First draft of Johnson City’s strategic homelessness plan ready

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Johnson City leaders got their first look at a draft of the city’s Strategic Plan to Reduce Homelessness at a work session Thursday.

East Tennessee State Tennessee University doctoral Candidate Opal Frye-Clark presented the plan to commissioners during their work session.

“The overarching view of what a strategic plan is is to assess our current resources, acknowledge those gaps where we may be experiencing things and work, to come up with different ways to bridge those gaps in our communities so that we see fewer people experiencing homelessness,” Frye-Clark told News Channel 11.

She said the work on the plan began about a year ago after she completed qualitative and quantitative studies on the area’s homeless services.

The plan includes recommendations for both service providers and the city. The city’s recommendations include increasing engagement with federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and hiring another homeless services coordinator.

City manager Cathy Ball said the city is interviewing for that position now.

Frye-Clark emphasized that the plan is a roadmap rather than a list of solutions.

“Strategic planning isn’t about having a silver bullet,” Frye-Clark said. “[Homelessness] isn’t going to go away overnight. But I can say that all of our agencies in our continuum of care were active in practicing this. So again, it’s about more so moving the needle rather than having a silver bullet that will just solve all of our problems at the end of the day.”

City commissioners also received an update on the city’s growth management plan, Horizon 2045.

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