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Seven Days

Wednesday, Oct. 17
A South Carolina firm discusses its plans to set up a tailgating pavilion on the south bank of the Tennessee River across from Neyland Stadium, complete with water taxi service to and from UT football games. Parking spots would go for $7,000 a season. UT athletic director Doug Dickey says he isn't interested. If so, it's the first $7,000 per season item the AD hasn't been interested in during his lengthy tenure at the top of the sports money pile over there.

Thursday, Oct. 18
Maryville City Councilman Joe Swann says the three liquor stores approved for the city won't be enough to serve the 20,000 souls who occupy that quaint, formerly dry town. How many godless Yankees have moved in down there anyhow?

Friday, Oct. 19
The fifth largest safe manufacturer in the United States, Champion Safe Co., announces plans to open a distribution center in East Knox County. The better to serve the UT athletic department's needs.

Saturday, Oct. 20
The UT Vols whip Alabama for the seventh straight time and announce that the Southeastern Conference has agreed to move the Tide back into the SEC East in a swap for Florida and a Carolina school to be named later.

Monday, Oct. 22
An Associated Press account out of Nashville flashes the figure that shows Tennessee ranked 49th among the 50 states in per capita spending on education; later that day the Knox County School Board sues the cheap-assed County Commission, mostly over money matters that the commission more than tightly controls. Coincidence?

Tuesday, Oct. 23
The Knox County DA's office says it's losing federal funding for its domestic violence prosecutor. Well, sure, when you're fighting international violence at home and abroad, you've got to cut somewhere.

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Last Week's Photo:
This unusual bit of color is a piece of a mural on a wall of the playground at the former Eastport Elementary School, near Walter P. Taylor Homes in East Knoxville. The school closed five years ago as part of Knox County's consolidation program, but the playground remains a favorite for local children. The first correct identification came from Becky Roper of Knoxville. We'd like to send her a can of spray paint, but we don't want to make any of our local postal workers any more jittery than they already are. So she'll have to settle for a copy of The Broke Diaries, Angela Nissel's memoirs of life without cash. Now there's something we can relate to...

Meet Your City
A calendar of upcoming public meetings you should attend

CITY ELECTION EARLY VOTING
Thru Thursday Nov. 1
10 a.m. - 6 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Saturdays
Downtown West, Knoxville Center, the Civic Coliseum and the Old Knox County Courthouse. New members will be elected for Council Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6.

KNOX COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
Friday, Oct. 26
9 a.m.
Andrew Johnson Bldg., 1st floor conference room
912 S. Gay St.
Special called meeting to discuss possible action on the County Commission's proposal for school board redistricting.

HELP CREATE "A VISION FOR MARKET SQUARE"
Monday, Oct. 29
5 - 8 p.m.
Green Elementary School
800 Townview Drive.
Public input will be sought by Gianni Longo, the consultant to Nine Counties. One Vision who helped Chattanooga set its recent redevelopment goals.

CITY COUNCIL
Tuesday Oct. 30
7 p.m. City County Bldg., Large Assembly Room
400 Main Ave.
Council will be considering the new downtown residential incentives package.

CANDIDATES' FORUM
Tuesday Oct. 30
5:30 - 7 p.m.
Fair Garden Community Center
400 Fern St.
Sponsored by the NAACP, NCCJ, and the League of Women Voters. Reception a half hour before forum, followed by a question and answer session.

Hope for Jackson Ave.

Developers make deal on vacant warehouse

Add the McClung Warehouse on Jackson Avenue to the growing list of historic buildings that appear to be on their way to residential restoration.

Birmingham-based developer Adam Cohen has entered into a joint venture with the McClung property's owner since 1991, Mark Saroff, for an 85-unit loft apartment complex. David Dewhirst, who is partnering with Cohen on the renovation of the Emporium at the corner of Gay and Jackson, is also a party to the deal.

Together with 43 units in the Emporium, 96 in the Sterchi Building and 12 others that Dewhirst has under way, that makes a total of 236 apartments that are either in the works or on the drawing boards within a two-block area.

Cohen voices confidence that there's plenty of demand for all these downtown dwellings and many more to follow. "I remain committed to building at least 500 units over the next five years, and I'm quite sure the market will support them," he asserts.

As with the Emporium, the McClung apartments will be primarily two-bedroom units with rentals in the $750 to $1,400 a month range. The profile of prospective tenants is mainly young professionals without children along with a smattering of older, denested couples.

While Cohen is clear that the Emporium will be ready for occupancy by next June, he won't be pinned down as to a timetable for McClung construction. "The warehouse conversion will begin after the first of the year, and next December would be the best case completion date," he says. But it seems evident that he has yet to secure financing for the $12.7 million project.

Saroff has been trying for several years without success to restore the landmark warehouse on his own. But Cohen brings with him a track record of success with downtown residential development in Birmingham, Orlando and Chattanooga.

He's also getting the benefit of the city of Knoxville's newfound commitment to supporting such development with property-tax abatement, facilitation of low-interest construction loans and special building codes. "The mayor and his staff have been extremely supportive," Cohen says. (City Council will vote on a final version of the incentives program

at its Oct. 30 meeting.)

The McClung property has room for 260 surface-parking spaces to serve its apartment dwellers as well as the Emporium's, and also to support ground-floor commercial development in both buildings. The city has leased the ground floor of the Emporium and is trying to induce local arts organizations to locate there.

