Current Campaigns
Blount and Sevier Counties are in the process of raising money to build permanent housing for adults and children in outreach services.
Past Campaigns
Housing 1st Campaign
The Helen Ross McNabb Center has announced a fund-raising drive to construct 32 homeless and special needs housing units in Knoxville. This fundraising effort is in conjunction with Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam‘s and Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale's "Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness."
According to Dr. Roger Nooe, professor emeritus at the UT College of Social Work:
* Over the course of a year up to 9,000 people may be homeless in Knoxville and Knox County.
* In our community as many as 1,900 people may be homeless in a given month.
* The chronically homeless represent 10 percent of our homeless population yet consume 50 percent of the resources.
* The mentally ill and addicts make up 60 percent of the chronically homeless.
* Supportive services double the likelihood that individuals will remain in permanent housing after 12 months.
* Our community's annual cost of 1 chronically homeless person excluding food and shelter is $37,000.
Chronically, mentally ill, homeless people in Knoxville and Knox County have very few options available to obtain safe, permanent, affordable housing. The process to obtain housing often includes a maze of paperwork and agencies that must be maneuvered through and many find it just too difficult. The lack of a permanent address has the added consequence of making employment almost impossible, and not having a job makes getting safe housing impossible.
The McNabb Center's Housing 1st plans are to build and fully fund 32 units (eight-units in each apartment style building) for the homeless in several locations around the Knoxville area. These will be one bedroom/efficiency apartments with each building having a common area for tenants to meet with support services personnel. Having mental health services integrated into the Housing First model will allow for greater success assimilating into the community.
Hank Bertlekamp, Warren Payne, Dale Keasling and Dr. Joseph Johnson, will be leading the fundraising drive for the Center.
Breaking ground at the Cox Street location for Housing 1st.
Springdale Pharmacy Campaign
The second part of the campaign will be to raise funds for an on-site pharmacy for the adult center on Springdale Avenue.
Going to the local pharmacy to have a prescription filled is a relatively simple task for most people; however for individuals with mental illness, meeting even basic mental health needs like having a prescription filled can be an overwhelming task. The addition of an on-site pharmacy will provide our clients with the ability to receive treatment for their illness and receive their medications in the same place. This "one-stop" concept will enhance adherence to important treatment regimens by removing many of the roadblocks that currently exist for this population.
For more information on the campaign, please call the Helen Ross McNabb Foundation at 865.541.6684 or e-mail us at hrmcnabbfoundation@mcnabb.org
