Fri
Aug 22 2008
02:34 pm
Oh boy, another expansion of homeless services in the Mission District
By: Bill Pittman

Oh boy---yippee, even more concentration of homeless services coming to a mission district near you:

(link...)

Unbelievable....well not really, at a recent meeting regarding Minvilla and the most expensive studio apartments in Knoxville history, I was assured that Knoxville was not unique in its concentration of homeless service providers. After requesting examples, I was given cities such as Portland, Maine and Jacksonville, Florida but after mapping their services it became clear that those cities' providers were several blocks and sometimes many miles apart. When I shared this information with the city employees, I asked them to correct me if I was mistaken...they did not.

Knoxville has a Ten Year Plan so our City hasn't failed to plan, but with no decentralization plan and worse, more over-concentration, it is planning fail.

Oh well,

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Ten-Year Plan's picture

This isn't a done deal

Submitted by Ten-Year Plan (not verified) on Fri, 2008/08/22 - 4:07pm.

Bill,

Cherokee didn't consult with our office before this story ran in the Sentinel. We were surprised by the story, too.

The Ten-Year Plan recognizes as problematic increasing over-concentration of services to people who are homeless. I've expressed to Cherokee that our hope is that they will partner with another organization to enhance the latter's healthcare delivery capacity, or that Cherokee will locate its new clinic somewhere other than the Broadway & Fifth corridor area.

Sincerely,
Robert Finley
Mayors' Office of the Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness
400 Main Street
Knoxville TN 37902
rfinley@cityofknoxville.org
(link...)
865-215-3071

Bill Pittman's picture

Thank you.

Submitted by Bill Pittman on Fri, 2008/08/22 - 4:14pm.

Thank you Rob, your comment/post is greatly appreciated. It was my understanding that a major focus of the TYP would be to coordinate services and this is occurring in many areas and I realize that the Office of the TYP cannot be responsible for every initiative particularly when you are not consulted on the front end.

I wish you success in your urging of Cherokee to locate elsewhere so as to prevent further concentration of services.

Kind regards,
Bill Pittman

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