—Joe Sullivan

Special Relationship

Teachers, parents work together on special education

Theoretically, parents and teachers want the same things for children: a good education, social development, security, and so forth. But often, especially in the case of children with what parents call "special needs" and teachers call "challenges," that theory can get shaky.

"The schools, because they have a huge job, often focus on the kids I call 'vanilla,' the kids who sit there and absorb great amounts of information," says Nancy Diehl, executive director of the statewide group STEP (which stands for Support and Training for Exceptional Parents). "And kids who struggle with that learning style, whether they be gifted or kids with a lot of energy, including [kids with] disabilities, don't fit that vanilla norm."

That's why STEP is co-sponsoring the third annual Families and Schools Together (FAST) conference next week. On Nov. 1 and 2, at the Knoxville Downtown Hilton, parents and teachers will come together for a variety of workshops, lectures and (the organizers hope) informal socializing to talk about special education. Among the topics: pre-school programs for children with physical and learning disabilities, positive behavior support, and preparing students for life after school.

What makes the conference unique is its collaboration between teachers and parents. The other sponsor is the LRE for LIFE Project, a program of the University of Tennessee's College of Education that provides training and support to teachers. (LRE stands for "least restrictive environment," a legal term from education law that mandates all special education students be allowed as much interaction with "normal" school activities as possible. This is all part of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. The entire field of special education can sometimes seem to consist of nothing but acronyms.)

Ed White, principal secretary for LRE for LIFE, says the organization works with school systems all over Tennessee, and finds a wide variety of compliance with federal laws. In some places, particularly more rural counties, he says, "They've just got some very ignorant, exclusive practices—almost medieval...What makes the rural systems more difficult is that they don't have as much expertise or support."

That's what the FAST conference aims to provide—not only through the sessions themselves, but through the contacts teachers and parents can make there. Diehl says parents of special education students need to be aware of how much they're asking of often-underfunded systems, and teachers need to be willing to accept parents' input and experience.

"It sort of becomes a finger-pointing blame game if we're not careful," she says. "There's a tad of resentment from professionals hearing from parents, who they see as laymen, saying 'Well, here's what works in the other classrooms.'"

Overall, she says, the level of awareness among teachers and parents has improved greatly—"But there's places we still have huge gaps."

Registration for the FAST conference costs $60 for teachers and $40 for parents (includes lunch both days). There is a pre-registration and ice cream social Wednesday, Oct. 31 from 6-8 p.m. at the Hilton. You can register on-site. For more information, contact Ed White at 974-2760 or [email protected].

—Jesse Fox Mayshark

Hearing Voices

Area shelters struggle to deal with mentally ill

When homeless persons show up at one of Knoxville's shelters, they can usually find a hot meal, maybe some clothes, a person to talk to, and perhaps a bed to sleep in. They might also be able to get connected to some job training or other services.

But one of the things the shelters have the most trouble connecting people to is medical treatment for mental illness. Unfortunately, it's the thing many of them need the most. Of the roughly 1,500 people homeless in the Knoxville area, about half are mentally ill. That demographic, more than any other, makes combating homelessness extremely arduous.

"There are an awful lot of people who do not realize that one of the major causes of homelessness is mental illness," says Ginny Weatherstone, executive director of Volunteer Ministry Center, a non-denominational day shelter at Gay Street and Jackson Avenue.

The Knoxville Coalition for the Homeless is pushing to make the community and state legislators more aware of the problem of mental illness among the homeless.

One of the key problems is a lack of funding. "TennCare does not do well by these folks. The money just isn't there to provide the services," Weatherstone says.

That lack of services is part of a trend of deinstitutionalizing mental health care that began in the 1960s. While the aim might have been good—to help the mentally ill lead more normal lives—it was taken to extremes, leaving many to fall through the cracks. Locally, that means fewer hospital beds, group homes and social workers to deal with them.

The result is that it's easy for the mentally ill to end up homeless. Nationally, it's estimated that for every mentally ill person in a hospital or group home, there are six in jail or on the streets. "They get sicker and sicker and then fall into a lifestyle that makes them harder to find," Weatherstone says.

Those who do get help often end up back on the streets because there's no support network of group homes and social workers to watch out for them.

"People coming out of the hospital are often discharged to streets or a homeless shelter—they need group homes," she says. "Mentally ill folks do so much better with structure. If they were going somewhere [where] they could be monitored, someone would make sure they're taking their medication. The thing that makes all the difference is the support."

The homeless shelters do have some impact. At the Volunteer Ministry Center, Dr. Jill Powell of the UT College of Nursing holds a clinical outreach about once a week, prescribing medicine to some. She sees everything from low-level depression to more serious trauma, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and psychosis.

"There's never a situation where I feel like I can't help someone," Powell says. "Because connecting with them helps. But the resources are so very limited that my ability to help with cutting-edge pharmaceuticals is minimal."

The patient may need $300 a month in medicine, but can only afford $20 a month. "Funding is needed, and it's never more cost effective to not treat than to treat," she says, adding that untreated mental illness invariably leads to more crime, violence, drug use, and incarceration.

Weatherstone says the Coalition for the Homeless is hoping to raise attention to the issue to get more state and national funding for mental health care.

"It needs to be addressed by lots and lots of people," she says.

—Joe Tarr