Knoxville's new Plan to End Homelessness claims successes

Knoxville's Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness is taking note of some big success stories in 2007.

The Volunteer Ministry Center took 77 people off the streets and put them into "permanent supportive housing." This type of housing includes affordable rent and a lease, as well as a case worker to help monitor a tenant's progress.

Gary Waddell is making a cup of coffee in his very own studio apartment. Waddell says he feels safe for the first time in years.

"I've got a roof over my head and that means a great deal," Waddell said.

He's been off the streets for 13 months now, after a seven year stint of homelessness.

"I don't get locked up. I don't get arrested like I used to. I used to get arrested quite a bit for public intoxication," Waddell said.

Wadell pays his own rent and holds down a part time job.

"I'm like a custodian. I clean the hallways and bathrooms."

But perhaps his biggest accomplishment is not drinking his life away.

"I don't have the desire that I did have to go out and constantly drink to get inebriated so I can cope with the surroundings I was in," Waddell said.

"The Ten Year Plan for me has been a breath of fresh air. We're seeing successes that we never saw," Chief Executive Officer of the Volunteer Ministry Center Ginny Weatherstone said.

Weatherstone has been helping homeless clients for 11 years and she was not sure the Housing First program would work.

"The old expression, if you always do what you always did you'll always get what you always got. We're doing things differently and we are getting something different too."

The Volunteer Ministry CEO is now a believer in the Ten Year Plan and Housing First which has become the cornerstone for the Plan.

"Housing First - the first thing that it does is that it helps that individual become an individual again

Waddell's small home in the Jackson Apartments in Downtown Knoxville comes with a case worker to monitor his progress and help him achieve a self sufficient life using several different community services.

The effort to end homelessness includes area churches who help to pay rent for some tenants until they get back on their feet. Another tenant just started paying his own rent in 2008 after a group of church members paid the small monthly payment for more than a year.

"We were able to move him into housing because a church supported him until he got on his feet he is now supporting himself. That was a role for a church. The community saved this man," Weatherstone said.

Waddell says he feels more confident and able to continue to change his life with the help of his case worker, Volunteer Ministries and Alcoholics Anonymous.

"Homelessness can be solved for every person, one individual, one apartment, one job at a time," Weatherstone added.

Mayors Bill Haslam and Mike Ragsdale started Knoxville's Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness in 2005. In 2008, the Plan's Director Jon Lawler has several big goals.

"Our office is working with the state office so that our state can have a Ten Year Plan. Tennessee is currently the only state in the country that doesn't have a Ten Year Plan," Lawler said.

Lawler says the Salvation Army is developing an employment program as part of the plan, and he also hopes to get more churches involved in developing relationships with people entering permanent supportive housing.

Lawler hopes to add 81 new apartments to the Housing First program. In order to make that goal happen, the Fifth Avenue Motel needs to be transformed into Minvilla Manor.

Officials with Volunteer Ministries say it's waiting on word from the Department of Interior to decide whether the gutted building is historic. The historic designation could open up federal funds to help turn the rundown building into 57 new apartments for men and women getting off the streets. A caseworker would live on-site.

Volunteer Minitries hopes to start remodeling in February.

A large secure database helps to monitor the Ten Year Plan and how it is helping homeless clients.

Knoxville's Homeless Management Information System now holds data on more than 10,000 people.

Service organizations such as the Salvation Army or Volunteer Ministries enter names into the database, while listing the services offered and the progress made by each person.

"On average 240 new individuals are put into the Knoxville Homeless Management Information System every month," Director of Knoxville Homeless Management Information System Dr. David Patterson said.

Patterson wants to see every service organization participating in the database, including mental health institutions, saying the database cuts down on people getting duplicate services.

Organizations participating in the Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness include:

Catholic Charities of East Tennessee Child and Family Tennessee Denark Construction, Inc., Helen Ross McNabb, Inc. Knox Area Rescue Ministries Knox County Community Law Office Knox County District Attorney's Office The Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee Knoxville Police Department Knoxville's Community Development Corporation (KCDC) Knoxville Utilities Board The Salvation Army The UT College of Social Work Shafer Insurance Volunteers of America Volunteer Ministry Center YWCA.

CLICK HERE for more info on Knox County's homeless population.

CLICK HERE for more info on the Ten Year Plan.

CLICK HERE for more info on Housing First.