With public camping a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her house through the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she fell behind on bills. Residing in a car, the 34-year-old worries every day about getting money for meals, finding somewhere to bathe, and saving up enough cash for an condo where her three kids can live along with her once more.

Now she has a brand new worry: Tennessee is about to turn into the first U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on native public property comparable to parks.

“Actually, it’s going to be laborious,” Atnip stated of the regulation, which takes impact July 1. “I don’t know where else to go.”

Tennessee already made it a felony in 2020 to camp on most state-owned property. In pushing the enlargement, Sen. Paul Bailey famous that no one has been convicted under that legislation and mentioned he doesn’t anticipate this one to be enforced a lot, both. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has worked with homeless folks in the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — in part as a result of he hopes it will spur people who care in regards to the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The law requires that violators obtain at least 24 hours notice before an arrest. The felony cost is punishable by as much as six years in jail and the loss of voting rights.

“It’s going to be up to prosecutors ... in the event that they wish to problem a felony,” Bailey stated. “However it’s solely going to come back to that if folks actually don’t need to move.”

After several years of regular decline, homelessness in the USA began increasing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 discovered for the first time that the number of unsheltered homeless folks exceeded these in shelters. The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public stress to do something concerning the increasing number of extremely visible homeless encampments has pushed even many traditionally liberal cities to clear them. Though tenting has generally been regulated by native vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas handed a statewide ban last 12 months. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban threat dropping state funding. Several different states have launched comparable payments, but Tennessee is the only one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district includes Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 folks between Nashville and Knoxville, where the local newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the increasing number of homeless individuals. The Herald-Citizen reported final yr that complaints about panhandlers practically doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city installed signs encouraging residents to give to charities as an alternative of panhandlers. And the Metropolis Council twice considered panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville received his consideration. City council members have advised him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey said. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey seems to consider. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation recently, the homeless individuals who frequented it disappeared. “The place did they go?” Bailey asked.

Atnip laughed on the concept of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in close by Monterey when she misplaced her dwelling and needed to send her kids to reside along with her parents. She has acquired some government assist, however not enough to get her back on her toes, she mentioned. At one point she received a housing voucher but couldn’t find a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved sufficient to finance a used car and had been working as delivery drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they will lose the automobile and have to maneuver to a tent, although she isn’t certain the place they will pitch it.

“It seems like as soon as one factor goes improper, it sort of snowballs,” Atnip mentioned. “We have been earning profits with DoorDash. Our payments were paid. We were saving. Then the car goes kaput and every part goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an surprising advocate of the tenting ban. He mentioned he desires to proceed helping the homeless, but some folks aren’t motivated to enhance their situation. Some are addicted to medication, he said, and a few are hiding from regulation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 individuals dwelling outdoors kind of completely in Cookeville, and he knows them all.

“Most of them have been right here a few years, and not once have they requested for housing assist,” he stated.

Eldridge knows his position is unpopular with other advocates.

“The massive downside with this law is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. The truth is, it is going to make the problem worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your document makes it onerous to qualify for some types of housing, harder to get a job, more durable to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody desires to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but folks will move off the streets given the suitable alternatives, Watts said. Homelessness among U.S. army veterans, for example, has been cut practically in half over the previous decade via a mix of housing subsidies and social companies.

“It’s not magic,” he stated. “What works for that inhabitants, works for each population.”

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in close by Sparta, was once homeless with her kids. Many people are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she mentioned. Even in her neighborhood of 5,000, affordable housing may be very exhausting to return by.

“If you have a felony in your document — holy smokes!” she said.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, mentioned he doesn’t anticipate many people to be prosecuted for sleeping on public property. “I can promise, they’re not going to be out here rounding up homeless people,” he said of Cookeville legislation enforcement. However he doesn’t know what might happen in different elements of the state.

He hopes the brand new regulation will spur a few of its opponents to work with him on long-term solutions for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all labored collectively it could imply “numerous resources and potential funding sources to assist these in need,” he said.

But different advocates don’t suppose threatening people with a felony is an effective manner to help them.

“Criminalizing homelessness simply makes people criminals,” Watts mentioned.