Tyler Yount of the mayor's office told members of the City Council on Tuesday that the city is taking steps to deal with an increasing homeless population.
In 2016, there were 91 “chronically homeless” and 75 “unsheltered homeless” within the city. Only two years later, those numbers have drastically increased to 322 “chronically homeless” and 293 “unsheltered homeless.” Mr. Yount said the city has proposed a plan to reduce this number, moving these homeless from their current condition to being in housing using a number of steps.
Councilwoman Carole Berz voiced certain concerns about the way those numbers were come about. For instance, she wanted to know how many of those counted were homeless by choice, and how many were homeless by circumstances out of their control.
Mr. Yount said that, while the number is fairly accurate, he did note the people counted were most likely people who wanted assistance from the program. So he did say some of the less visible people in the homeless population may not have been counted in this census of sorts.
Mr. Yount then went through the plan for the future, which involved several steps. Some of those included creating a master finance plan with budgetary needs for each recommendation and determining the financial, design, and site needs of a new emergency shelter by Dec. 1. Mr. Yount also said the new plan will have both monthly and quarterly reviews. Everything will be overseen by the Chattanooga Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Councilman Darrin Ledford said, “Every day, you and I have emails about a certain situation I see every morning underneath the bridge, and we want to do something as does the public. I have stood very strong, and now I’m ready for impact. We’re not making a difference, as the numbers are increasing. When can we expect to see impact? And what is the time frame?”
“it’s not going to be something dramatic, but it is progress,” said Mr. Yount on the new plan, “And we’re seeing our housing numbers go up. We only have one part-time street outreach person right now. We’ll see more impact when we have more street outreach people.”