Maclellan Shelter next to Chattanooga Community Kitchen open, but not fully ready

The Maclellan Shelter for Families hosted three families Monday on its first night of operation in Chattanooga.
The Maclellan Shelter for Families hosted three families Monday on its first night of operation in Chattanooga.
photo The Maclellan Shelter for Families hosted three families Monday on its first night of operation in Chattanooga.

The Maclellan Shelter for Families, a 13-room, 64-bed facility next to the Chattanooga Community Kitchen, took in its first three homeless families this week.

"It's nothing shy of a miracle that we're able to open," said Jens Christensen, executive director of the Community Kitchen that oversees the shelter. "There's construction happening in the center of the lobby."

The first families admitted included a single father with two daughters, a single mother with a baby and children and a boyfriend and girlfriend with their 4-year-old son, Christensen said. Families may stay one month, and extensions may be given to those who are finding housing but need more time, he said.

The goal is to have all 13 rooms full before the end of January, but the locks on some rooms aren't securing the doors. Christensen estimates it will take about two weeks for new doors to arrive.

The local Maclellan Foundation, which gives more than $4 million a year to local charities, put up $600,000 to open what is the city's only emergency shelter for families.

photo Maclellan Shelter for Families director Paul Luikart puts blankets and sheets on a bed as the shelter prepared to host three families Monday on the first night of operation.

"We've always had a heart for the people in Chattanooga, those who are disenfranchised, the least among us," said Chris Maclellan, whose great-great-grandfather Thomas Maclellan owned Provident Insurance, now Unum.

Before the Maclellans sponsored the Maclellan Shelter for Families there was no place in Chattanooga that could shelter a man, woman and child together on the very night that they became homeless. Some shelters did not allow children of a different sex to stay with parents if the children were 5 or older. So some families slept in cars or under bridges to stay together.

"That didn't make sense to us," Maclellan said. "We thought it was tragic, disturbing. We thought we could do something about it."

Some 600 people in Chattanooga experience homelessness on any given night, according to Paul Luikart, director of the Maclellan Shelter for Families.

The Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition found that the number of homeless families in the 10-county region around Chattanooga has more than tripled since 2010, from 27 to 73 this year. Those families comprised 198 children and adults.

Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.

Previous news report:

Upcoming Events