Five months ago, KARM changed how emergency shelter works in Knoxville.
Instead of an open-ended stay, adults now move through a defined 28-day period focused on stabilizing the immediate crisis, addressing health needs, and connecting with a case manager.
Before this shift, our strongest outcomes came from a small number of long-term programs, roughly 70 women in programming at any time. We also ran LaunchPoint, engaging about 250 people a year. Meanwhile, KARM served close to 5,000 people annually. The distance between those engaged and those who were not was the wound we built this new model to close.
The model is working.
Since April, 73% of adults who complete their initial 28 days choose to enter case management and begin building a life beyond the shelter. The rest leave and tell us they don’t need continued services, and we celebrate that. We are approaching 200 people housed this calendar year, alongside a record number of employment placements. Our highest single month reached 39 individuals housed, more than some entire years used to bring. Knoxville’s broader rate of return to homelessness runs around 15%. Among KARM graduates, it is just under 5%.
But numbers alone can mislead. A bed is not the goal. We are not after placement. We are after restoration. Restoration means rebuilding trust in one’s own capacity to carry a responsibility. It’s a parent believing they are fit to raise their children again. It’s a person defined for years by what they lacked starting to be defined by what they are becoming. For many, restoration reaches further still. It means discovering that grace has a place at the table too, that being seen and loved by God is not something you have to earn your way back to.
This model is not the result of one decision made in April. It is the fruit of decades planted by leaders who came before us, people who built this ministry on the conviction that shelter should be a bridge, not a destination. This year we finally built the structure to carry that conviction to everyone who walks through our doors, thanks to staff and volunteers who pour themselves out daily, echoing the prophet Isaiah’s call to spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry and afflicted.
And none of it happens because of KARM alone. We do not operate a formal housing program. Every housing placement exists because other organizations said yes when we called. The same is true for much of what we do at KARM. I am deeply grateful for a community dedicated to our most vulnerable neighbors. What looks like KARM’s progress is this community’s progress.
Underneath it all is a truth that shapes how we see every person who walks through our doors: each one bears the image of God, worth every ounce of effort it takes to help them find their way home.
Five months of results tell us the direction is right. But the deeper truth is older than this model, older than any of us doing this work. KARM has always believed no one is beyond hope.
Written by Todd Gilbert, Chief Impact Officer