Homeless count: Up 20% from 2023, children up 100%

Numbers more than triple in three rural counties, households with children double

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Nearly 700 people in the region were identified as homeless during an annual 24-hour “point in time” count in late January — 20% more than a year earlier, on top of a 46% increase the year before.

The U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-required count showed 687 homeless people during the so-called “PIT count” Jan. 23 and 24, even with a decrease in Washington County that an official chalked up to a less effective count this year.

Additionally, the data showed 70 children under 18 were homeless, compared to 33 a year earlier, with the number of homeless households with children totaling 37, roughly double the figure of 19 a year ago.

“I’m not surprised at all,” Will Shewey, pastor of Shades of Grace United Methodist Church in Kingsport told News Channel 11 when told of a nearly 40% increase in Kingsport.

Kingsport reported 172 homeless people, compared to 104 in 2023. Sullivan County’s total of 292 was up 30% from 2023’s total of 225.

Outside of Washington County, the region’s seven other counties saw a 64% increase in the total number of homeless people counted: 501, up from 304 in 2023. Jim Bare, a case manager at Hope Haven, a shelter that serves people in Kingsport, said rising housing costs are a major factor in the area’s increasing homeless numbers.

“Some residents … were just barely making that rent to begin with and now they’re increasing the rent on them,” Bare said. “So a lot of people are losing their housing due to rent and rent increases.”

The numbers, collected by the Appalachian Regional Coalition on Homelessness (ARCH), are preliminary but expected to change very little before being finalized later this week.

The number of unsheltered people — those not in emergency shelters or “transitional homes” designed to help people more smoothly make the change from homelessness to permanent housing — was 415 during the Jan. 23-24 count this year. That was 69% higher than a year earlier, though ARCH’s Terry Burdett said the weather was warmer than the previous year and fewer people had probably opted for emergency housing available on “white flag” nights.

Huge increase in three rural counties

Some of the steepest increases, though, came in communities with very few shelter resources. Much of the overall rise was attributable to a count that more than tripled in three rural counties, Greene, Carter and Johnson.

Burdett, who coordinates the PIT count, said the increases in Greene and Carter counties may be partly due to more effective counting. ARCH has developed relationships with services in those areas that are helping homeless people and cooperating in the count, which utilizes volunteers. A Greene County organization called CANUP (pronounced canopy) has been serving the homeless there.

CANUP’s vice chair told News Channel 11 in January he expected the county’s count to exceed 50, up from 26 in 2023, saying “We have changed how we look for them and find them. I think they were probably here last year but it’s how you’re looking and that makes a difference.”

As it turned out, Greene County’s total was 81, with 25 people in emergency shelters and 56 unsheltered. Only six unsheltered people had been identified in 2023.

Carter County’s total rose from 13, with six of them in emergency shelters and seven unsheltered, to 58, with just one in a shelter and 57 unsheltered.

Johnson County also had 58 people counted, all of them unsheltered, up from 19 in 2023.

West Side Inn conversion likely to worsen problem

The 2024 PIT count occurred before a March letter to dozens of residents of Kingsport’s West Side Inn that they’d have to move. The United Way of Greater Kingsport told News Channel 11 last week the motel’s closure displaced an estimated 80 people.

“We don’t have no place to put them with that big of an influx of people at one time,” Hope Haven’s Bare said. “Salvation Army can’t hold them all. We can’t hold them all.”

Bare said he expects the number of unsheltered homeless people to continue increasing unless more resources become available. The number in transitional housing regionwide was nearly the same in 2024 as in 2023.

Hope Haven has space to house 20 men for periods ranging from a few months to a year, and Bare said more beds are desperately needed.

“We need more support financially for all of our homeless shelters.”

Shewey, whose church provides meals and other support to help meet people’s needs in Kingsport, said he’s seeing more new faces during meal distributions at Shades of Grace.

“We’re seeing a lot of folks who are living in their vehicles now with the recent transactions that have taken place with the West Side Inn and the lack of affordable housing in the city,” Shewey said.

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