The Daily Times

For the past several months a task force on homelessness in Blount County has been meeting to search out answers to questions that at best are plain difficult to answer.

They want to know who are the homeless in this community. Are they families or abused women, veterans, transients or the mentally ill? Where are they living — in abandoned homes, riverbanks, parks, in cars or behind your favorite retail store? And most importantly, this task force wants to be able to answer these questions so they will know what services are needed to help our homeless find their way back.

The group, called the Community Homelessness Coalition, is hosted by United Way of Blount County and includes individuals from local agencies such as Family Promise, Haven House, Legal Aid of East Tennessee, Blount County Community Action Agency, the Salvation Army, Helen Ross McNabb and Neighbors Serving Neighbors.

Melanie Cordell, the administrator for the Tennessee Valley Coalition to End Homelessness, which is also part of this group, believes this community might be surprised to learn the number of individuals and families who have no permanent home.

“People relate to homelessness because they see it, and if they don’t visibly see it in their community, they don’t feel they have a homeless issue,” Cordell said. “The invisible homeless include parents and children who may be sleeping on couches of friends and family members. They are abused women with children who are fleeing a domestic violence situation and are seeking shelter. They are individuals who are camped out in a temporary camp site or an overnight shelter, or those living in abandoned automobiles. Homelessness is homelessness whether you see it or not.”

The coalition was established as a nonprofit in 2008 to collaborate and network with other homeless providers to provide mainstream services for these homeless. The TVCEH serves 12 counties, including Anderson, Blount, Campbell, Claiborne, Cocke, Grainger, Hamblen, Jefferson, Loudon, Monroe, Sevier, Union and Knox. There are 10 such coalitions across the state that represent every county.

In a recently survey, Cordell said there were 190 homeless people from Blount County who sought services in Knox County, at places like Knox Area Rescue Ministries and the shelters operated by the Salvation Army. The figure came from the Homeless Management Information System which collects the data from the various shelters and agencies created to serve the homeless population.

Of the 12 counties served by TVCEH, there were 383 homeless people served in Knox County during April-June 2011, Cordell explained. Of that 383, 190 were from Blount. That means half were from Blount and the other half came from the 11 other counties. Also, 18 percent of that Blount County homeless population were needing substance abuse assistance, which is 6 percent more than the homeless being served in Knox County alone.

Where are they?

“I don’t feel like Blount County is aware that there is a homeless situation here,” Cordell said. That’s because you don’t see a lot of homeless people out in the street like you do around shelters like KARM. What is happening is your homeless individuals are in parks in outlying areas. Families that are homeless are having to live in other families’ homes.”

What exactly is the definition of homelessness? Can a person who’s sleeping on a friend’s couch be called homeless?

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a homeless person is one sleeping in a place not meant for human habitation or in an emergency shelter and a person in transitional housing who originally came from the street or an emergency shelter.

One of the problems in getting an accurate count is that while Blount County does have shelters like Heaven Sent Home for both men and women, most aren’t able to submit their data to HMIS because of lack of computer software. Family Promise, which provides emergency shelter for families here, does submit its data to HMIS, but more agencies need to be included, Cordell said.

In fact, Family Promise was the only agency assisting the homeless that was providing data to HMIS from Blount County until just a couple of weeks ago. Heaven Sent Home was given a computer with the software to submit its data. Blount County’s Salvation Army provides its figures to Knoxville.

Beds are full

“I know Cathy Potter at Heaven Sent Home has had a waiting list ever since she opened in 2003,” Cordell said. “She has 13 beds in the women’s home and eight beds at the men’s. She is constantly full.”

Potter said recently she has helped 1,400 to 1,500 homeless individuals since she began in 2003. “They’ve all had different circumstances and stayed different amounts of time,” she said. “It’s all been about getting them back into society.”

Family Promise has 15 beds and they are full most of the time.

