Chattanooga Room In the Inn

Chattanooga Room in the Inn (CRITI) is a three to nine month residential program for homeless women and children. Services provided at CRITI are free of charge and include transitional housing, three meals a day, access to affordable or free health care, life skills training, parenting classes, mentoring, assistance with finding affordable housing, and case management services. This program allows the women and their children to find stability and thereby increase their opportunities and chances for independence when they leave the program.
Please note that those who are literally homeless will receive preference for admission


Have a referral from an authorized referral source:

Referral source must know the person being referred well enough to supply information about the persons homeless situation and family, medical, educational/employment, mental health/counseling, and/or substance abuse history/treatment and efforts already being made toward helping themselves.
All admissions are offered an initial 45 days of temporary shelter.
To be eligible to remain longer, participants must be willing to work on setting goals to achieve self sufficiency: seek employment until hired, attend vocational/educational classes, perform community service hours if unemployable, save money, get housing, complete daily assigned chores, attend life skills and parenting classes, etc.
Women with any substance abuse issues and/or mental health issues and/or a criminal history will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Once an opening becomes available, a telephone assessment is completed. Following that, a cursory criminal background check is done for safety purposes. Women are admitted for 45 days of temporary shelter. During that time, each party can decide if the transitional program would be appropriate. If so, the participant will be offered the transitional program until permanent housing is obtained as long as their goals are being worked on.
REFERRAL REQUIREMENTS:

The professional must submit a CRITI referral form completed online via our website or a hard copy may be faxed to 423-624-6061. The referral form must be completed in its entirety.

Women in the following categories will NOT be admitted to the program:
Women with active warrants. Any criminal charges will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Women with a persistent severe mental illness involving psychosis.
Women who are a danger to themselves, others, or the community.
Women incapacitated to the degree of not being able to care for themselves and/or their children.
Women previously served by the program twice or were discharged due to disruptive behavior.
Women who are in imminent danger.