With public camping a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her dwelling in the course of the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and he or she fell behind on bills. Dwelling in a car, the 34-year-old worries each day about getting money for food, discovering someplace to bathe, and saving up enough cash for an condominium where her three children can live together with her again.

Now she has a new worry: Tennessee is about to turn out to be the first U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on local public property resembling parks.

“Honestly, it’s going to be arduous,” Atnip mentioned of the legislation, 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 growth, Sen. Paul Bailey famous that nobody has been convicted under that regulation and stated he doesn’t count on this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has worked with homeless people within the city of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — in part because he hopes it will spur individuals who care concerning the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

The legislation requires that violators receive no less than 24 hours discover before an arrest. The felony charge 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 wish to concern a felony,” Bailey said. “But it surely’s solely going to return to that if folks actually don’t want to transfer.”

After a number of years of steady decline, homelessness in the USA began rising in 2017. A survey in January 2020 discovered for the primary time that the variety of unsheltered homeless people exceeded those in shelters. The problem was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public strain to do one thing concerning the increasing number of highly seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Though camping has usually been regulated by native vagrancy laws, Texas passed a statewide ban final yr. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban threat dropping state funding. A number of other states have introduced comparable payments, 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 growing concern with the rising number of homeless individuals. The Herald-Citizen reported final 12 months that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in indicators encouraging residents to offer to charities as an alternative of panhandlers. And the Metropolis Council twice thought of panhandling bans.

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

Atnip laughed on the thought of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in close by Monterey when she misplaced her house and had to send her kids to dwell along with her mother and father. She has acquired some government assist, but not enough to get her again on her toes, she mentioned. At one level she obtained a housing voucher however couldn’t find a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved sufficient to finance a used automobile and had been working as supply drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they are going to lose the car and have to move to a tent, although she isn’t certain the place they may pitch it.

“It looks as if once one thing goes wrong, it kind of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We had been creating wealth with DoorDash. Our payments had been paid. We have been saving. Then the automotive goes kaput and the whole lot goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an surprising advocate of the camping ban. He mentioned he desires to proceed helping the homeless, but some people aren’t motivated to enhance their state of affairs. Some are hooked on medication, he mentioned, and some are hiding from regulation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 individuals living exterior kind of permanently in Cookeville, and he knows all of them.

“Most of them have been right here a few years, and not as soon as have they requested for housing help,” he said.

Eldridge knows his place is unpopular with other advocates.

“The massive downside with this legislation is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. In reality, it'll make the issue worse,” said Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony on your document makes it exhausting to qualify for some varieties of housing, harder to get a job, tougher to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody needs to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but individuals will move off the streets given the correct alternatives, Watts stated. Homelessness amongst U.S. military veterans, for example, has been cut almost in half over the previous decade by means of a mix of housing subsidies and social services.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in close by Sparta, was once homeless along with her children. Many people are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she said. Even in her community of 5,000, inexpensive housing may be very laborious to return by.

“If in case you have a felony in your report — holy smokes!” she mentioned.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, said he doesn’t anticipate many individuals 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 occur in other elements of the state.

He hopes the brand new law will spur a few of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If all of them labored together it will mean “a variety of sources and possible funding sources to help those in want,” he stated.

However different advocates don’t think threatening people with a felony is a good approach to help them.

“Criminalizing homelessness just makes people criminals,” Watts said.