With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless search refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip lost her residence during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she fell behind on bills. Living in a car, the 34-year-old worries day-after-day about getting cash for meals, finding somewhere to bathe, and saving up sufficient cash for an condominium the place her three youngsters can reside with her again.

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

“Actually, it’s going to be laborious,” Atnip said of the law, 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 enlargement, Sen. Paul Bailey famous that nobody has been convicted under that legislation and said he doesn’t count on this one to be enforced much, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has worked with homeless individuals in the metropolis of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partially because he hopes it will spur individuals who care concerning the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

The law requires that violators receive at least 24 hours discover earlier than 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 need to issue a felony,” Bailey said. “But it surely’s only going to return to that if individuals actually don’t need to transfer.”

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

Public pressure to do something about the rising variety of extremely visible homeless encampments has pushed even many traditionally liberal cities to clear them. Although tenting has usually been regulated by local vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas handed a statewide ban last year. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban danger dropping state funding. Several different states have launched related bills, however Tennessee is the only one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district consists of Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 folks between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the native newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the increasing number of homeless folks. The Herald-Citizen reported final 12 months that complaints about panhandlers practically doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, town installed signs encouraging residents to give 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. Metropolis council members have informed him that Nashville ships its homeless 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 recently, the homeless individuals who frequented it disappeared. “Where did they go?” Bailey asked.

Atnip laughed at the concept of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was living in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her home and needed to ship her children to live with her parents. She has acquired some government help, but not enough to get her back on her ft, she said. At one point 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 automobile and were working as delivery drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they'll lose the automotive and have to move to a tent, although she isn’t sure the place they'll pitch it.

“It looks like as soon as one factor goes mistaken, it type of snowballs,” Atnip mentioned. “We were creating wealth with DoorDash. Our payments were paid. We had been saving. Then the car goes kaput and every part goes unhealthy.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the tenting ban. He mentioned he wants to proceed serving to the homeless, however some individuals aren’t motivated to enhance their situation. Some are addicted to medication, he said, and a few are hiding from legislation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 individuals dwelling outdoors more or less permanently in Cookeville, and he is aware of them all.

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

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

“The large drawback with this regulation is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. In fact, it should make the problem worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your document makes it laborious to qualify for some types of housing, tougher to get a job, tougher to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody desires to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but individuals will transfer off the streets given the best opportunities, Watts mentioned. Homelessness among U.S. army veterans, for instance, has been reduce practically in half over the past decade by way of a combination of housing subsidies and social companies.

“It’s not magic,” he stated. “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 kids. Many people are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she said. Even in her neighborhood of 5,000, reasonably priced housing is very onerous to come back by.

“When you have a felony on your report — holy smokes!” she said.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, stated he doesn’t anticipate many individuals 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 said of Cookeville law enforcement. However he doesn’t know what might happen in different components 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 all of them labored together it might mean “lots of assets and doable funding sources to assist these in need,” he stated.

But different advocates don’t assume threatening folks with a felony is an effective way to help them.

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