on Friday, June 25, five days prior to the beginning of a new fiscal year. There was an update on housing placement numbers for the past two years (302 formerly chronically homeless people remain in housing), a discussion of next year’s goals, and a presentation by and dialog with Stephanie Matheny, a Knoxville resident with over a decade of experience developing affordable housing, including permanent supportive housing, in Seattle.

4. Preview: Public Conversation #4. The TYP will hold its next public conversation on 6pm Wednesday, July 21 at the Cansler YMCA.

Southeastern Housing Foundation, the TYP’s nonprofit real estate development partner and developer of proposed permanent supportive housing at the old Flenniken School, has withdrawn its request for a zoning variance that would have permitted a smaller parking lot than what zoning requires. The project will go forward with a 58-space parking lot.

Here’s the press release, dated June 29, 2010:

The Office of the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness announced today that Southeastern Housing Foundation, a non-profit affordable housing development organization, is withdrawing a request for a zoning variance for the old Flenniken School project following a public meeting with area residents. The public meeting was held June 21 at the South Knoxville Recreation Center. Residents clearly felt that there were parking issues with other developments in the area.

“We wanted to build fewer parking places because we believe they won’t be used and that the money to build them could be better spent. We also were concerned about unnecessary concrete which could be green space. However, the number of spaces is clearly an issue with the people who live nearby,” said David Arning of Southeastern Housing Foundation. “District Councilman Nick Pavlis also expressed his concerns. Therefore we are withdrawing the request for variance and will build all 58 parking places required by Codes.”

“We are committed to communicating more with the entire community and to listening to what they say,” said Jon Lawler, Director of the Ten-Year Plan. “If we can make adjustments based on what we hear, we will. That’s an important part of the process.”

The TYP has also committed to a monthly meeting with residents of the neighborhood close to Flenniken. The next one is scheduled for Thursday, July 29 at 6pm at the South Knoxville Community Center.

2. Recap: Compassion Coalition’s Salt & Light Luncheon

On Thursday, June 24, approximately 200 attendees at this luncheon learned about the Ten-Year Plan and how the faith-based community is engaging with its movement to help end chronic homelessness. Grant Standefer, Compassion Coalition’s Executive Director, pointed to some of the successes of the TYP.

• Knox County CAC’s Homeward Bound housed 255 homeless persons in 2009, 80% (202) of whom have remained in housing after one year. 99 of these were chronically homeless, and of those 77% (76) remain in housing after one year.
• Volunteer Ministry Center has housed over 250 previously chronically homeless in permanent supportive housing since July 1, 2007. 91.2% remain in housing.
• Prevention is a focus of the TYP. Four CAC case managers have worked with 263 residents of KCDC public housing units. None of these residents have been to the streets. Prior to CAC’s efforts in this area, an average of 67 per year were being evicted to the streets.

Jon Lawler described the TYP, the fact that it seeks to end homelessness by providing otherwise inaccessible resources to people who are chronically homeless (disabled individuals who have been homeless for a long time) mostly through the means of permanent supportive housing, and that the end goal is to empower people to integrate into the community. He underscored that this approach is demonstrated to be effective by research and also by our own local experience. He mentioned that the TYP is aligned with the federal government’s approach to the issue of homelessness.

Lawler encouraged members of the faith-based community to focus their attention on efforts that contribute to ending homelessness and helping formerly-homeless people to form healthy relationships (Circles of Support), to support those who are doing the work, and to attend public meetings and advocate for housing.

Jessica Bocángel shared three stories of Circles of Support teams. Circles of Support is a mentoring program sponsored by The Compassion Coalition. It pairs one resident of permanent supportive housing, a “neighbor,” with a team of five “mentors” who meet with their neighbor on a regular basis for an agreed-upon period to build friendships. It’s not always easy, but the program is successful. Circles of Support mentor teams are increasing in number, and are helping people who had spent years living on the streets to build healthy relationships and experience “wholeness, reconciliation, and reintegration into the community.”

Standefer encouraged the faith community to respond to the TYP by keeping communication respectful, honest, and open. He encouraged patience as the TYP seeks to implement a “complex, complicated process.” He also offered a handout with several specific ways to for faith communities to connect and get involved in the work.

In addition, Stephanie Matheny announced that she is working to form a pro-TYP group called Citizens for the Ten-Year Plan. They plan to be the citizen voice in support of the plan, and against the referenda if they end up on the ballot. The group was founded by Bill Snyder, Sheryl McCormick, Ray Abbas, and Stephanie Matheny.

