Chattanooga has ‘Blueprint to End Chronic Homelessness’

Mayor Bob Corker said the Blueprint to End Chronic Homelessness will not require additional city or county funds.

Chattanooga has received more than $3 million in federal money to deal with long-term homelessness. In the region, $7.3 million is spent annually on related services.

Chronically homeless people live on the streets for more than a year.

“People had advocated more and more temporary shelters in the past,” Mayor Bob Corker said Tuesday. “Instead of that, we are focusing on providing more services and moving toward permanent housing.”

The plan calls for creating 1,400 affordable housing units for the homeless by 2014, a central housing-placement office at the Chattanooga Housing Authority and a rent-subsidy program that would last up to two years.

The plan includes programs to prevent people released from jails and leaving mental health hospitals from becoming homeless. A new Chattanooga Regional Interagency Council on Homelessness will tap federal funds and generate private money to end chronic homelessness.

The Chattanooga Homeless Coalition has said the 156,000-resident city has about 4,300 homeless people.

The plan shows that on any given night, there are 764 homeless people in Chattanooga. About 370 of those people spend the night in emergency shelters or transitional housing and 394 sleep outside.

Phillip Mangano, director of the federal Interagency Council on Homelessness, said the 10 percent of the homeless population who are in chronic status consume 50 percent of the resources for homelessness.

“Chattanooga has decided the old status quo must go and a new approach must be taken,” he said.

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On the Net:

Chattanooga city government: http://www.chattanooga.gov/