I don't know if the properties would require rezoning.

I believe that West Knoxville residents are open to being a part of the homeless solution. That being said, I also think we may be feeling the affects of the times a little harder than other areas of town. Malls are declining in popularity. Cars are becoming expensive to operate. Housing prices are fluctuating wildly in the suburbs and infrastructure improvements have stalled with the downturn in the economy. Many of the houses in the affected areas of the TYP are largely in the 100,000- 200,000 range. Moreover, the residents don't tend to be upwardly mobile, but stable. We've taken our hit. We don't need, nor will we stand idly by while this city administration forces us to take another one.

If the administration brings a comprehensive plan for improvement to neighborhood infrastructure along with a PSH plan it will go through. People aren't opposed to being a part of the homeless solution, they are opposed to bureaucrats having the power to single out their neighborhood and declare that "You're going down!" We've watched this administration focus all it's efforts on the downtown area for the last ten years and now that they've stabilized that area they're trying to export all the inner city problems to the suburbs without the funding to fix them. That's just garbage, Rachael.

We are already carrying our load with regards to percentage of the homeless population. What we're not getting is the rented office space that comes with providing support. We're not getting the infrastructure that comes with addressing solutions. The mission district has bike lanes, sidewalks and bus service connecting the mission district with access to all areas of the center city. We can't even get the four miles of green way necessary to connect us with the city system despite the fact that it's been a project waiting to happen ever since the Ashe administration. I have found this whole argument to be the height of hypocrisy. The Toby's of this debate don't want to give up their funding for the solutions, they just want to get rid of their problem. We are also pay more than our fair share of the load in regards to tax revenue, particularly when one considers what we have gotten back from this administration. West Hills has seen better days. If this project is properly done, it will increase tax revenue over the next fifty years, but based on what there is to be seen of the business plan, this is impossible. Transferring this project to a private entity with no voter oversight is the wrong thing to do.

A working plan guarantees a feasible price by raising revenue in the long run, both in an increase in property values and an increase in sales tax collection. It pays for itself in real terms, revenues, as opposed to the fuzzy math savings that the TYP folks have been touting.

At this point I consider time to be a secondary issue. This administration has picked the most expensive and logistically difficult solution to the homeless issue that is offered by the various TYP planners. The scattered approach was not picked by Dr. Noe, but by committee. If the TYP is not committed to expend the energy to do this properly they would be well served to go back to the drawing board now.

Sorry about the rant. My wife is at a symposium this morning and I made the coffee. I suspect I might have made it too strong.