City of Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, along with Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale, have a plan to end chronic homelessness [1]. Part of this plan is to make the old Flenniken School [2] in SoKno (on Flenniken Ave., near the Martin Mill Pike and Chapman Hwy intersection close to town) a permanent, supportive facility for the homeless.

According to this report [3] in today's KNS, local SoKno business people and neighborhood representatives are not ready to approve such a proposal. "A group of South Knoxville business people and neighborhood representatives plans to ask the Metropolitan Planning Commission to postpone action next Thursday..." Southeast Housing Foundation, LLC, and Flenniken Housing, LLC, are local businesses that have been mentioned in association with developing the site.

In a much earlier Metropulse article [4], Jon Lawler [Developer and Director of Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness [5]], had to quickly come up with the Flenniken School as an alternate location for the homeless facility after well-known landowner Bob Monday, owner of the old Parkway Hotel building, "nixed" the idea to make that building a homeless residential facility.

The South Knox-Seymour Times [6] reports on a meeting of Joe Hultquist [First District City Councilman] and the "newly-formed Downtown South Business Association (DSBA)" to discuss the "proposal to house 48 homeless and mentally-ill individuals at the currently-unused Flenniken Elementary School on Martin Mill Pike". The group came up with a good list of questions that should be answered prior to further steps to make this change.

Note in the mayors' Flenniken Housing discussion [7], they say the residents will "sign a lease and pay rent", but later they say "that person [formerly homeless resident] is in a much better position to work towards becoming a contributing member of the society" and "Some of them will have a great deal of employment potential and others, especially those with mental illness, will not". How will they pay rent if they are only is a "better position" or have "employement potential"? How long will the residents have to gain regular employment? What will happen if they don't? Once they gain regular employment, do they have to move? What kind of follow-up will the mayors provide to ensure the formerly homeless stay productive members of society?

An additional question I have is, what's the hurry? Shouldn't the mayors take the time to address community issues?