Chattanooga officials talked policy and enforcement during the municipality’s first work group meeting on homelessness — and one City Council member left frustrated
Several City Council members, some of the mayor’s staff, Judge Larry Ables and partners of the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition came together to talk about issues contributing to homelessness across the city. According to a report the coalition produced last year, there is a lack of beds across several types of shelter in Southeast Tennessee, and data from annual counts shows an uptick in homelessness from 2024 to 2025.
But for council member Dennis Clark of Cherokee Woods, the meeting was not as productive as it could have been, he said. There was not enough talk of actual solutions for Chattanoogans facing homelessness, he said.
“I’ll be very frank. I’m not pleased,” Clark said during the meeting. “I don’t want to come to a meeting every month to have more presentations. We know what the problem is.”
During the meeting, city officials and coalition leadership gave presentations on how they track people who are homeless and move them through the current system in the region to get them housed again. Officials brought up challenges due to constraints on federal funding for housing vouchers while also describing the city’s inventory of beds, whether for emergency shelter or for more permanent, affordable options, as “insufficient.”