There are more halfway houses for refugee foster children across Tennessee

DAYTON, Tenn. – Late Thursday morning, a few dozen volunteers and well-wishers gathered on a scenic hillside in front of a car trailer and a pile of dirt.

“We are here!” Jenny Fine shouted into the microphone, earning some applause. “We are going to build a house!”

She had a specific kind of house in mind. Simple, with a few bedrooms and a playroom, a storage area for toys, clothes and baby food. But more importantly, a house that replicates a specific model — one that is becoming increasingly common in Chattanooga and beyond — that of caring for children who have been removed from their previous home and have nowhere else to go, at least temporarily.

As Tennessee's nursing home shortage has become especially acute in recent years, observers say the homes operated by Elizabethton, Tennessee-based nonprofit Isaiah 117 are a comfort to a system teetering on the brink. Isaiah 117's new home will serve Blesdoe and Rhea counties.

(READ MORE: Rhea and Bledsoe counties are planned halfway house for refugee foster children)

When a child is removed from a caregiver who deems him or her unsuitable, one of the first tasks of the state Department of Children and Youth Services is to figure out – hopefully quickly – where the child should go next.

Until now, this transition period, which generally leads to placement with relatives or foster care, has taken place in the neon-lit office of the child welfare agency, Fine and others say.

But the Isaiah 117 houses – of which there are suddenly countless in the area – are intended to offer a warmer alternative.

Since establishing the first Isaiah 117 house in northeast Tennessee around 2018, the nonprofit's assets have grown from a few hundred thousand dollars on the most recently available tax returns to nearly $19 million. It now operates about 26 houses nationwide, with dozens more in the pipeline.

One of those homes came to Bradley County in 2021 and, especially before more were built, quickly became a halfway house for children from the Chattanooga area, said Alissa Long, a former state social worker who is now regional director of the Isaiah 117 homes in Middle Tennessee.

Later, Monroe and McMinn counties received a shared home, as did Coffee, Franklin and Grundy counties. In October, Isaiah 117 and the Chambliss Center for Children joined forces to open the first such home in Hamilton County.

The young guests remain under the supervision of the Tennessee Department of Children's Services for their entire stay, Long said. The stay can last from minutes to hours to days and weeks. A given home has a capacity of about two to eight people overnight, depending on gender and sibling combinations, etc. Long said every Isaiah 117 home she knows of is virtually always full.

But the homes are more than just a place to sleep. Staff at the nonprofit say they treat new arrivals “generously” – bringing them McDonald's meals on command, providing them with a favorite video game and a bag full of clothes and other essentials – the idea being to provide comfort to a child coming from a sometimes abusive situation at home into a time of deep uncertainty.

(READ MORE: State-approved Rhea landfill expansion provides decades of capacity, better odor control)

The name Isaiah 117 comes from a Bible verse about caring for “the fatherless.” But Long says the nonprofit doesn't accept government funding, doesn't proselytize children, and doesn't emphasize religion at all.

“Part of trauma education is respecting the different backgrounds and beliefs of children,” she said in a phone interview. “Some of them may have been badly hurt in church or in the name of Jesus, and we have no idea. So we emphasize being and showing the love of Christ much more than actually talking about it.”

The homes are intended for the temporary accommodation of children who are admitted into the system after, for example, the youth welfare office has removed their legal guardian. Over time, however, more and more guests have come to stay overnight here.

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During the pandemic, it has become more difficult to place children, Long says. Isaiah 117's homes have become transitional housing for children already in the foster care system who are waiting for a new placement – perhaps because they were kicked out of a previous foster home because of behavioral problems or after graduating from a treatment center.

“We're meeting that need too, because there's no place for them,” Long said. “And as a social worker, I know that.”

The purpose of building more homes is to provide more young people with a stable, reliable environment at a time when everything else seems to be in flux for them. The even worse alternative is that the state succeeds in convincing any foster parent to take the child in for one night, only to have to find another place for the child the next day.

In a phone conversation before Thursday's event, Fine said she came up with the idea for an Isaiah 117 house for Rhea and Bledsoe counties when she happened upon a video by the nonprofit's founders, Corey and Ronda Paulson.

Fine, who was adopted through the foster care system, learned there was no such home nearby and reached out to the nonprofit, who sent him a video about the community they serve and data confirming the need was real.

About $200,000 for the project has been donated by community members, she said – a sum she said would not be enough to cover start-up costs without the free or cheap labor offered by contractors and others. She hopes the home will be completed and operational in less than a year.

Isaiah 117 hosted a breakfast for contractors before Thursday's groundbreaking. And at the event itself, Fine thanked God for forging the various connections that underpinned the creation of the new home, shared her story and introduced others, such as Jacob Scruggs, a Bryan College graduate who will serve as site manager for the new home. Scruggs, in turn, introduced general contractor Shawn Troutman and thanked him for donating the land and helping to build the home.

Next to speak was Hanna Pearson, a state Department of Child Services worker from Rhea and Bledsoe counties, who said the new home would ease the burden on staff: Driving to an Isaiah 117 home in another county could add hours to a shift, she said.

For children, the introduction into the foster care system can be fraught with bureaucratic hurdles, she said. Almost immediately afterward, social workers must fill out a lengthy document detailing allergies and other important information about the child being placed in state care. During this phase, Isaiah 117's homes create a welcoming atmosphere, she said, adding.

“They're met at the door by these volunteers and DCS staff and they can play with them,” Pearson said. “They can play PlayStation, they can watch Netflix. They can go into the room and calm down a little bit. Sometimes they don't even want to see our faces. Because they're angry with us. A lot of kids don't know what's going on. They're sad, they're emotional. They're met at the door with love. And that means everything. It gives us a place to finish the job of finding them a placement.”

Contact Andrew Schwartz at [email protected] or 423-757-6431.