Andrew Little, a former barge tank worker and roofer who says he became homeless after he fell off a roof and broke his arm, seeks help in 2013THE NUMBERSEach year in January, Chattanooga regional community conducts what’s called a “point in time homeless count” – along with hundreds of other cities in the nation. This year’s count comes later this month. Since 2007, Chattanooga’s homeless have dropped, but in recent years the number is trending up again.Year // Total homeless // Total sheltered // Total unsheltered2007 // 1,064 // 307 // 7572008 // 87 // 72 // 152009 // 513 // 306 // 2072010 // 622 // 323 // 2992011 // 561 // 334 // 2272012 // 548 // 374 // 1742013 // 591 // 422 // 169
Last week’s brutal cold crystallized the frozen state of Chattanooga’s homeless assistance.
Frozen, or at least brittle, seems to be where we are with what was, until recently, an ambitious effort over the past decade. That effort, beginning in 2003 under Mayor Bob Corker and continuing with Mayor Ron Littlefield, was dubbed the “Blueprint to End Chronic Homelessness in the Chattanooga Region in 10 Years.”
Chattanooga was even heralded in a 2012 report of the United States Inter-agency Council on Homelessness as a model of success in the war on homelessness: “Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example, reports a stunning 89 percent reduction in chronic homelessness since 2007, and a 48 percent reduction in homelessness overall during that same period,” the report states.
But here we are at the start of 2014 and the very agency created to chronicle needs and coordinate what has over time totaled about $20 million in various local, state, federal and charity services and fixes – the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition – was standing last week in front of the Chattanooga City Council begging for a $50,000 emergency amendment to the city’s budget to pay for a homeless shelter from the cold.