A City Council member has alleged the city administration has plans to clear out a homeless camp in downtown Knoxville in violation of city policy, a charge Mayor Indya Kincannon says is false.

CDC guidelines call for local governments to leave homeless camps alone to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Following federal guidelines for the coronavirus crisis, the city has been allowing homeless camps to crop up without interference. Councilwoman Amelia Parker, a critic of the Kincannon administration, alleges the city is poised to violate its own policy.

Parker wrote a lengthy Facebook post over the weekend that was highly critical of the city’s treatment of the people living in a camp at the corner of Blackstock and Oak avenues, which is in the shadow of the Interstate 40/275/Henley Street interchange just north of World’s Fair Park.

Parker wrote that she visited the camp last Thursday and that people living there told her police officers and Public Service Department employees harassed them and threatened to clear out the camp. 

“Folks at the camp, including a 7.5 months pregnant woman, report that KPD and public service workers have been harassing them by pulling into their camp at night and blowing their car horns outside their tents as loud as possible,” she wrote. 

The mayor and other administration officials disputed Parker’s characterization of the incidents and said employees are following city policy toward homeless camps during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are not clearing out homeless camps at the moment,” Kincannon said in an interview on Monday. “That’s from guidance from the CDC.”

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on homeless camps acknowledges that while sleeping outdoors enables social distancing, unsanitary conditions can be a problem. Still, the CDC recommends allowing the camps to stay.

“Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers,” the guidance states. “This increases the potential for infectious disease spread.”

KPD spokesman Scott Erland said the department did not attempt to clear out the Blackstock camp. The city’s policy during the novel coronavirus pandemic has been to allow homeless camps to operate. He said the policy has allowed the number of camps to proliferate, and that the Blackstock camp in particular had generated “numerous complaints.”

“On the day in question, officers were simply there to look over the site, not to conduct a removal,” Erland said. “No camps have been disturbed by KPD officers and there are no imminent plans to do so.”

KPD Capt. Don Jones said officers try to balance the needs of those enduring homelessness with the concerns of the community as a whole. “Officers offer a connection for the homeless population to both mental health resources and social service providers, and do so while working to address issues related to crime and the welfare of the citizens of Knoxville,” he said.

As is the case with many homeless camps, predators take advantage of some of the camp’s residents and cleanliness can be a problem, Kincannon said. Case workers from Volunteer Ministry Center have visited the encampment to let residents know about services they could access to help move them toward housing, she said.

After visiting the camp, Parker sent an email to Kincannon and her staff, as well as other City Council members, about her concerns. Erin Gill, the city's chief policy officer, responded that the city's policy remained in place.

Parker said Monday that she still has concerns. "I’m waiting for assurance from the mayor that KPD is going to follow the policy.”

Parker also slammed what she called the “toxic culture” of the Knoxville Police Department. She said the police officers and city workers at the camp mocked her when she told them they should be wearing masks because of the pandemic. 

“I was scared,” she wrote. “I was shaking. Even as a lawmaker, I was scared to tell these two armed, white men what to do. These two armed, white, buzz-cut men who felt comfortable mocking me to my face as I told them the importance of wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of disease.”

Kincannon defended KPD officers who work with the city’s homeless, singling out Officer Thomas Clinton, who was at the Blackstock camp when Parker visited, as an example of an officer who attempts to link people experiencing homelessness with service providers.

“He’s a police officer,” she said, “but he’s also a social worker. Whatever he was doing, he was doing in a humane way.”

Kincannon said she and her three top deputies — Gill, David Brace and Stephanie Welch — visited with residents at the Blackstock camp on Monday and distributed masks.

“One of the things people are rightly concerned about is access to housing,” she said.

Parker agreed that the camp illustrates the need for housing in the city.

“They want housing,” Parker said of the camp residents. “”It’s not like they look at this as housing. It’s a temporary solution for them but they want housing.”

Kincannon said the existence of the camp highlights the need for permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless, noting that two such developments have been successful.

“The reasons Flenniken Landing and Minvilla Manor are full is because they work,” she said. “It’s effective.”

UPDATE: This article has been updated with the correct day of Councilwoman Amelia Parker's visit to the homeless camp and to include an account of an email exchange she had with Chief Policy Officer Erin Gill.