KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — People packed into City County Building Thursday for a special meeting with Knoxville City Council members that focused on the city's approach to homelessness, and on alternative response teams.
These teams would effectively remove police from responses to calls involving mental health crises or substance abuse. Currently, the city has a co-response program pairing a police officer with a mental health worker for calls involving mental health crises.
"The challenge is, how can we provide a more loving and compassionate response to folks who are in the midst of trauma?" said Dr. Bruce Spangler, with the Knoxville-Knox County Homeless Coalition. "Every evening our heart should break, relative to the experience of folks who find themselves, you know, having to sleep outside."
Homeless people are more vulnerable to mental health crises, and advocates previously said sending a police officer in any capacity could further stigmatize homelessness. They also said it could put a strain on police department resources, while also discouraging people from calling 911 if they need help.
"An alternative response takes into consideration that a therapeutic response needs to be first and foremost, it needs to be first and front of center. And maybe it needs to be the only intervention," said Spangler.
Dozens of advocates and community leaders joined him Thursday night during the meeting, urging leaders to reconsider who responds to calls about mental health issues.
"It gives the community another option, rather than having to call the police to the scene," said Brittany Bonner, who attended the meeting.
They also said an alternative response team wouldn't need to replace the city's current co-response program. Instead, they said it would give first responders more options and help open up resources for other calls.
The meeting comes after Knoxville saw several homeless people die from hypothermia as a winter storm brought dangerously low temperatures and conditions.
"We would have hoped that that alternative response could have been available, even before that date, to help that person that was impacted that night," said Bonner. "We hope that this moves the needle towards finding a partner, funding and creating that task force that we had initially asked for. We're just hoping for those fruitful tangible next steps after tonight's meeting."
No proposals were formally offered during Thursday's meeting since it was an information-gathering meeting. Many hope city leaders use what they heard at the meeting to create legislation bringing an alternative response team to Knoxville.