Two weeks after an East Ridge motel suddenly closed, community support has waned while displaced residents are still in need of housing.
At The Rec Project in East Ridge, an after-school program that provides tutoring and hot meals, founder Christy Chapman said she's seen a spike in people coming through her doors since the Budgetel Inn closed Nov. 16. Forty-one of the children displaced from the Budgetel already regularly came to The Rec before the closure, Chapman said.
(READ MORE: 'I have no idea what to do': East Ridge motel residents react to possible closure)
"Right when it happened, there was an influx of people saying, here, let me help," Chapman said in an interview Tuesday. "But now that it's been almost two weeks, that's kind of died down."
After the Budgetel closed, Chapman said The Rec began receiving donations of clothing and cash for residents in need. Now, she said, the motel's displaced residents mainly need underwear and socks and help finding long-term housing.
Crowdsourced donations used by the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition to temporarily house displaced families in hotels have also slowed recently, Director Mike Smith said by phone.
(READ MORE: Eviction of East Ridge motel residents violated constitutional rights, attorney says)
But, local organizers said, the need is still there. Students, younger children and their families are still coming to The Rec for meals, clothes, showers and to help get connected with temporary housing.
Some displaced residents slept at The Rec for one or two nights, Chapman said, before being placed in hotels or finding another place to stay. By one estimate Chapman heard, as many as 75 families from the Budgetel were still staying in cars or on the street last week, she said.
"A lot of them are not getting paid until the first of the month, or the 15th, so they're struggling with gas and food," Chapman said.
Several pets from the motel were taken to East Ridge Animal Services, already full since May, according to its Facebook page.
Around 265 former Budgetel residents were put up in hotel rooms for temporary housing, using funds crowdsourced by the homeless coalition and supplemented by $50,000 from the Tennessee Housing and Development Agency. Smith said Tuesday that hotel stays were originally secured for two weeks but have been extended for another two after that term expired last week.
"We assure everyone that when we see that we will no longer be able to assist due to budget issues, it will be clearly communicated to those that have been placed at least seven days out. In the meantime, the community partners are working actively to locate housing options for those impacted," the coalition said in a Facebook post.
Organizers say the outpouring of support has been encouraging, but residents ultimately need to find long-term housing. Several Budgetel residents who spoke with the Chattanooga Times Free Press said they'd been on waitlists for affordable housing units for months or as long as a year.
"I got my dog, my stuff and me. I can't find a place to live in Chattanooga anyway, so where are we going to go?" said resident Andrew Helms, ahead of the motel's closure. "I got a tent I can use."
The motel was closed after Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp filed a motion Nov. 14, calling the site a nuisance that housed multiple sex offenders and bothered local business owners.
Wamp's motion named four registered sex offenders living at the Budgetel. Matt Lea, spokesman for the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, said by phone that there was another unregistered offender staying there who has since been arrested for failing to register.
Residents who spoke with the Times Free Press said they paid for their rooms on a weekly or monthly basis. Without a refund of room fees paid in advance, some said, they stand to lose hundreds of dollars in rates for nights they weren't allowed to spend at the Budgetel.
Smith said that while donations have slowed, money is still trickling into the coalition's emergency housing fund. To date, it has collected more than $48,000 and remains open to donations.
Of that, $5,575 came in last weekend from a raffle fundraiser organized by Sunny Trowell, a piercer at Standard Ink Tattoo Co. in North Chattanooga.
Trowell said she doesn't personally know anyone displaced from the Budgetel but was particularly moved when she heard about the children living there. She posted on Facebook looking for ways to help and was directed to the coalition's fundraiser. From there, she put together a raffle with three prizes, including piercings and a donated custom piece of clothing.
"I posted a status on Instagram and Facebook telling about what I was doing, and it just got shared and blew up more than I could have ever dreamed of," Trowell said in a phone interview on Thursday. "A lot of people came together, and that's what really amazed me."
How you can help
The Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition is still accepting donations for its emergency housing fund on its website.
Donations of socks and underwear can be dropped off at The Rec Project, 6101 Ringgold Road, and monetary donations can be made online with Paypal or sent to P.O. Box 9867, East Ridge, TN 37412. Those interested in volunteering at The Rec can email ourhousestudiosinc@gmail.com.
Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319. Follow her on Twitter @ellengerst.