Chattanooga: Market gets face-lift

Local teens are covering the tattered walls of the old Farmers’ Market with fresh coats of paint.

But the new colors don’t signify any immediate use for the structures on the city-owned site on 11th Street, where a homeless services complex is planned. Richard Beeland, spokesman for Mayor Ron Littlefield, said the buildings simply needed a fresh look.

“It needed painting, for one, and then it’d been covered in graffiti,” he said. “It was just in bad shape, so we decided that we really needed to do something about it.”

The city bought the nine-acre property in 2006 for $775,000. The Chattanooga City Council approved leases for the Southeast Tennessee Human Resource Agency and the Interfaith Homeless Network of Greater Chattanooga to put facilities at the site. The two organizations will begin work on their projects in late summer or early fall, Mr. Beeland said.

Mr. Littlefield pitched the complex as a one-stop shop for homeless social services two years ago, but the site currently has no uses other than as a storage facility for extra city trash cans and furniture.

Tamika Hudson, with the city’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships, said the youths will be able to look back on their painting work with pride.

“It will have a lasting impact on the teens here,” she said.

Frank Usher, a 17-year-old who attends Brainerd High School, said he’s glad to be a part of the Farmers’ Market revamp.

“I can tell my little sister I painted that building,” he said.

More than 600 youths — both paid and unpaid — take part in the summer youth programs provided by city, county, nonprofit organizations and agencies, said Al Chapman, who leads the Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships. While some youths have jobs, others take part in “enrichment” programs centered on basketball, track and other activities, he said.

About 140 youths are being paid by the city this summer to work in areas such as Parks and Recreation and Public Works, Mr. Chapman said.

Besides painting, Mr. Beeland said, their work includes cutting grass, keeping up city rights of way and other activities.