HMIS is not a national database of homeless people. The data is collected and maintained at the local level to help communities understand how many people are in homeless shelters and on the streets and which programs are effective at reducing or and ending homelessness.

Right now, the TVCEH is working with agencies like Haven House, a shelter here in Maryville for abused women, so that an accurate count of Blount’s homeless can be obtained. Volunteers will receive training before a Point-in-Time (PIT) Count that will be conducted on one night in January. HUD requires the PIT Count at least every two years, and federal funds are dispersed based on the figures. Folks will be going to the jail, shelters, parks, emergency rooms and any place else where the homeless are seeking refuge.

It’s critical that an accurate count gets taken for many reasons.

More than shelter

“Homelessness is more than being without shelter,” explained Marianne Ferris of United Way and one of the members of the Community Homelessness Coalition. “It means no address, no support system, no place that is your own. It is a devastating condition compounded by the perception that not one person cares about you, and your community and society don’t even know you exist. It’s too unpleasant to think about.”

James Coker, a resident of Blount County who has served as a volunteer for the homeless for years, doesn’t need to be convinced there are homeless people in our midst. He is a member of Restoration International Outreach, a local church that places itself in the middle of this mission of aiding the homeless. Coker has been a volunteer at KARM since 1997 and is also on staff. RIO provides a meal each month at KARM and also church services.

Some of our homeless, Coker said, don’t want to be discovered, whether it be shame at their situation or fear they may be sent away. “Our homeless people are kind of discreet and hidden,” he said. “They fly below the radar. They know there isn’t a shelter. here and they don’t want to be sent to one somewhere else.”

Desperate times

Coker is known in this community for having a heart for the homeless. He gets calls from friends whenever they see dire needs. He said in warm months like this, homeless individuals and even families will camp out at the lake or rivers. Some break into abandoned houses and take up residency there. One couple, Coker said, was living out of a storage facility behind Dubb’s Restaurant, but they have since gone.

“After so many years of doing this, I can tell you they are in this town,” Coker said.

Area food pantries have continued to see an increase in the number of people showing up at their doors, but again it’s hard to know who is homeless and who is teetering on the brink. In the period of April-June of this year, Community Food Connection saw a 20 percent increase in clients. During those four months, there were 1,073 additional people that showed up for emergency groceries. Clients can come to the food ministry twice per month.

Cordell and members of the task force on homelessness will continue to meet and will be looking at taking the issue further into the community. Cordell said we can’t look at Knoxville and compare ourselves to it.

“Rural homelessness requires a more flexible definition of homelessness,” she explained. “There are far fewer shelters in rural areas than in urban areas, therefore people experiencing homelessness are less likely to live on the street or in a shelter and more likely to live in a car or camper, or with relatives in overcrowded or substandard housing.”

A difficult task

It stands to reason that if Blount’s homeless fit the profile Cordell described, they aren’t roaming our streets pushing grocery carts and begging on Broadway, and local law enforcement officials back that up.

Blount’s three law enforcement agencies all said they do come into contact with homeless individuals on the street but not that often. Tony Crisp, Maryville police chief, said at any given time his office knows of three or four homeless people who may be sleeping out in the parks. Sometimes they are found in abandoned houses, he said. They are made aware of services available to them, the chief said.

Holly Hatcher, of Alcoa Police Department, said they don’t see a lot of homeless people, either. She said each is dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Back in April, there was a man living in a tent off Alcoa Highway, but he is no longer there.

A spokesman for the Blount County Sheriff’s Office said they might have one incident per year involving a homeless person.

With the Point-In-Time Count, hopefully Blount County will get a clearer picture of where its homeless are and what services they need. That first step is simply reaching out.

“These people didn’t choose to be homeless just like people don’t choose to have cancer,” Ferris said. “It is crucial that we not only raise awareness of this issue, by uncovering the real faces of homeless individuals and families, but that we do our absolute best to find them so they can be counted.”

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