Regional Outreach Cooperative - ROC - Chattanooga

A Big ROC & Roll Shoutout To Coca-Cola For Keeping ROC Nation Clients Hydrated And Coming Through With 25 Cases Of Water Today!!

Sadly fresh water becomes difficult to access on a routine basis in situations of homelessness. So being able to supply people with this life sustaining resource is something we couldn’t be more grateful to have a supportive partner in!

Thank you Hixson United Methodist Church’s Youth Group for collecting 66 cans of Chef Boyardee for us for your Souper Bowl party!!

Y’all are truly Souper ROC Stars!!🥫🤘🤩

When Doing PIT Count 2026 How Can You Resist Taking Pitbull Pup Pictures!

Obviously ROC Stars Kacy (aka Peter Pan), and Gordon (aka The Ox) couldn’t resist!

Lots can be said about ROC Stars being boots on the ground!

But more should be said about one of our newest community partners Elliott's Boots and Shoes, being the ones to put boots on the people sleeping on the ground!

Picked up 7 more pairs of gently used, high quality, top brand boots! It’s such a relief for when the temperature is in the 20’s, and we come across someone wearing only slippers to be able to supply them with a pair of these!

Wednesdays Always ROC, And This One Was No Exception, Because We Got To Roll Out With ROC Stars Dr. Anna & Ringo Of The Dandelion Kind!!!

We are so lucky to be a community partner with them in providing veterinarian care for our clients animals! And our community is so lucky to have them love, care, embrace our community in the ways that they do!

They’re amazing, and so is the log cabin that a couple of our clients had built in their encampment since the last time we visited them! When there aren’t any truly affordable housing options being provided by your community sometimes you just got to build your very own!

Thank you Chattanooga Times Free Press for truthfully and respectfully capturing the mindset and the work that we get to do on a daily basis!

“He realized his calling might be to fix himself rather than fix the homeless problem.”

Alongside getting to know and care about and for people experiencing homelessness, the work of assisting people who aren’t experiencing homelessness come to the same realization that Eddie has come to, that people aren’t problems to be solved, but human beings to be cared for, might just be as equally as important!

Street outreach workers and volunteers canvas camps to help those caught out in the cold | Chattanooga Times Free Press Kacy West, a street outreach liaison with the Chatt Foundation, put her van in park before delivering a bag of food and cold weather supplies to a person camping in a car in the parking lot of an area Walmart.

ROC Winter Weather Warriors!

Over the past 2 days we have run the full gauntlet of what we would typically cover in a full weeks time! Responding and rolling with urgency, and extra outreach teams we were able to encounter 200 people in the encampments in the areas of Lookout Valley, Hwy. 58, foot of Signal Mtn., Northshore, Brainerd, Hixson, East Brainerd, Southside, and Rossville.

Each person was greeted with concern and warning about the incoming winter weather this weekend. Each was informed of the available cold weather shelters being the CHATT Foundation, The Salvation Army of Chattanooga, and The Chattanooga Rescue Mission. We were able to request that The Union Gospel Mission-Chattanooga Outreach open up 12 more spaces for people within the Signal Moutain area to stay there over the weekend. We were able to coordinate with our partners at The Dandelion Kind, Compassion Copper Canyon, McKamey Animal Center, and the Humane Educational Society to coordinate arrangements for anyone needing a place for their animals to be sheltered temporarily. Each person was encouraged that if they have supports that could allow them to be inside somewhere for the weekend to utilize those. Each was supplied with our usual supply bag filled with hygiene items, winter hat, winter gloves, chapstick, emergency blanket, a pair of new Bombas socks, snacks, canned food, hand sanitizer, condoms, sausage biscuits from First Christian Church Chattanooga, and Metropolitan Ministries, baked goods from Becaffeinated, hand warmers, bottled water from Coca-Cola, a trash bag, and a roll of toilet paper. Each was given a set of a new thermal shirt and new thermal pants. We offered hot coffee, tents, sleeping bags, tarps, blankets, flashlights, and batteries to anyone who needed them.

The 5 ROC Stars, pictured below, Joe from Homeless Healthcare, Kacy from the CHATT Foundation, Andy, Ben, and David from the City of Chattanooga - Government’s Office Of Homelessness And Supportive Housing couldn’t have gotten it done without the help of our community volunteers Gordon, Emaly, and Eddie, Behavioral Health Coordinator of Homeless Healthcare Yohannah, two interns from the CHATT Foundation, one intern from Welcome Home of Chattanooga, Kailee Shores a reporter for the Chattanooga Times Free Press (article dropping sometime this weekend), and Billy Weeks a photojournalist professor from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (surprise project to be produced and released at a later date😉)

We gave it our best and we know that our best still isn’t enough. While we got to as many people as we did, we know that there are many more we didn’t get to. But now we have to rest in knowing we have done all that we could, and be ready to hit it just as hard on Monday and Tuesday to check to see how everyone made it through.
And then……..begins……..PIT Count 2026!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out Part 2 to ROC Star, Joe Brackett’s appearance on the “Give Me Shelter” podcast! Much of what is said here speaks to what we see and feel on a daily basis!

Speaking of daily, while things have been mostly quiet here please believe that we have and that we will still keep ROC’ing & Rolling daily! Times are tough, but so is our commitment to outreaching to those experiencing homelessness here in Hamilton County!

(PS: If you haven’t seen Part 1 both episodes are on the home page of our website www.chattanoogaroc.com)

Living Outside, part 2 In this episode I continue my interview outreach worker Joe Bracket on the realities of living unsheltered.

Be sure to check the latest episode of the podcast: “Give Me Shelter” featuring our very own ROC Star Joe Brackett of Homeless Healthcare Center with CHATT Foundation’s CEO Baron King!!

https://linklock.titanhq.com/analyse?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FwhA0rLkCqPE&data=eJxdjLsOwiAUQL8GNhssWieGxldiOji7mAulBbFcpRcffy-zyRnOcHKMahowQm7q5SDtmvfKweTvhJFiNeKLTyrMHnaX6-L06Y58VhoSxsBWwjggGjDHHshjrDCNPKmbTmCCJSrF3yorR_SYmWxZfSh8MVOutC36dq1IXdg-z_sfXl8yXA%25%25in

Living Outside, part 1 In this episode I interview outreach worker Joe Bracket on the realities of living unsheltered.

See anything wrong with this picture??

Two different groups of elementary students are stepping up to care about those surviving outside in their community this winter.

While upwards of 15 people trying to survive by living outside in this community will be told tomorrow that, since they are attempting to survive on state property, they must remove themselves and everything they possess within 24 hours, or potentially face arrest.

This is the job, equally heartwarming and heartbreaking.

Thank You Becaffeinated!!!

Yes!!!The Same Coffee Shop That Gives Us Free Hot Coffee Everyday For Outreach Is Now Giving Us Their Leftover Baked Goods Everyday!!!

How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By Becaffeinated?!?!