With public camping a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her house during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she fell behind on bills. Living in a automobile, the 34-year-old worries day by day about getting money for meals, discovering someplace to shower, and saving up enough cash for an house where her three children can stay together with her once more.

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

“Truthfully, it’s going to be arduous,” Atnip stated of the legislation, which takes impact 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 noted that nobody has been convicted below that law and mentioned he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has worked with homeless folks within the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partially because he hopes it'll spur people who care about the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

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

“It’s going to be as much as prosecutors ... in the event that they wish to difficulty a felony,” Bailey said. “But it’s only going to come back to that if folks really don’t wish to transfer.”

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

Public stress to do one thing about the growing number of highly seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Though camping has usually been regulated by local vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas handed a statewide ban last year. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban risk dropping state funding. Several other states have launched related bills, however Tennessee is the one one to make camping a felony.

Bailey’s district consists of Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, where the native newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the growing number of homeless people. The Herald-Citizen reported last year that complaints about panhandlers practically doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in indicators encouraging residents to present to charities instead of panhandlers. And the Metropolis Council twice thought-about panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville got his attention. Metropolis 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 seems to imagine. 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 asked.

Atnip laughed on the idea of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was dwelling in close by Monterey when she lost her house and had to ship her children to stay with her mother and father. She has acquired some authorities help, however not enough to get her back on her ft, she mentioned. At one point she acquired a housing voucher however couldn’t discover a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used automobile and have been working as delivery drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they will lose the automotive and have to maneuver to a tent, although she isn’t sure where they'll pitch it.

“It seems like as soon as one thing goes fallacious, it form of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We were creating wealth with DoorDash. Our bills were paid. We had been saving. Then the automobile goes kaput and all the pieces goes dangerous.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the camping ban. He mentioned he wants to proceed serving to the homeless, however some people aren’t motivated to enhance their situation. Some are hooked on medicine, he stated, and a few are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 people living outside roughly permanently in Cookeville, and he knows them all.

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

Eldridge is aware of his position is unpopular with other advocates.

“The large downside with this law is that it does nothing to unravel homelessness. Actually, it will make the issue worse,” stated Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony on your document makes it laborious to qualify for some kinds of housing, tougher to get a job, tougher to qualify for benefits.”

Not everybody wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but individuals will move off the streets given the precise alternatives, Watts mentioned. Homelessness among U.S. army veterans, for example, has been minimize practically in half over the previous decade via a mixture of housing subsidies and social services.

“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 as soon as homeless with her youngsters. 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 is very laborious to come back by.

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

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

He hopes the brand new regulation will spur some of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all labored together it might mean “loads of resources and possible funding sources to assist those in need,” he mentioned.

However other advocates don’t suppose threatening people with a felony is a good manner to help them.

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