With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her residence during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she or he fell behind on bills. Residing in a automotive, the 34-year-old worries each day about getting money for food, finding someplace to bathe, and saving up enough cash for an condo where her three kids can live with her again.

Now she has a brand new fear: Tennessee is about to change into the first U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on local public property corresponding to parks.

“Honestly, it’s going to be exhausting,” Atnip stated of the regulation, which takes effect July 1. “I don’t know the place 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 count on this one to be enforced much, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has labored with homeless people within the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — in part because he hopes it's going to spur people who care in regards to the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

The law requires that violators receive not less than 24 hours notice before an arrest. The felony cost is punishable by as much as six years in prison and the loss of voting rights.

“It’s going to be up to prosecutors ... in the event that they want to concern a felony,” Bailey stated. “But it’s solely going to come to that if people really don’t need to move.”

After several years of steady decline, homelessness in the US began growing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 discovered for the first time that the variety of unsheltered homeless individuals exceeded those in shelters. The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capability.

Public pressure to do one thing in regards to the growing number of highly seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Although tenting has typically been regulated by local vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas passed a statewide ban final 12 months. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban threat dropping state funding. A number of other states have launched related bills, however Tennessee is the one one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district contains Cookeville, a city of about 35,000 people between Nashville and Knoxville, where the native newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the rising variety of homeless folks. The Herald-Citizen reported final year that complaints about panhandlers nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the town installed indicators encouraging residents to offer to charities as a substitute of panhandlers. And the Metropolis Council twice thought of panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville received his attention. City council members have advised him that Nashville ships its homeless right here, Bailey said. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey appears to consider. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation not too long ago, the homeless people who frequented it disappeared. “The place did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed on the thought of people shipped in from Nashville. She was living in close by Monterey when she lost her home and had to send her youngsters to stay with her mother and father. She has obtained some government help, however not enough to get her again on her ft, she said. At one level she obtained a housing voucher but couldn’t discover a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used car and had been working as delivery drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they are going to lose the automobile and have to move to a tent, though she isn’t sure the place they may pitch it.

“It seems like once one factor goes wrong, it type of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We had been making money with DoorDash. Our payments had been paid. We were saving. Then the automotive goes kaput and every little thing goes dangerous.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the tenting ban. He said he needs to continue helping the homeless, however some individuals aren’t motivated to improve their situation. Some are hooked on drugs, he stated, and a few are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 individuals living outside more or less permanently in Cookeville, and he is aware of all of them.

“Most of them have been right here a few years, and never as soon as have they requested for housing assist,” he said.

Eldridge knows his place is unpopular with other advocates.

“The large drawback with this regulation is that it does nothing to resolve homelessness. The truth is, it'll make the problem worse,” stated Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your report makes it arduous to qualify for some varieties of housing, tougher to get a job, harder to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody desires to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but individuals will move off the streets given the fitting opportunities, Watts stated. Homelessness among U.S. army veterans, for example, has been lower practically in half over the past decade by way of a mixture of housing subsidies and social companies.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in close by Sparta, was as soon as homeless together with her youngsters. Many individuals are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she stated. Even in her neighborhood of 5,000, affordable housing is very onerous to return by.

“When you've got a felony in your report — holy smokes!” she stated.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, said he doesn’t anticipate many people to be prosecuted for sleeping on public property. “I can promise, they’re not going to be out right here rounding up homeless individuals,” he mentioned of Cookeville legislation enforcement. But he doesn’t know what may happen in different parts 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 together it might imply “a number of assets and doable funding sources to assist these in need,” he stated.

But other advocates don’t assume threatening folks with a felony is an efficient approach to assist them.

“Criminalizing homelessness simply makes individuals criminals,” Watts said.