Family Promise holds meeting to discuss Blount’s homeless population

By Joel Davis
of The Daily Times Staff

Blount County is known for the Great Smoky Mountains, its great quality of life and a rural history of much value. It also has a secret: The homeless live here, too.
Now, local churches are banding together to do something about it.

On Monday, Claas Ehlers of Family Promise, a national organization, talked with more than 60 representatives from about 16 local churches on how to network to provide overnight accommodations and meals for homeless families on a rotating basis.

“The faith community has the ability to address this issue,” Ehlers said.
During the meeting at New Providence Presbyterian Church in Maryville, Jeanna Stewart of Good Neighbors of Blount County, a charitable organization that helps individuals in economic trouble, said she gets eight to 10 calls a week from people in the county who need housing because of a crisis.

There is a shelter in Blount County that serves men and women separately, but there is no place that takes families as a whole.

“Right now, we don’t have any resources to help,” Stewart said. “People tell us they’d rather sleep in a car than go to a shelter in Knoxville. That’s what they do. ... We would like to be able to come together as a community and help these families.”
It would take about $100,000 and about a year to set up the program in Blount County. If 13 churches participated, each church would host from three to five families for a week each quarter. Budgets for each church would run $200 to $250 each week.

Tim Harty of Ball Camp Baptist Church in Knoxville came to the meeting to talk about the experiences of his church in the program. He said working with homeless families is very affecting.

“They are just like everyone else in this room except they hit a bump in the road,” he said. “... They need compassion and companionship. It’s amazing to see the way these families blossom.”

Ehlers will return to Blount County on Oct. 29 for another meeting to talk about how local churches can organize the program.

Sara Jacobus of the Blount County congregation of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church liked what she heard.

“It was very, very interesting,” she said. “It sounds like something Blount County needs to do.”

Robert Williamson, pastor of Eusebia Presbyterian Church of Seymour, said the discussion was needed.

“I’m glad there is an admission there are some homeless families in Blount County,” he said.

The Family Promise model is promising, Williamson said.

“It sounds well-organized and compassionate,” he said. “All the resources you need are here.”