Matheny is in the process of collecting a list of names of people who support the TYP.  She plans to put the list on a website — only names and zip codes, not their other information. Citizens for the Ten-Year Plan will also use the emails to form a listserve to announce meetings, ask people to write to council members, etc. She said, “This is not a “petition” – it is not directly related to the referenda and has no legal significance. We just want to be able to demonstrate that there are many of us who would like to see the TYP succeed.”

Ms. Matheny got about 60 signatures at the Compassion Coalition event (as of July 6, 115 people have signed up) and she would like to get several hundred before the website goes live.

3. Recap: TYP Advisory Board Meeting

The TYP’s AB held its quarterly meeting on Friday, June 25, five days prior to the beginning of Year 5 of the TYP’s implementation. There was an update on housing placement numbers for the past two years (over 300 formerly chronically homeless people remain in housing), a discussion of next year’s goals, and a presentation by and dialog with Stephanie Matheny, a Knoxville resident with over a decade of experience developing affordable housing, including permanent supportive housing, in Seattle.

Three over-arching goals for Year 5 were discussed.

1. All stakeholders in the plan will be effectively engaged regarding the plan’s ongoing implementation.
2. The original version of the TYP will be updated to reflect the specific systemic improvements resulting from the TYP’s work with Brad Greene (the conceptual design will be developed into a specific working document via the involvement of all the stakeholders).
3. Increase the housing options available to the entire homeless population.

There was a brief discussion of how these goals would be shaped with Advisory Board input (see item 1 above) and of other stakeholders who should be invited into the discussion. Advisory Board members pointed out that this goes beyond an “update” to the TYP. We’re at a natural halfway point, a great deal of progress has been made, especially in the area of interagency communication and cooperation, and this is a good time to open up the discussion to a lot of input from the public. There was also strong agreement among Advisory Board members about their desire to increase the level of discussion, reflection, and input from the Advisory Board.

The Advisory Board requested a weekly update from the TYP office. (An update will also be prepared for City Council, County Commission, and for the Homeless Coalition. It will be published on the Ten-Year Plan’s website, too.)

Stephanie Matheny addressed the Advisory Board of her eleven years’ experience developing affordable housing, most of it serving the homeless, in and around Seattle/King County, Washington.

• King County’s efforts to address the need for supportive housing began in 1992, when their health department realized that the same people were cycling over and over through detox.
• There was housing available at the time, but all of it required sobriety and was not effective, and they came to realize that they could house people and at the same time reduce public cost and public inebriation.
• When Matheny’s group began planning the Wintonia Apartments in King County, they held dozens of public meetings which were invariably painful and difficult.
• They made changes to their plan along the way, with public input, began operation in 1994, and has achieved great acceptance by its neighbors, which include a private school.
• Residents still drink, but far less than when they were homeless, and costs to the public have been reduced significantly.
• Case management to client ratio was approximately 1:25 in the beginning.
• Seattle has voted a housing levy to make more local funding available for affordable housing development.
• Seattle developed and still uses a detailed public notification process for affordable housing developers.

Three top lessons from Seattle about supportive housing development:

1. Expect opposition to any proposed supportive housing development. It will be significant at the outset, and some folks will never come around.
2. Mistakes will happen. The development process is extremely difficult.
3. You can’t give up just because people in the community are not happy about it.

Matheny also offered these suggestions:

• Help people understand that there’s a big difference between site control and a finalized purchase. Site control does not equal “done deal.” Contingencies are wide open before purchase.
• Do as much due diligence as possible before announcing site control—there is no sense in arousing concern before developer knows he’s interested in moving forward with the site.
• Outreach to the community must happen before closing the purchase, but not before obtaining site control.
• Tout the successes of the TYP. The interagency coordination achieved is a huge success.
• Try to figure out a way to de-stigmatize residents of supportive housing. They are not homeless anymore, after all.

There was some interaction between Advisory Board members and Ms. Matheny, and the next two Advisory Board quarterly meeting dates were announced.

4. Preview: Public Conversation #4

The TYP will hold its next public conversation at  6pm Wednesday, July 21 at the Cansler YMCA. The topic will be mental healthcare services in the context of permanent supportive housing. Sheryl McCormick, Coordinator, Recovery Training Services at Peninsula, will present for the first half-hour with Q & A to follow.

We’re thinking ahead about potential topics for these public conversations, which have been quite well-attended. We are considering addressing the subject of substance addiction treatment at the next one, which will happen in August. As always, we value your input on this. Please let us know what you think.

