When the clock strikes twelve in Johnson City on a Friday night, most ETSU students are hours away from bed.
Parties, police and public intoxication – many weekenders can sum up their good times.
But something else is going on in JC. Past the blaring music, under the surface of the late night scene, just around the corner of the hottest hangout.
The homeless are out, picking up the pieces of their broken lives, searching desperately for a way out.
There are more than 300 stringent homeless that wander the streets of Washington County, the majority of whom are concentrated in Johnson City, according to Bob Merit, a registered nurse case worker and an ETSU graduate who became involved with providing free medical care for the needy during his time in the
There are 10 times that number of “couch homeless” – individuals who are not as needy as the others but still lack the most basic necessities that the general populace take for granted.
These stringent homeless are destitute to an extreme level – sleeping under picnic tables, on park benches, in dumpsters, under bridges, and anywhere they won’t be driven away or, in the worst scenario, murdered. These individuals have no money, no insurance, no job, and no means of providing food for themselves. So how do they survive?
“The best way they can,” Merit said. “There’s a couple of shelters, and [the Downtown Clinic] provides medical care. The VA also provides some medical care.”
Merit has worked with the Johnson City Downtown Clinic for five years and is currently the chief administrator at the Manna House.
He has distributed a number of surveys to discover just how serious the homelessness problem in Johnson City really is and occasionally goes to the streets with blankets and other items to aid those who can’t make it to the shelters.
Even with Merit’s work and the work of others like him, the problem continues to grow. And sadly, while 25 percent of U.S. homeless have mental health problems, Merit estimates that nearly 80 percent of the homeless in Johnson City are afflicted by poor mental health.
Since these individuals have no permanent addresses, they receive no aid or case management, and most turn to drugs and alcohol. And of the 3,000 some stringent and couch homeless in Johnson City, nearly half are veterans.
“No one chooses to be homeless,” said Merit. Most homeless, he believes, have been homeless for so long that they don’t think they can be anything else.
Those with addictions have come to depend upon their narcotics to augment the dopamine production in there brain. Merit said that he had had normal conversations with homeless individuals who had blood-alcohol levels as high as .50 and .60.
Toni Hardin, friend of Merit and a social worker of 17 years, believes that some homeless individuals’ inability to fit their lives into an aid schedule contributes to their condition.
“Some just can’t conform to case management,” said Hardin.
Transitional housing complexes like the Manna House are places where a homeless person can live in exchange for a case worker’s involvement with their lives.
The case worker finds these individuals a job, gets them any medication that they need, and teaches them how live once they are re-inserted into society.
Merit said that 20 percent of the individuals who went through the Manna House program have beat their mental issues and haven’t had any trouble for three-four years. The rest have had only minor problems but have not been back on the streets for an extended period of time.
The problem with transitional housing in Johnson City isn’t quality, however. It is quantity. There are only 28 beds for the Washington Co. region, a number that is highly inadequate. The longest one can stay in a temporary shelter like the Salvation Army is two to three weeks at the most.
“[It’s] nowhere close to enough,” said Merit. Hardin agrees and believes that the need for transitional housing in Johnson City is too great to put into words. Unfortunately, the barriers preventing the introduction of new transitional housing have thus far proven unbreakable.
Money, education, property values and a lack of trained caseworkers willing to perform in a transitional housing environment all mix together to form a very strong wall.
Yet the need is still there. Hardin, who works at the Salvation Army shelter, sees individuals in situations in which no human being should ever be placed. A veteran who turns to alcohol because he can’t live with his memories.
Young couples who have memorized the dumpster schedule so that they’ll always have shelter. Wives whose husbands have beaten them and thrown them onto the streets.
Men and women suffering from severe mental disorders and taking no medication. Mothers with children so destitute that they are literally wasting away and dying.
This is not Iraq or Nigeria or some other developing country – these situations are on the very same streets that are homes to the clubs, restaurants and hangouts popular to college students on the weekends.
“The greatest need in the lives of these individuals is support,” said Hardin, “and not necessarily financial.”
Merit also believes that the homeless need to be understood, and not just looked at as place to put your pocket change. Education, he thinks, is the greatest tool in rebuilding the lives of the homeless. Not education for the homeless individual, but educations for those who are in the position to help but for some reason haven’t.
So what can the average person do? Helping can be as easy as going to the Salvation Army and offering to paint or set up beds. Maybe someone could donate pillows and towels – these are the items that homeless people take with them when they stay over night.
How about giving some time to a soup kitchen like the Melting Pot? There is also a great need for someone who can teach the social workers at the Salvation Army how to write grants.
Lobbying for more transitional housing in Johnson City would be a great help, as well. But perhaps the most important thing an average person can do is to be informed.
Know how to give the homeless the emotional support they so desperately need, and care enough to give the man or woman on the street a second look. No one chooses to be homeless.

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