A planned Blount County transition center campus designed to serve people leaving the local jail got a step closer to breaking ground Thursday, April 18.
The Blount County Board of Commissioners voted without comment Thursday to convey between 3.5 to 5 acres of county-owned land in the Bungalow community of Maryville to the nonprofit McNabb Center for a transition center campus. With that vote, commissioners also forwarded a total of more than $6 million in grant funding from the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and money stemming from an opioid settlement to McNabb for the center.
McNabb staff applied for, and were awarded, the grant funds earlier this year. They intend the new center to foster the treatment of people with drug addictions and mental illnesses who are leaving the Blount County Correctional Facility. Six new structures are meant to support local addiction recovery and treatment services there.
Plans
The current transition center plan came to the county commission from the CARES committee, formed by the commission over a decade ago, under a different name, to address both overcrowding at the jail and help former inmates transition back into the the community.
McNabb’s senior director of Blount County Services, Shannon Dow, told The Daily Times in a phone interview Thursday that the current plan is to develop the transition center campus into four recovery homes, along with one residential facility for people with drug or other substance addictions and another residential building for people with mental illnesses.
The new proposal also moves forward without local tax dollars behind it — commissioners’ vote to transfer the land and the already-obtained funding represents the extent of the government’s current support. Dow said that the facility also would operate without ongoing operational cost to the county.
The campus, Dow said, is “the first of its kind in the state.”
“This is a very comprehensive campus that really wraps around the individual,” she said.
Following the vote, Blount County Mayor Ed Mitchell sent a statement to the newspaper that reads in part: “I appreciate the unanimous support of the County Commission and the CARES Committee. This has been a long time coming and this partnership with McNabb is a great solution to best help Blount County citizens.”
“I feel like this is something that has been long needed,” said Mitchell. “The proposal from the McNabb Center is a great partnership and I appreciate the very hard work that Jerry Vagnier, Shannon Dow and their team have done in acquiring the grants.”
‘At the brink’
Blount officials and residents have variously planned, debated, supported and opposed a transition center for years, and the design and scope of the project have both shifted over time. McNabb’s current plans came together on a smaller scale than some previous proposals. In part, that reflects a changing situation at the county jail.
In 2019, the county jail housed more than 600 people. It was at the time — and is today — certified to hold 350 inmates. With one of the worst jail crowding problems in Tennessee, officials including Mitchell supported plans to disperse the crowds and help inmates make the transition from jail. To that end, the county approved the purchase of nearly 63 acres of land in the Bungalow neighborhood for a new transition center; it was meant for inmates charged with nonviolent crimes, according to previous reporting from the newspaper.
The cost of building the center was estimated at around $29 million.
But the crowds at the jail have shrunk in recent years. In February of this year, the latest month for which the state has published data, the jail held 327 people in total.
The dollar amount and the amount of land attached to the current campus proposal have likewise changed.
Dow told the newspaper that the capital project costs amount to the over $6 million in funds the nonprofit has obtained. The campus also will sit on a fraction of the land originally purchased for the project.
While the extent of the crowding at the jail has changed, CARES Chairman Jerry Vagnier told commissioners Thursday, “The need (for a center) is pretty well documented. We have people leaving the jail who don’t have any services or any help, and they, unfortunately, return to jail, and that cycle just continues.”
“We can do better,” said Vagnier, a former McNabb CEO. “This is a process that’s been a decade in the making, and we are at the brink of being able to do something really, really important for our community and health.”
CARES committee member Tom Cole, a former county commissioner, echoed Vagnier in urging commissioners to approve the land and grant transfers. He commented, “My son is struggling with drug addiction, and I’m pretty sure that every person in this room has family or knows someone who could benefit from this facility.”
Like in past years, the proposal also met with some opposition Thursday. One member of the public, Bill Simcox, told commissioners during a public comment period that he had major concerns about possible dangers to community members from residents at the transition center.
“If you’re gonna put another facility over here, (...) you better be damn sure that it’s secure and that people know that Blount County people aren’t gonna put up with the crap,” he said.
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