The City of Chattanooga hopes to add a staff member to work on rapidly rehousing "literally homeless" people and families — those who stay in emergency shelters or places not made for human habitation.
The City Council authorized municipal staff to apply for up to $284,040 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to hire an additional full-time homeless services coordinator and provide rental assistance.
Sam Wolfe, Chattanooga's director of homelessness and supporting housing, said by phone that the city has four service coordinators on staff and the funding would bring that to five.
One of the biggest limiting factors for the number of people the city can house, Wolfe said, is the caseload of its service coordinators, who develop individual plans based around the specific needs of someone transitioning out of homelessness.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga City Council OKs application for $2.6 million homeless grant)
Wolfe said service coordinators act as an outlet for people going through the various stresses of leaving homelessness and help refer them to resources such as mental health assistance, employment opportunities or education. Since July, Wolfe said, his office has housed 100 people.
The department receives most of its financial resources from the city's budget and doesn't need as much outside funding to support its activities compared to other local organizations, Wolfe said. Instead, staff will communicate with the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition to identify funding opportunities that no one else has been leveraging.
(READ MORE: Homelessness increased by 177% in Hamilton County, 153% in the region since 2021)
"If someone else is doing this work, we'll just partner with them and help them do it," Wolfe said. "But if no one else is doing it then we'll try to step up and meet the needs that are still present."
Overall, Wolfe said, the office of homelessness and supportive housing has always been focused on filling gaps rather than eclipsing organizations already performing work in the community.
"We want to partner with other organizations," Wolfe said. "There are a ton of people doing really great work, and we want to really enhance the system's response."
(READ MORE: Chattanooga demolishes East 11th Street homeless camp)
During its meeting on Sept. 13, the City Council OK'd an application for $2.6 million in HUD funding that would help the city and its partners house people in need of longer-term medical rehabilitation resulting from, for example, surgery. The funding would last for three years.
The city and its local partners would identify people in the hospital and discharge them to transitional housing developed in cooperation with area landlords. Occupants would stay in that housing until they recover and officials are able to find a more permanent place for them to stay.
During the pandemic, the region saw its homeless population grow significantly. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of people experiencing homelessness across the 11-county region jumped from 1,217 to 3,084, a 153% increase. That includes Franklin, Grundy, Marion, Sequatchie, Hamilton, Bledsoe, Rhea, Meigs, McMinn, Bradley and Polk counties.
In late August, the City Council approved the distribution of $60,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to the Chattanooga Housing Authority to rapidly rehouse up to 100 homeless people. In a news release, Mayor Tim Kelly's office said the city plans to offer most of the housing units to residents who were removed from the 11th Street homeless encampment in early June.
Contact David Floyd at dfloyd@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6249. Follow him on Twitter @flavid_doyd.