Assistance program is now serving 31 clients
After serving zero people in September last year, a program designed to assist those who most frequently appear in Hamilton County hospital rooms or jail cells has now ramped up to 31 clients.
Alexa LeBoeuf, the director of the county’s Department of Economic and Community Development, said the pandemic was extremely disruptive to the Frequent User Systems Engagement initiative. Grant funding for the initiative came in just before everything started to shut down, she said.
“The landscape of how a lot of people in the trenches did work and did outreach kind of shifted the timetable, and there needed to be a revisiting of grants,” LeBouef said in an interview. “For a while there were just some challenges, some unexpected challenges.”
LeBoeuf joined the Hamilton County government in March to oversee the county initiative, which was launched under former Hamilton County Sheriff
Jim Hammond. Known by its acronym, FUSE, the program assists people grappling with complex mental health issues to help them recover and find stable housing.
The County Commission this month heard an update on the program, which the board voted to shift from the Sheriff’s Office to general government.
“As an elected official, I’m focused on leading the way with the Sheriff’s Office in everything we do,” Sheriff Austin Garrett told the panel. “But in that, I also have to understand when it’s time to get out of the way … (while) remaining a spoke in the wheel and at the table. I have to be focused with my staff on running a jail.”
Chris Delmas, who works in the grants department at the Sheriff’s Office, said two of the 31 people enrolled in the program have been permanently housed and six have meaningful, competitive employment. The county is also working with Chattanooga’s Office of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to match clients with apartments run by private landlords.
Based on the 19 people the county had enrolled in July, the program is saving the jail and Erlanger Health System about $8,000 per month, Delmas said.
“The purpose of the program … is to help folks who are experiencing homelessness, living with severe and persistent mental illness, who are engaging frequently with the hospital system, the behavioral health system, the criminal justice system to receive the highintensity services needed to go with the myriad of very complex problems in their lives,” Delmas said in an interview.
People enrolled in the program receive housing services and 24/7 support, Delmas said, meaning there’s someone they can call at 2 a.m. if they’re experiencing a mental health crisis. Members can also receive visits four to five times a week from the treatment team to talk about housing, their medication needs and their personal long-term goals.
The program also provides people with access to aid from licensed behavioral health and substance abuse clinicians. It has many other social workers on staff, Delmas said.
“That’s to give you highly personalized and flexible services that you need to be successful in our community wherever you need and whenever you need it,” Delmas told commissioners.
It costs about $75 per day to house one person at the jail, Delmas said. The sheriff’s chief of staff, Ron Bernard, said the county has 1,100 inmates, down from the 1,600 it had when the downtown Chattanooga jail was consolidated into the detention center on Standifer Gap Road.
The Sheriff’s Office took over responsibility of the center, formerly known as the Silverdale Detention Center, on Dec. 30, 2020, and has transferred inmates from its now-shuttered downtown jail to the detention center — now called Hamilton County Jail. The last inmate left the downtown jail in June 2021.
About 10 years ago, projections indicated the jail population could hit 2,000, Bernard said.
“All these programs we’re doing — they’re working,” Bernard told commissioners. “They’re keeping the jail population down.”
The FUSE program receives funding through two federal grants. One of those totals $3.3 million from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which can support up to 100 people. The 31 people enrolled in the program are supported through those grant dollars. Administrators receive referrals from the jail and the broader community.
The county also picks up $2.2 million through the U.S. Department of Justice, which gives it the capacity to serve an additional 50 people. County officials intend to roll that out in 2024. That will only receive referrals from the Hamilton County Jail.
To qualify, participants must have been arrested at least six to eight times, including once in Hamilton County, and have spent 68 days in jail over the course of a year.