CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – (CLARKSVILLENOW) Just over 100 people turned out Thursday for a community meeting as citizens and service organizations search for ways to help homeless families in Clarksville-Montgomery County.
The meeting featured representatives from the national nonprofit group Family Promise who help homeless children and families in 42 states across the country. Family Promise works to bring churches, service organizations and volunteers together to help children and families get back into housing.
Tom Coffey with Family Promise talked about homelessness. “To Family Promise, anybody that does not have their own bed to sleep in is homeless to us. It’s our role to get them back into a stable living environment. Eighty-six percent of the families we served across the country last year were able to get in some stable environment,” he said.
He added that there are a number of different ways to do that such as a house, shared housing, an apartment or transitional housing. He encouraged a partnership with Family Promise and existing agencies in the local area who already deal with homelessness in the community.
A number of local organizations and agencies who work to help the homeless locally were on hand and most who spoke agreed that more discussion on the issue was needed to help bring their groups, along with local churches together in a joint effort to help solve the homelessness problem.
State Representative Joe Pitts attended the meeting and talked about moving forward.
“It’s clear that we’ve got some ground to plow first, to get the service providers together and talk about where the gaps are. I think Family Promise provides us a real opportunity to help folks in this community. Where there are gaps, but first we’ve got to figure out the gaps,” Pitts said.
Another meeting has been scheduled for March 16 at First Presbyterian Church, 213 Main Street. The time of the meeting will be announced at a later date.