Nearly two dozen ministers from different denominations are launching a local voter empowerment movement in Chattanooga to make sure no person who is eligible and wants to vote is denied the right.

The Great Recession carried special pain for black women like Jane Ladson. She had always been the one her family members turned to when they needed help, and she didn’t hesitate to give it. She helped pay for weddings and rent.

Westside residents say they don't want "Purpose Built" in their community and they're asking other public housing residents to stand with them against the destruction of more public housing sites.

HIV doesn't just target people in poverty, gay people or promiscuous people. It can happen to anybody, said Cynthia Rodgers, a HIV/AIDS advocate and author from Birmingham, Ala.

Jocelyn Johnson wanted to ask a question about the future of College Hill Courts, the largest public housing site in the city, but she had to stop crying first.

A nonprofit that found jobs for at least 200 felons a year for more than a decade lost its funding in 2011. As gang violence simmers and members of an increasing prison population return to the streets, ex-felons say the need is even greater for the jobs program at Chattanooga Endeavors.

Westside residents attending a meeting of the Chattanooga City Council's Housing Committee thought they were going to comment on a proposed plan that could put a new, mixed-use community in their neighborhood.

Some Westside residents say they did not invite the Atlanta-based Purpose Built Communities to revitalize their neighborhood.

Jesse Lawrence has smoked for more than 20 years, but she supports the Chattanooga Housing Authority's policy to make Fairmount Apartments the first nonsmoking public housing site in the city.

Mark Abrell had no money and no medical or dental insurance, so he suffered for more than a month with a toothache.

Some neighborhood associations are falling into disrepair, disintegrating under massive infighting or represented by more developers than residents who live in the community, said the newly elected president of the Chattanooga Neighborhood Association Council.

Loretta Tate is a 30-year-old mother of two, and she has no home. It's not likely that she'll find one soon in public housing, but she's hopeful.

Michael Davis has a loose tooth that has hurt him for more than a month. He hopes to get it pulled Thursday. "It aches so bad at night," he said this week while visiting the Chattanooga Community Kitchen.

News reports called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a slain civil rights leader, but one writer noted that he was an assassinated prophet of God, the Rev. Paul McDaniel said Monday.

Blue, black and white tarps hang abandoned along a vacant two-acre lot behind First Baptist Church of Chattanooga, remnants that once shielded former inhabitants of the site from wind and rain.

Michelle Crutch came to the Chattanooga Housing Authority hopeful for housing. Nearly an hour later, she left in tears.

There is too much violence in this community, and while there is no simple solution, the answer is rooted somewhere in the past, the Rev. Paul McDaniel asserts.

Inspirational soul music sounded throughout the conference room at The Chattanoogan hotel Monday as more than 150 Community Impact officials, supporters and residents gathered to celebrate progress toward better communities.

Interfaith Homeless Network case manager Linda Smith said she gets at least 100 calls a month from families with children on the brink of homelessness.

All residents who live in Fairmount and Maple Hills Apartments will be required to participate in the Chattanooga Housing Authority's Upward Mobility Program, officials said.

Her doctor told her to abort her second pregnancy so she could receive treatment for her heart.

Voting is the way to jobs and economic equality, said Joe Rowe, local NAACP vice president.

The daughter of a retired Air Force officer has lived in a public housing site for four years and doesn’t want to leave. “They showed me hospitality. I showed them hospitality, and we created a bond,” Aileen Young said.

The Community Kitchen isn't desperate, but organizers say it could use some help to meet its $700,000 fundraising goal.

Club Jesus has a new home. By mid-January, the children's after-school program -- which sparked a dispute between the public housing resident who started it and the Chattanooga Housing Authority that said it had outgrown her apartment and become a liability -- expects to move to nearby St. Philip Lutheran Church.

Within a few months, the Chattanooga Housing Authority expects to need many more landlords willing to accept hundreds of low-income families whose rent is paid or subsidized by the federal government.

White lights twinkle over Santa Claus wrapping paper while Christmas carols play on the radio, setting the holiday atmosphere for United Way's Giving Tree.

Soulful Christmas carols played through speakers as Mary Walker Towers residents played pool and mingled Thursday before a celebration of the building's $4.7 million renovation.

The Chattanooga Community Kitchen used to send homeless people away as night was coming, unable to give any answers on where they could sleep.

Sixty East Lake Courts residents have signed a petition calling for three Chattanooga Housing Authority police officers to be fired.

Purpose Built Community, an Atlanta-based nonprofit co-founded by billionaire Warren Buffet to improve impoverished neighborhoods, may be coming to Chattanooga.

A 55-year-old grandmother living in public housing started an after-school program in her home nearly two years ago that has drawn support from local agencies and residents.

Nearly 1,480 people in Hamilton County have the HIV/AIDS virus and the number is increasing, health officials say.

Cheryl Norris Sanders dreamed of being a professional singer-songwriter and poet, but she didn't know people who could tell her how to do it when she was growing up in Chattanooga in the 1960s and '70s.

There's going to be a void when Community Impact of Chattanooga dissolves, said executive committee member LaMonte P. Vaughn.

Ambulance and tow truck lights twirled from a distance as 16-year-old Jasmine Moss walked closer to a silver Volvo wrecked so badly the car hood crunched up toward the windshield and the fender was nearly detached.

A study is under way that could lead to more apartments or other multifamily housing in urban Chattanooga after years of emphasis on single-family housing.

Charlie Hughes' face lit up Friday when he talked about the free painting that Color Care Across America was doing at the Chattanooga Community Kitchen.

At 12, John Austin said he's "never been hungry, but I have been poor." "And I know there are people poorer than I am," he said.

Chattanooga Housing Authority officials expect to have an answer today from HUD concerning permission to sell the Harriet Tubman housing development site.

For the first time in two years, the Chattanooga Housing Authority is back in good standing with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It was nearly 60 years ago when the late Rev. William Whiteside and his wife, Maudette, started Good Neighbors to help people who lacked money for food, housing and utilities.

Howard Glen Baugh served in the U.S. Marines and the Army, but he died homeless in August. Living outdoor in a tent, the former sergeant spent his final days fighting liver disease from drinking too much, said officials with the Chattanooga Community Kitchen.

In a city where the unemployment rate is higher than the national average, at least four employers will be at the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga next week looking for people to hire.

Teaching girls to be women with class is the goal of the upcoming Girls Summit.

Renaissance Presbyterian Church's 38 members are planning to give Christmas gifts to more than 100 children.

Christmas carols rang from center stage at Hamilton Place mall Friday as the Salvation Army started its 2011 Christmas Campaign.

At age 81, Ed Gravitte admonished city officials to get to work on plans to convert the old Hixson Middle School into a recreation center while he still is fit enough to play basketball in it.

Eight-year-old Jesse Wilkins had no parents who could take care of him, no stable home and sometimes no clothes, but he had a teacher who wanted to help.

Josephine Wortham, a public housing resident and grandmother, helped more than a dozen children start a community garden using kitchen knives and forks for tools.