By Chris Salvemini, WBIR
More than 1,200 faith leaders from two dozen congregations are expected to gather in downtown Knoxville on Tuesday for an annual meeting to call on local leaders to take specific steps to address issues in the community.
The Nehemiah Action Assembly is set for April 8 at 7 p.m., organized by Justice Knox. The group hosts the annual meeting to outline priorities for the coming months and find ways to improve the Knoxville community.
The assembly will have four specific goals in mind, listed below.
- Commend Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon, Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs and Erin Read from the Office of Housing Stability for following through on last year’s commitments to make a plan to address homelessness, aiming to move more people out of homelessness than people entering it at any given time.
- Ask Jacobs to partner with Justice Knox to make a plan and funding strategy to house 145 homeless veterans.
- Ask Jacobs to bring together Knox Housing Assistance Eviction Prevention Program stakeholders to assess the program’s capacity and create a long-term funding strategy for it. It will also ask Kincannon to participate in the effort and ask both mayors to provide stopgap funding for it.
- Ask Kincannon to plan and implement a turn-key microtransit service using help from leaders such as the VIA company, which helped bring a similar microtransit service to Birmingham, Alabama.
Justice Knox had previously called for programs to address homelessness in the city and for a micro-transit service operated through Knoxville Area Transit. The transit service created “katConnect,” but it is exclusive to the Holston Ridge, Cassel Ridge and Elk Hill Way apartment communities. It effectively gives people access to on-demand transport, bringing them to and from nearby bus stops.
Organizers said the assembly is based on a biblical example of a “great assembly” and aims to hold officials accountable for justice.
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