Chattanooga homeless camp will close

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — People who live in a Chattanooga homeless camp will have to pick up and move.

Malcolm Amicarelli lives in this homeless camp, which was once a dumping site for industrial waste.

He and other residents were told the area was contaminated and everyone has to leave.

“My thoughts is it is just the city trying to get rid of us,” Amicarelli said.

Sam Wolfe, the homeless program coordinator with the city, spent his afternoon talking to residents and giving them information about different resources.

“We immediately assembled a meeting with local service providers to try to come with an alternative for folks staying here. We didn’t want to be something where we just showed up and said hey we have to leave. Because we realized there is a lot of unique challenges they face camping back here,” Wolfe said.

“I’ll go through the channels and everything. But me personally, they’ll help a few to make it look good on paper. But not everybody will be helped,” Amicarelli said.

The homeless camp is near the community kitchen.

“The camp likely started because of the proximity to services, like healthcare, the meals that we provide here, job training, case management, permanent supportive housing, kind of that opportunity to get out of homelessness,” said Jens Christensen, CEO of the Chattanooga Community Kitchen.

Christensen says they’ll help people who live at the homeless camp transition.

“This will be a unique circumstance where we will be open overnight for the next couple of weeks while we offer a shelter for the people that are staying over there in that area and then we work with the city and our partner agencies to figure out a way to get as many people house as possible.”

As for Amicarelli, he will leave but he wants people to remember one thing.

“We are human too. Just treat us like normal people. We just fell on hard times. We are just like everybody else,” Amicarelli said.

The Community Kitchen will start 24/7 operation on Friday.