Lowe’s piece is focused on Marjorie Lopes, a woman who used to be chronically homeless and who now resides at Guy B. Love Towers, a KCDC property that houses several people who have left chronic homelessness behind and who are now succeeding in permanent housing with case management support. Marjorie’s story is moving, and Lowe tells it well.

The piece doesn’t mention Jessica Bocángel, the Mentoring Program Coordinator for the Compassion Coalition. Jessica played a key role in creating Circles of Support and helping to grow the program to its present scale. We believe this program is unique in some significant ways, and that it has the potential to move members of the faith based community in a new direction as it engages the issue of homelessness.

Circles of Support gives faith based communities (churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, etc.) a new way to get involved in ending homelessness. Each faith based community assembles a team of five mentors who are trained, and who commit to maintaining a relationship with one neighbor in permanent supportive housing for one year. Two members of the mentor team will get together to visit their neighbor each week for a specified time period. Mentor teams are trained not to proselytize, but if their neighbor wants to join them for event in their faith community, that’s certainly okay.

The emphasis in Circles of Support is on relationships instead of transactions. Relationships like the one Marjorie has with members of her mentor team have really transformed her life, as she will tell you.

Rita and I share a special love. I have changed a lot because of her and the group, and for the better. After all the hell I went through for 12-13 years, it means a lot to have somebody now.

The TYP is focused on ending homelessness. We’ve said since the beginning that homelessness is a community issue that the whole community needs to address ending it. We all acknowledge that the purpose of ending homelessness goes beyond just helping people get off the streets. It also means giving them the opportunity to build the kind of life they desire in our community. This story exemplifies that.  As Mike Dunthorn points out,

Marjorie has proven that, with a little help, someone who has spent considerable time lost out on the streets can successfully live in permanent housing. Even better, when a few everyday people offered her a welcoming embrace of friendship, her housing actually became a home. This is what ending chronic homelessness looks like.

So thanks, Jessica. And thanks to Rita and your team. And Marjorie, thank you for sharing your story.

The Ten-Year Plan is beginning its third year in Knoxville and Knox County. Knoxville’s faith community has been serving people who are homeless for much longer than that. The Plan acknowledges their crucial role:

Faith-based agencies generate and utilize a wide range of volunteers who seek to help homeless persons find needed food, clothing, shelter, and hope for a better life. The ten-year plan to end chronic homelessness recognizes the importance of partnerships with faith-based organizations and the task force considers them to be one of the critical components in the plan to develop permanent solutions to homelessness.

Stabilization & Reintegration

The program that Mrs. Bocángel leads, Support Circles, is a key part of the Ten-Year Plan’s effort to help people get off the streets and reintegrated with healthy community.

A chronically homeless person’s first step out of a lifestyle of homelessness is stabilization in permanent supportive housing, the cornerstone of the Ten-Year Plan. But it’s not enough just to help people get off the streets and into a home.

Homeless people live in a separate culture that operates within and parallel to the one in which most of us live. That parallel culture is harmful in many ways. To help people who are leaving chronic homelessness avoid returning to the familiar culture of homelessness, we must help them achieve reintegration into our larger and healthier culture. That’s what Support Circles is all about.

“The idea is that before these folks got into housing their community was the streets,” said Mike Dunthorn, project manager for the Ten Year Plan, “and it’s important to connect them with the rest of us, so they aren’t tempted to go back to harmful influences when things get tough.”

Support Circles is a collaboration between the Ten-Year Plan and the Compassion Coalition. In her capacity as Faith-Based Mentoring Coordinator, Mrs. Bocángel will help develop a mentoring program for members of local faith communities to assist people who have been chronically homeless, to encourage them as they are placed into permanent housing, and to help achieve success in their new environments.

Her new job responsibilities will include recruiting teams from local faith communities, training those teams on the objectives and operations of the mentoring program, and coordinating with case managers to pair the mentor teams with people who are recently housed. Once mentoring teams are established, Mrs. Bocángel will follow up to assure that training and case coordination work as smoothly as possible, with the goals of maintaining residents in their new housing, and reintegrating them into the mainstream of the community to the greatest extent possible.

“I’m thrilled about this opportunity to be a part of something extraordinary,” she said. “It is by far the most challenging undertaking I’ve ever signed up for.”

Mrs. Bocángel has worked with the homeless here in Knoxville, as well as in an international context, since 2004. She is a trained Stephen’s Minister, and she operates with a personal philosophy of servant leadership. She is thrilled to have the opportunity to work in such a hands-on capacity to help meet the needs of the chronically homeless community here in Knoxville.

If you’d like more information about Support Circles, please contact Jessica Bocángel at the Compassion Coalition: (865) 251-1591 x8.