KNOX COUNTY, Tenn. — New pandemic-era funding has allowed local organizations in Knoxville to increase their number of homeless outreach workers five-fold, as the number of unhoused people continues to increase and spread out beyond the downtown corridor.
The Community Action Committee (CAC) has doubled the number of field workers, while Volunteer Ministries has added an additional six people, CAC Director of Social Services Misty Goodwin said.
"We have never had the type of funding that we’ve had in all of these years that we’ve had in the last two," she said.
Scott Lapas, one of the newly hired outreach workers, spends most of his time connecting with people who are homeless in the West Knoxville area. On Thursday, he stood behind the Kroger off Cedar Bluff offering food and support to people living there.
"My goal is to establish a relationship that’s based on trust and then use that relationship that’s based on trust to connect them with resources," he said.
Since starting the job in November 2020, he said he's interacted with more than 200 people — and successfully found stable housing for more than 30 of them.
"It’s very rewarding and exciting," Lapas said. "I’ve noticed that people do a lot better when they feel like they’re part of the community."
It comes as Goodwin said more people were moving out of the downtown corridor and into areas like West Knoxville.
"People are going a little further out to where they can be in the woods, be hidden a little bit better," she said. "One of the things I hear a lot is that people want to be away from all of the drug activity."
Lapas said the decision to settle in areas away from downtown Knoxville often has to do with safety and finding a place to live.
For the people he helps, the assistance can make a huge difference. On Friday, he worked to set up a service intake appointment for Richard Michael Ellenburg, who said he has been homeless for more than a dozen years.
"It means my life," he said of the aid. "I'm getting too old to be out here."