Since the start of Knoxville’s place-based violence-reduction initiative informally called Project Tender Loving Care (TLC) in 2023, city officials say that an increased police presence and a comprehensive outreach policy have lowered violence rates and fostered community engagement in East Knoxville, Western Heights and Montgomery Village.

Project TLC combines increased police presence with community outreach from other city departments.

“Folks are feeling safer in their communities,” LaKenya Middlebrook, Knoxville’s director of Community Safety, told Compass recently.

The three place-based strategy (PBS) zones — one in each of the East, West and Central patrol districts — were identified based on years of data about gun violence. The East Knoxville TLC zone, which comprises a 7.5-block sector bounded by Spruce and Cherry streets, was found to have the highest incidence of fatal and non-fatal shootings in Knoxville. Designated as the city’s pilot PBS zone in November 2023, it was followed by Western Heights and Montgomery Village in June 2024.

Project TLC’s primary strategy for violence reduction is police involvement. Officers conduct “directed patrols” but also spend time in PBS zones interacting with residents outside of calls to service. Middlebrook described these patrols as opportunities for officers to “build relationships with those residents and in those areas.” 

“I want to be careful to make sure that it’s known that this is not an enforcement-driven initiative,” said Knoxville Police Department Communications Manager Scott Erland. “We’re measuring the success of those zones not by the number of tickets that are being written, the number of traffic stops being conducted, but by the absence of crime. Of course, that doesn’t mean there’s no enforcement happening in those areas — when someone commits a crime, we’re going to handle that accordingly.” 

It seems to have worked, at least by the numbers. In the 20 months prior to its establishment as the East District TLC zone, the neighborhood saw two murders and six non-fatal shootings. From November 2023 to July of this year, there was one murder and there were no non-fatal shootings. 

Montgomery Village saw one murder and three non-fatal shootings in the 13 months prior to its integration into Project TLC, and one murder and one non-fatal shooting in the 13 months afterward. Western Heights, meanwhile, saw two murders and two non-fatal shootings in the same time period before its establishment and only one non-fatal shooting since then. 

Along with data-driven violence reduction, however, Project TLC seeks to foster community engagement between City officials and neighborhoods, and within the neighborhoods themselves. 

Building Community

City officials regularly take the temperature in each neighborhood, meeting with residents to discuss community safety and support local projects. “We try to come back every six months to a year and canvass again, just to assess how things are going,” said Middlebrook.

One such project is a community garden and education program at the Western Heights Baptist Center. It’s a relatively new fixture, started by Teleia Burns in 2024. “My involvement is to create a sustainable food resource that’s fresh for the community, and entrepreneurship, leadership, garden education, and sustainability for the children,” Burns said. 

Gardening and education go hand in hand as children tend to plants and learn about farming, sustainability and business. They harvest 18 pounds of food for the Baptist Center’s weekly giveaway, including corn, squash, green beans, tomatoes and herbs such as basil and lavender. 

“We have had more involvement (from the City) with trying to figure out what the community needs and how to protect things we’re building,” Burns said. 

This has included support from people such as Starlandria Stark, the Partnerships & Programs coordinator in Knoxville’s Office of Community Safety, who helped bring volunteers to the garden in the program’s infancy. Partnerships between Project TLC, the Baptist Center, the Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee (CAC) and other organizations also transformed the neighborhood’s annual holiday party.

“We had been doing (it) in Western Heights for years, but with the help of Project TLC we were able to make it a lot bigger and delegate the responsibilities to more people … It was a lot easier and more manageable for everyone,” said Caroline Platt, who helps lead the garden-education program and plan neighborhood events as a community-impact ambassador for CAC. 

“Working with the City has allowed me to expand the scope of the work I do here,” she said. “Having that partnership has been really awesome in getting larger events and having more resources at our events.” 

But there are challenges, too. 

“Our neighborhood is smaller and going through a lot of change,” said Platt. Chief among these changes is Transforming Western, an initiative by the City and Knoxville’s Community Development Corporation (KCDC) to rebuild the Western Heights housing complex and the surrounding neighborhood. The City is investing more than $26 million in the project, which also has received a $40 million federal grant and other funding. 

Demolition of deteriorating housing in Western Heights has uprooted the neighborhood. “People are less willing to come out and engage with the community because there’s this ‘unknowing-ness’ of ‘When am I going to move, how am I going to be supported in my move, where am I going to go?’” explained Platt. 

Burns pointed out similar issues, stating that the garden’s biggest need is support from volunteers. 

Sustaining Project TLC

Despite its data-driven component, Project TLC doesn’t have an explicit end goal.

“We can look at numbers and say that homicides and non-fatal shootings are decreasing, which is the goal, but I always say, if people don’t feel safer in their community, then we still have work to do,” said Middlebrook. “We want to make sure that what we’re doing is effective, and identify those things that are working well, where there may be opportunities to improve, or things that we maybe need to pivot from.”

This has driven Knoxville to contract with the University of Tennessee’s Social Work Office of Research and Public Service (SWORPS) to evaluate the successes, shortcomings and overall impact of Project TLC, approved by a unanimous City Council vote on May 27. 

“We certainly welcome the outside perspectives and outside assessments as a department,” said Erland. “Self-improvement and organizational improvement is really important to us.” 

Officials say Project TLC’s future depends not only on the effectiveness of KPD involvement, but also on the City’s relationship with the communities in Knoxville’s neighborhoods. “You plant a seed, it grows,” Burns said.