On Sunday January 15, 2023, a group of Covenant students went to Chattanooga’s only city-sanctioned homeless camp.
The nine students were enrolled in ENG299 Advanced Feature Writing, a journalism class taught by Dr. Marvin Olasky, a longtime professional editor, journalist and writer. The course was focused on telling the stories of homelessness in the Chattanooga area. As a part of the course, students went out on assignment, visiting homeless camps and shelters in Chattanooga, reporting on the current conditions of Chattanooga’s homeless. This particular trip was a chance for the student reporters to meet people experiencing homelessness.
Chattanooga currently has a single, city-sanctioned space for the homeless: a one-acre lot at the corner of 12th and Peeples housing approximately 40 people currently experiencing homelessness. The camp, unofficially known as the “12th and Peeples Camp,” is filled with tents mounted on wooden pallets, with electrical extension cords running from tent to tent, providing electricity to each person’s tent.
Two residents of the camp, AJ and Amanda, led the nine student reporters on a tour, explaining their responsibilities in the camp and giving a brief glimpse of their own stories. AJ, who hails from a family of Chattanooga-area farmers, helps lead classes on urban farming from the camp’s small garden, provided in part by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Amanda, a former Cocoa Beach, Florida, resident, shared how rising housing prices brought her to Chattanooga in hopes of cheaper rent. Amanda holds an associate’s degree in Culinary Arts and is dedicated to keeping the camp clean and organized. While some camp residents view the camp as just another stop, AJ and Amanda see the 12th and Peeples Camp as their home, despite the temporary nature of the camp and the difficulties of their current lifestyle. As Amanda put it, “trying to maintain stability, it’s hard.”
After their visits to the 12th and Peeples camp and to other local homeless ministries, the student reporters worked with Dr. Olasky to write feature narratives investigating the conditions of the homeless and the work of various Chattanooga ministries. The students will submit their finished pieces to Fix Homelessness, an organization that publishes national homelessness reports, provides legal advice to cities experiencing homelessness, and makes policy recommendations to civic leaders.
Dr. Olasky’s course offered students the opportunity to work under a professional editor, to hunt for potential stories and to find workarounds to obstacles they encounter. Many students found it difficult to contact local homeless ministries, forcing them to find new sources and even begin to develop contacts at local agencies like the Chattanooga Housing Authority. Students worked together to find and write narrative stories, combining their investigations into publishable material. Dr. Olasky ran the course like a professional newsroom, sending students on assignment, directing the students on how to write (and how not to write), and letting the student reporters critique each other's work.
Led by Dr. Olasky and his years of experience, students discussed various causes of poverty and homelessness and critically examined contemporary solutions to homelessness. Students developed an accurate view of homelessness, working to avoid stereotypes while also examining the often-brutal realities of substance abuse, food insecurity and other day-to-day effects of human depravity. And yet, as Annie Payne (‘23) said out, “Even in the homeless camp,” she said, “the sky is still blue.”