KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — State money is now available to help make places of worship safer in the state. The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security is providing a grant to fund contract security personnel for churches, synagogues, temples, mosques and other houses of worship.
The deadline to submit applications is Friday, July 12. The 2024-25 Houses of Worship Security Grant is distributed over a 12-month period as a reimbursement to cover the cost of contracted security personnel.
“We all hope and we all certainly pray that our faith houses are the safest places where anyone can be,” said Judith Rosenberg, the President of the Knoxville Jewish Alliance. “And at the same time, we can't turn a blind eye to the bigger world. And so we want to be proactive.”
One step toward that, Rosenberg said, is applying for the security grant to hire security personnel at the center. It hosts religious and cultural programming, a full preschool, summer camp and more educational opportunities for approximately 200 member families in the area.
“Just their (the security guards) presence here from a traffic perspective and a safety perspective is a big deal,” said Scott Hughes, the City Hills Church Finance Director. “It's a big deal because parents feel safe, kids feel safe, college students feel safe when we have the appropriate safety precautions in place.”
Hughes said his church pays nearly $70,000 each year to contract Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputies to provide security at weekly services. Hughes said the church has either three or four deputies every Sunday and one or two deputies at its bigger events.
“However with this grant, if we were funded, we'd not only be reimbursed for those, but it would also allow us on Wednesday nights when our students meet, on Sunday nights when our college students meet, it would allow us to beef up security even more,” Hughes said. “Instead of having one or two officers, maybe we'd have two or three.”
Hughes said there are roughly 3,000 churchgoers between the two City Hills campuses, so safety is a priority. The most recent data from the U.S. Department of Justice shows that religion-based hate crimes in Tennessee made up 9% of all 123 reported hate crimes in 2022, beaten only by racially-based hate crimes. That type accounts for 75% of all reported hate crimes.
“Unfortunately houses of worship can often be soft targets,” said Greg Mays in a statement, the state's Department of Safety and Homeland Security Deputy Commissioner. “By their nature, these locations are easily accessible to large numbers of people and have limited security measures in place, which can make them vulnerable to an attack. With the Houses of Worship Security Grant, eligible organizations can hire trained security professionals who, in an emergency, can mitigate or prevent a tragedy.”
Hughes agreed with the idea, comparing worship services on Sunday to “a mall at Christmas time.”
“There's a lot of opportunity on a Sunday morning,” Hughes said. “There's a lot of stuff going on when people are coming in with their families and they take their kids to a certain section of the church for kids ministry. They go into the auditorium, their car’s obviously in the parking lot. And so it's a big opportunity for somebody who wants to do something to maybe break in a car, or maybe come inside the building and do something because the church’s primary goal, obviously, is not to protect the vehicle. It's not the staff with police officers. It's to provide an atmosphere on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night or whatever that may be to encounter the Lord.”
Rosenberg said the Knoxville Jewish Alliance was glad to receive funding from last year’s grant.
“We are living in a time and space where there are heightened risks for everyone and not just Jews. We are seeing a rise in anti-Semitic activity,” Rosenberg said. “I don't think that there's anyone walking around on our planet who likes to know that there are people who want to cause us harm …And I think for us as a Jewish community, it's all the more reason why we need to have spaces like the Knoxville Jewish Alliance and our Arnstein Jewish Community Center where people can come, they can celebrate, they can be in community, they can be at our pool and we can all have a great time together and feel really safe.”
For Hughes, having this money will serve not only his church community but “it will allow us to put that money back into our community.”
“Being reimbursed for those costs will allow us to redirect those funds to serve the local community,” Hughes said. “It's more kids that are ministered to through our summer programs. It's more people who get to come to our food pantry. It's more people under the bridge that we get to serve. It's more students we get to help go to the student camp. All those things add up. And because of this opportunity, we'll be able to do more of those things.”
Each house of worship can apply for up to $100,000 in an application due by 11:59 p.m. on July 12.
The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security said the same religious nonprofit can apply for the “competitive grant” each year it’s available. Organizations can apply here.