700 MORE PEOPLE SUDDENLY HOMELESS. WHAT TO DO?

What do you do with 700 people suddenly out on the streets a week before Thanksgiving after the hotel they’ve been living in — some for more than a year — is suddenly closed by court order because of crime and squalor? People were given four hours to get out unless they’d gotten advance notice from school officials trying to look after students there.

We’ve seen this movie before. Or at least its prequels. In September 2015, it was 1,500 people and 300 families made homeless when all four buildings of the same extended-stay motel in East Ridge, then called Superior Creek Lodge, were condemned because rot threatened the hotel’s structural integrity. Eleven social agencies such as the Salvation Army were called into action.

Then in February 2018, more than 100 residents of the condemned Economy Inn on Brainerd Road were given no advance notice. This time the Inn was condemned as a place of crime and “nuisance.” People had no warning, as police apparently wanted to have the element of surprise on their side, believing some residents engaged in criminal activity.

This week’s second closing of the East Ridge Budgetel likewise came from a petition citing a high volume of crime there in the past few years — more than 1,400 calls to East Ridge police in that time.

Many calls were related to drug use, overdoses, assaults and disorderly conduct, according to court filings from Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp, including eight overdose calls — two resulting in death.

The motion, signed by Hamilton County Judge Boyd Patterson, said police also had received complaints of narcotics dealing and stealing. Nine nearby businesses filed complaints with the office, the motion states.

Also, according to Wamp’s motion, four known sex offenders live at the Budgetel — including three convicted of violence against children. School officials estimated about 75 children lived in the hotel.

“We never want to close any business, especially one that will affect families,” East Ridge Mayor Brian Williams said in a statement Wednesday. “However, the increasing rate of crime at this location no longer made it safe for its residents and surrounding community.”

So we ask again: What do you do with 700 people suddenly out on the streets a week before Thanksgiving when their homes are suddenly off limits to them?

Despite our all-too-recent practice, the answer is still a quandary.

School caseworkers reached out early in the week to parents with children living there, advising them to look for another place to live. School representatives, including Superintendent Justin Robertson, were there again Wednesday handing out bag lunches, coats and other supplies. The district also provided buses as a way for families to keep warm and sent one to take children to school. The district is scheduling meetings with families to help them in the process of finding new housing.

As police knocked on doors and told people they had to be moved out by 11 a.m., residents were given a packet with phone numbers of local shelters, charities and homelessness services.

But did we mention that homelessness already had increased by 177% since 2021 in Hamilton County — rising from 364 to 1,008, according to a count released in April?

The Chattanooga Regional Homelessness Coalition on Wednesday had raised more than $11,000 to help, and the Union Gospel Mission was offering food.

But clearly this won’t be enough. It won’t immediately create more rooms or homes.

Part of this newest problem with the Budgetel would seem to lay at the feet of East Ridge officials.

After the hotel was condemned in 2015 for decay and structural problems, an Atlanta-based developer bought it for $1.4 million and spent $2 million renovating it before reopening it in 2018.

Chattanooga City Council members voted in 2021 to rent 100 rooms there to house people experiencing homelessness, as part of an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. When East Ridge officials learned of the plan from media reports, it was halted within days.

Later that year, the motel’s owners sought to rezone the property to convert it to apartments, but East Ridge City Council members voted that down in February.

Chattanooga in the past year has sought a more preventive strategy — particularly in light in state lawmakers criminalizing homelessness with new laws that make it a felony to camp or sleep on public property and a misdemeanor to camp or sleep on roadsides.

This week the Chattanooga City Council approved the rezoning for the former Airport Inn on Lee Highway to convert the vacant motel into 70 units of permanent supportive housing with 24/7 security and services as well as on-site case management, workforce development opportunities and transportation through CARTA’s dial-a-ride transit service. It is set to open between April and June of 2023.

City officials say 97% of people who moved into permanent supportive housing in Hamilton County during the last year are still housed.

It will be an experiment worth watching. And it certainly sounds better than 700 people turned out on the street one week before Thanksgiving.