City of Knoxville
Bill Haslam, Mayor
Knox County
Mike Ragsdale, Mayor

Tag Archives: mental illness

News-Sentinel’s excellent recent series

Hayes Hickman and JJ Stambaugh, and the late Clay Owen, give you a long, deep look into the issue of homelessness, its costs, and its other implications. Here’s a roundup of the series.
Mental illness in jail
This piece cracks open the issue of mental illness among people who have run-ins with the law. The Knox County [...]

“…we are the largest mental health facility in East Tennessee.”

Many people who are chronically homeless are mentally ill. They also have frequent interactions with the law enforcement system. They get arrested a lot, and many of them tend to spend a lot of time in jail.
““Probably about $400,000 a year is what we spend just on psychotropic drugs to treat the mentally ill. I’ll [...]