Note: This story was updated on Nov. 1 to correct the last name of the CEO of Step Up.
Silverdale Cumberland Presbyterian Church sits less than a mile from the Airport Inn on Lee Highway, a now-shuttered hotel that city leaders plan to convert into about 70 units of supportive housing for people who are experiencing homelessness in Chattanooga.
The church’s senior pastor, Cliff Hudson, is already accustomed to assisting people in need. He sees them sleeping in the woods, on the sidewalk and behind the Wendy’s across Bonny Oaks Drive. Some manage to scrape up enough money to stay at one of the hotels in the area.
“I have watched the situation here grow exponentially since before the pandemic started,” he said in a phone interview Friday.
The church frequently hands out food to people staying at one of the hotels in the area or on the street. Many of the people Hudson meets are transient, he said, and most are fighting on a daily basis to survive. They’re desperately looking for work, have likely lost their photo ID and often take day labor jobs to make enough money to afford the fee for a room at certain hotels — which have also been magnets for crime.