Chattanooga service providers frequently struggle to find a place to house homeless people suffering from serious mental health issues, cognitive decline or developmental disorders.
And when the team at the Chatt Foundation encounters someone with those issues, CEO Baron King said its first call is always to the AIM Center, a nonprofit that runs 74 units of permanent supportive housing in the community.
"The answer is always the same," King said in an interview. "We don't have any vacancies."
Now, after years of planning, construction is underway on 60 units of supportive housing at 1807 and 1823 E. Main St. The complex will provide residents with services designed to keep them stable while offering a safe place to rest their heads at night.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga officials, groups see need for more supportive housing to combat homelessness)
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AIM Center breaks ground on 60 units of low-income housing in ChattanoogaOn Thursday morning, city leaders and housing advocates held a ground breaking for the AIM Center's Espero Chattanooga project, which is named after the Spanish word for "hope."
The $21 million housing project will include at least 19 apartments set aside specifically for people earning 30% of the area median income or below. Those units will serve people who have been chronically homeless or previously incarcerated and suffer from serious mental illness.
The remaining 41 units will be available for people making at or below 60% of the area median income, Anna Protano-Biggs, the president and CEO of the AIM Center, said in an interview. Officials expect the project will open in early 2026.
"I am so thrilled that they're doing this," King said. "It's going to provide a resource for this population. My fear is that it will quickly fill up, and we'll be back in the same place."
Protano-Biggs said many homeless people cycle repeatedly in and out of emergency rooms, the Hamilton County Jail, mental health facilities and the Chatt Foundation.
"Dedicated professionals at each of these places do as much as they possibly can to help, and often it's just not enough," Protano-Biggs said during the event. "Every time someone in crisis is discharged or asked to leave one place, they have nowhere to go."
Protano-Biggs said the Espero project faced some challenges and delays over the past several years.
"We had a global pandemic, changes in leadership and moments when we were genuinely uncertain if we could secure the financing to make this happen," she said. "What endured, however, was not really the problem housing people with severe mental illness. What endured was the utter and absolute certainty that we would do something about it."
Protano-Biggs said the AIM Center will offer daily transportation from the apartment complex to its building downtown on West M.L. King Boulevard. There, residents can receive help finding a job, learning about financial literacy or participating in an art program.
The supportive services available to residents will be diverse, Protano-Biggs said. They can include teaching residents how to be good tenants, how to save for a permanent home, how to hold onto a full-time or part-time job or how to access health care.
The Vecino Group, a real estate development company with a location in Atlanta, acted as a convener for the project, Director of Development Wesley Brown said in a phone call. While the AIM Center helped traverse the local politics and financing for the project, the Vecino Group offered design expertise and its experience navigating tax credit deals, Brown said.
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"This development has been years in the making," Brown said during the groundbreaking Thursday, "and the road to get to this moment was created by a fierce and unified persistence to blend 25 funding sources and partnerships."
Brown said it's difficult for someone who has lived on the street for a long time to seamlessly transition to living in an apartment. That's where supportive services are necessary.
"If you could imagine living under a bridge for 10 years, and then we put you in an apartment where it's just dead silent at night," Brown said. "Without that extra support, I would almost argue it's next to impossible to transition someone out of that experience."
Three years ago, Jeremy Heidt, the director of governmental affairs for the Tennessee Housing Development Agency, lost his 35-year-old son, who died after two years of homelessness.
"It was and remains devastating," he told the crowd, "but I am filled with hope to know that more resources will be available to someone having a similar crisis."
Developers are layering multiple different funding sources to cover the cost of the project, Heidt said in a phone call. That includes a grant from the National Housing Trust Fund and low-income housing tax credits from the state housing development agency. The city of Chattanooga also donated land for the development.
"Especially for affordable housing now, it is very challenging to have a deal that can be funded through a single source," Heidt said.
Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly said the AIM Center's 60 units of permanent supportive housing on East Main Street is just the beginning.
"We've got a project that's taking way too long on the other end of town," Kelly told the crowd, "but this concept is something that we believe in, and it's going to make a huge dent, not only in affordable housing, but also with our homeless issue."
(READ MORE: Chattanooga ends talks with homeless housing developer after 'obvious red flag')
Three years ago, the city purchased the former Airport Inn at 7725 Lee Highway with plans to turn it into permanent supportive housing. In July, Nelson Community Partnersin Nashville offered a plan to convert the property to 74 apartments in a $14.7 million project. Residents would pay no more than 30% of their income in rent.
In a phone call Thursday, Kelly's deputy chief of staff, Kevin Roig, said the city is moving forward with the project and will follow through on a series of commitments it made to the surrounding community in 2022. Those promises included increasing the police presence around the building and prohibiting tenants on the sex offender registry and those with serious violent felony or drug manufacturing convictions
"The city is excited that we have now a vendor who is homegrown," Roig said. "They have done this in Knoxville. They've done this in Nashville. They've got a track record."
Contact David Floyd at dfloyd@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.
