For the past 18 months, Mal O’Connell and I have been talking to people living on the street in Chattanooga along with the army of professionals working to help them. For most of those 18 months, we were very much like the blind men and the elephant trying to grasp the enormity of the problem.

But over time we began to understand that it’s not one problem or one person, but a huge shifting population of people each with their own unique perspective. Realizing that helped us to begin telling the story one topic at a time.

This is our first stab at the story we have called On The Outside in Chattanooga. We decided to start by talking about food. Something most of us spend at least some time every day thinking about, but for the unsheltered and the people working to feed them every day it’s always on their mind.

It’s hot. Records have been broken. It’s the story of the Summer. We’re all wilting, but most of us can escape into air-conditioned offices and homes. For the unsheltered, there is little if any relief. The Salvation Army and The CHATT Foundation offer shelter during the day, but at night the only option is The Mission with 75 beds for men and women.

In part 2 of On the Outside in Chattanooga, we are talking about surviving the solar onslaught on the street.

Of all the services offered to the unsheltered in Chattanooga, the most valuable and comprehensive are offered by The Homeless Healthcare Center on 11th Street in Chattanooga.

Dr. Karen Moyer is the Medical Director for the Center. For 22 years she has led a team of nurses and physicians tending to the healthcare of the unsheltered population in Chattanooga. They are family doctors for the unsheltered treating them like family.

Joe Brackett is a tireless advocate for the unsheltered. For more than seven years he has spent every week visiting the unsheltered in camps spread across the city and county offering help with their daily needs as well as offering them access to the comprehensive healthcare available through the Center.

In part 3 of On the Outside in Chattanooga, we talked to Joe and Dr. Moyer about the satisfaction and the frustrations of the work they do every day.

Just a word of warning. This next piece contains material that isn’t suitable for children.

People trapped On the Outside in Chattanooga, like many of us, find daily life a struggle, but for the unsheltered on 11th street (the population of which is divided roughly evenly between men and women), there is also the ever-present threat of casual violence.

These conversations about life on 11th Street were recorded over the past year.

Living on the outside in Chattanooga is always a challenge. On 11th Street, those daily challenges are further exacerbated by very potent drugs. For many people living on 11th Street, it’s hard to resist a drug that promises to ease their daily pain. Fentanyl—an analgesic 50 times as potent as heroin and 100 times as potent as morphine, according to the DEA—is everywhere on 11th street.

Life on the outside in Chattanooga is a daily challenge for single people, but for parents with young children, it can be devastating. One reason for that, according to the people we talked to on 11th Street in the past year, is that many cities do not make any provision for unsheltered families, and when they do they split them up making a difficult situation almost impossible to bear. Here in Chattanooga, The McClellan Family and Children’s Shelter on 11th Street provides shelter for up to thirteen families at any one time. The families, some with two parents, some single mothers, and occasionally single fathers almost all have children under five years old are allowed to stay together in the shelter for up to three months in a room with bunk beds and an en-suite bathroom. The only caveat is that within the three months they are living in the shelter at least one parent is expected to find employment. Once they’ve secured a regular income, the CHATT Foundation sets about helping them find a home of their own.

In this first half of a two-part episode in our continuing series On The Outside in Chattanooga, titled Housing First, we’re talking about a policy that everyone we spoke to helping the unsheltered told us was the only place to start. Before they can do anything to help the unsheltered person, they first have to find them a permanent place to live.

One of the reasons that is becoming ever more of a challenge is because Chattanooga is growing so quickly. In fact, Nashville is the only city in Tennessee growing faster than Chattanooga. The population of the metro area increased by more than 80,000 people between 2000 and 2020.

For too many people in Chattanooga, the cost of renting an apartment is beyond their means. According to Zumper, an online apartment search site, in the last year, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Chattanooga jumped by 18.3% over the past year to an average rent of $1,550 a month, Realtors are reporting that the rise in rental prices is now slowing, but for many people finding affordable housing is almost insurmountable. And when they lose their job and don’t have a family to help them until they find a job, they have no other option than to live on the street. According to the CHATT Foundation over 4000 people, including over 1000 school-age children, were forced to live on the street in Chattanooga last year.

In this second part of a two-part look at the fundamental issue facing both the city and the unsheltered--finding an affordable place to live, we talked to Casey Tinker, the manager of The City of Chattanooga’s Office of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Mr. Tinker talked about the city’s plans to convert the Airport Inn motel on Lee Highway into 80 apartments along with an on-site support staff helping people with the practical and emotional challenges they face as they leave the ad hoc community on the street to independent living in an apartment.