Tennessee Code Title 13. Public Planning and Housing § 13-20-116

Any agency of the state or any county, city, metropolitan government or other political subdivision of the state, including, but not limited to, any public housing authority or housing development agency, which operates any program providing housing or domiciliary care for aged persons which, as used herein, means persons sixty-five (65) years of age or older, in buildings which exceed three (3) stories in height, shall, as a part of such operation or program, make arrangements, where funds are made available to it for that purpose, to provide some person or persons each day to contact individually by telephone, in person or in any other effective manner, each aged person in residence, to check upon each aged person's physical well-being and comfort and, in the event and only in the event, such person requests and is in apparent need of medical or social assistance or care, to promptly contact appropriate agencies and request such assistance and care in behalf of any such person. Where public funds are not made available specifically to defray any increased costs caused by such arrangements, the agency shall not be required to provide the arrangements or program out of its funds budgeted for other purposes, but shall nevertheless adopt and implement a program to organize, develop and utilize private individual and organizational resources or any other public agency resources which may be available to carry out the arrangements, either on a volunteer basis or on any other basis which such agency may find to be reasonably feasible within its budgetary or other resources or from funds or resources made available to it from any lawful source, public or private.