Minvilla Manor is under construction as of 10am today. When completed late next year, this development will add 57 new units of permanent supportive housing to our affordable housing stock in Knoxville.
Minvilla is one of the most visible projects related to the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness. As such, it has focused a lot of attention on the issue of homelessness, and especially on chronic homelessness.
These folks are among the most vulnerable members of our community. A chronically homeless individual is one who is disabled and has been homeless for at least one year, or who has had four extended periods of homelessness in the past three years. The majority deal with mental illness. People who are chronically homeless cost our community approximately $40,000 per year, per person, on average, because of their very heavy consumption of emergency services.
It has been demonstrated over and over again that that it costs less for a disabled person to reside in permanent housing with appropriate support services than it costs for that same person to remain on the streets. Permanent supportive housing saves money, and it is also the right thing to do.
Minvilla will be the first new permanent supportive housing development to come online in the context of the Ten-Year Plan. We believe that we need to develop something in the neighborhood of 400 new units of permanent supportive housing, and that another 400, approximately, can be housed in already existing housing.