A gust of wind blew through a fenced homeless camp at 12th and Peeples streets in Chattanooga on Friday, sending tarps and a trash can flying into the air.
Tents across the camp, run by the nonprofit organization Help Right Here, crumpled in the wind. An umbrella in the garden collapsed, and a bookshelf in the permanent tent that serves as the camp’s meeting room and kitchen fell over.
Moments before the wind began, camp organizers accepted a $50,000 donation from the Chattanooga Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that will fund more stable carport structures that can eventually replace the camp’s tents.
(READ MORE: Help Right Here opens another homeless camp in Chattanooga)
“That’s exactly why we need the carports,” Ann-Marie Fitzsimmons, one of Help Right Here’s founders, shouted over the sound of the wind as it sent plastic bags and weeds into the sky.
It’s the first monetary donation to the camp from the Chattanooga Stake, though the church also began running an addiction recovery program for residents about a month ago, stake President Jason Isaacson said Friday at the camp.
The camp, at 12th and Peeples streets, is meant to be a safe place to sleep and stay while waiting on more permanent housing. It’s surrounded by a locked fence, which keeps residents’ belongings safe. Help Right Here also operates a more recently opened camp at 11th and Peeples, which has fewer amenities.
(READ MORE: After numbers jumped during pandemic, Hamilton County homeless population drops 31%)
Fitzsimmons and Niki Keck, the camp’s other founder, said they also plan to use the donation for new composting toilets, camp showers, a water heater and solar-powered fans that residents can use in their tents (and eventually in the more stable carport structures). Compost from the toilets will be used in the camp’s garden, which is also tended by University of Tennessee at Chattanooga students.
Right now, residents said they have to take showers at the Chatt Foundation (formerly Chattanooga Community Kitchen) up Peeples Street.
Jessica Curtis, a camp resident, said the solar-powered fans would also help a lot as Chattanooga warms up for the summer. She’d also like to see laundry facilities — “even just buckets and a line,” she said — at the camp so residents don’t have to take clothing to the Chatt Foundation and wait to use their machines.
“You go up to the kitchen, and it’s an act of Christ to get your clothes washed,” Curtis said.
The 12th Street camp, which has been operating for more than a year, has hosted 123 people and seen 31 residents move into permanent housing during that time, Keck said.
It’s funded in part by the city of Chattanooga, which awarded Help Right here a $167,000 contract for the sanctioned camp in 2o22. The rest of its operations are covered by donations like this one, Fitzsimmons said.
It also benefits from other donations, including tents, clothing, bicycles and food. On one side of the camp, a red-and-white striped tent donated by Chattanooga Tent holds donated items that are free for residents to take. Toward the front fence, Keck said, organizers have plans to build a small dog park, a project that recently received funding through a Mutual of Omaha grant.
Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319.