The Knoxville-Knox County Office of Housing Stability, known as OHS, is ushering in a change with its latest move to combat homelessness; they’ve put forth a strategic three-year plan and established a new Continuum of Care (CoC) Board of Directors, as announced on September 30, 2025. According to a recent report by the OHS, this initiative is aimed at making homelessness a less common, short-lived, and non-recurring plight in the Knoxville and Knox County areas.
The formation of this CoC board is a collaborative effort that involves various community leaders – their backgrounds spanning healthcare, social services, local government, law enforcement, and also including individuals who have battled homelessness themselves, the new board members’ names are listed on the OHS website, and Executive Director Erin Read confidently expressed, “This is a well-qualified and experienced team that will guide the CoC as it works to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring across Knoxville and Knox County.”
The CoC’s role as delineated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is to play the local strategic planner coordinating a wide range of services and housing to thwart and eventually end homelessness, along with setting common goals, standards, and utilizing data to ensure funds are effectively allotted. The strategic plan in question, the result of widespread contributions from various stakeholders, including those directly affected by homelessness, pins down five pivotal targets centered on improving the speed and efficacy of services, preventing homelessness, reducing unsheltered homelessness, boosting access to stable housing, and ensuring more robust funding for the system…