Knoxville's homeless-services office is scrambling to line up two to three dozen additional shelter beds before winter sets in, after an arson fire knocked a planned warming center out of commission. The fire struck North Knoxville Baptist Church, which had voted unanimously to open its gym to people seeking shelter from the cold this season following three exposure deaths last winter.
Erin Read, executive director of the Knoxville-Knox County Office of Housing Stability, said the loss of that planned site adds urgency to an already stretched system. “We would like to add somewhere on the order of, you know, two to three dozen beds,” Read said, according to WVLT. The city currently operates four warming centers, a number Read says hasn't kept pace with need: “Our homeless population has grown by 70% since 2018. Our number of shelter beds has not kept pace.”
A Fire That Upended the Plan
Police said a man intentionally set the fire at North Knoxville Baptist Church, according to the same WVLT report. The blaze left the sanctuary's contents a total loss, and the congregation is now holding services in its gym because of the damage — the very space it had planned to offer as a warming center this winter.
“With the fire, it's unfortunately come to the point where we will not be able to support them,” a church representative said, per WVLT's reporting. Rebuilding the sanctuary is not expected to be finished before next fall at the earliest, the station reported, leaving the gym tied up with regular worship duties rather than available for overnight shelter.
Churches Asked to Step Up
The Office of Housing Stability is now asking other churches to provide space and volunteers to fill the gap. In exchange, the office covers overnight security, free bus rides and warm meals for sites that sign on, per WVLT's reporting on the office's outreach. Saint James Episcopal Church has agreed to join the warming-center network this season, according to WATE, joining returning sites that include Church Street United Methodist Church, Cokesbury United Methodist Church and Eternal Life Harvest Center.
The stakes of filling that gap were on stark display last winter. Hypothermia deaths numbered several, compared with just one each in the two winters before that, WVLT reported. Under the office's published protocol, warming centers activate when overnight temperatures are forecast to hit 25 degrees or below, subject to volunteer capacity, according to the Knoxville-Knox County Office of Housing Stability.
Demand Already Outpacing Capacity
Even before the fire, the network was stretched thin. More than 400 people sought shelter at Knoxville's warming centers during the 2024-25 winter, the office's own media release shows. That winter brought 32 nights with temperatures below 25 degrees, compared with just eight such nights the winter before, according to the office's figures.
The 2025 Point-in-Time Count found 1,174 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in Knoxville and Knox County, including 245 people unsheltered, 814 in emergency shelters and 115 in transitional housing, per the office's release. More than half of those counted as unsheltered were age 45 or older, the same report notes. Rents have climbed 62% since 2020, while wages have grown 15%.
How Other Tennessee Communities Cope
Knoxville isn't the only Tennessee community leaning on churches to fill winter shelter gaps. In Shelbyville, Fair Haven Baptist Church runs a shelter with about 20 beds set up in its youth center, typically housing 11 people a night but swelling to 27 during one especially brutal cold snap, according to The Christian Index. That shelter opens when temperatures hit 32 degrees or below for two consecutive days or nights, with two volunteer monitors covering each overnight shift from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m.
Nearby Coffee County spreads the load differently, with seven churches rotating responsibility for shelter duties, the outlet reported. Knoxville has seen its own emergency scale tested this year — in January, the city planned warming-center efforts focused along the North Broadway corridor, with capacity for around 600 people during a severe winter storm, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. With one site now sidelined by fire and temperatures set to drop again, the Office of Housing Stability is counting on more congregations to answer the call before the season's coldest nights arrive.
