Inside Knox County's homeless camps

Local experts say homelessness is everywhere in Knox County. It is under the bridge you take on the way to work, maybe even in the empty lot behind your office.

The faces of the population inside Knox County's homeless camps are just as different as the population who have a home. Each with a different vice, different circumstances that put them on the street, and different goals for the future.

One of those faces is 61 year old Leonard Grant. 20 years ago, he was working in Chicago as a carpet layer with no intention of ever living in Knoxville, let alone living near Alcoa Highway outside at a homeless camp.

He says it was one call that sent his life spiraling out of control.

"My brother called me one night and told me your son has been in an accident. I said, 'how bad?' he said, 'the worst'."

Ever since, he says he's been trying to put the pieces back together.

After that car crash that killed his son, Grant turned to drugs. Crack and heroin, among others, ruined his relationship with his brother and ultimately pushed him to homelessness.

Today, Grant says he has been clean since 2006, living with his girlfriend Jane, his home is one without walls as winter weather approaches.

"We get by with plenty of covers," his girlfriend Jane Carrozza said as she pointed toward thick quilts. "Kinds like that are the best kind you can get."

They've been living on the street in this homeless camp for about three years.

"To me, it's like dead time," Grant said. "I don't like it. She don't either."

Knox County Community Action Coalition estimates their camp is one of somewhere around 100 in the county. Two men, Roosevelt and Karl hold among their duties, the job of patrolling the camps and establishing contact with Knox County's homeless population.

Just a half mile from their Community Action Coalition offices, about twenty people call an abandoned parking lot full of semi-truck trailers home just off Western Avenue.

"We're not legally supposed to be here. I had to go to jail June 28th," Mary Riseden, a resident of the camp said.

Riseden says she's been living in the semi-trailer park for about 2 years. Police went through this summer and cleared the lot of the homeless population. After serving a short stint in jail, Riseden was back on the street and back in the trailer.

We asked the C.A.C. to take us to these camps around Knox County so we could find out why anyone would rather stay out, exposed to the elements, than take advantage of services partially paid for by the tax-payer at missions in town.

"You go to the Salvation Army or the mission, you got people cased in dope and he's been off dope for 3 1/2 years," Carrozza said.

"I've stayed in the mission, but--- They um. There are psychotics and neurotics there. I don't want to deal with that," Riseden said. "You don't care if I drink a beer do you? It ain't much anyway."

Alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental illness play significant roles in many of lives in these camps.

"I'm hoping to be in a house and just be free man, nobody bothering me," Charles Brower, another resident at the semi-trailer park said.

Finding that home has gotten harder on many of Knox County's homeless. Not all of them even want the roof over their head, but those who do have a substantial wait.

A rough economy has more people looking for county subsidized housing.

Right now, a single man or single woman can wait up to a year for an apartment, according to C.A.C.

"Karl and Roosevelt are trying to help us, he's having problems with his ID and stuff," Carrozza said.

Leonard Grant is one of the homeless who wants off the street. Step one for him is getting a copy of his birth certificate. Without it, he can't get medical care or even apply for housing and move forward as he tries to put back his life.

"I plan on getting married if I ever get any ID. That way everything will be legal. I don't want nothing illegal," he said. "I'll sign up for social security later this year. I figure that'll be enough to at least pay my rent. As long as I can get my rent paid, I'll make something somewhere."

Knox County hasn't issued a housing voucher since May. Right now, there are about 450 people on the waiting list, trying to get into homes. Single parents with children do have a significantly shorter wait of somewhere between 1 and 3 months