With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her home during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she fell behind on payments. Dwelling in a car, the 34-year-old worries every day about getting money for food, discovering somewhere to bathe, and saving up sufficient money for an residence the place her three kids can reside along with her again.

Now she has a brand new worry: Tennessee is about to become the primary U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on local public property equivalent to parks.

“Honestly, it’s going to be exhausting,” 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 enlargement, Sen. Paul Bailey noted that no one has been convicted under that regulation and stated he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced much, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has labored with homeless people within the metropolis of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — partly because he hopes it'll spur people who care about the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The regulation requires that violators obtain at the least 24 hours discover earlier than 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 ... if they need to situation a felony,” Bailey stated. “However it’s solely going to come back to that if people really don’t want to move.”

After several years of regular 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 those in shelters. The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public strain to do something in regards to the rising variety of highly visible homeless encampments has pushed even many traditionally liberal cities to clear them. Although camping has generally been regulated by local vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas handed a statewide ban final 12 months. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban threat shedding state funding. A number of different states have launched similar bills, however Tennessee is the only one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district includes Cookeville, a city of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, where the native newspaper has chronicled growing concern with the increasing variety of homeless people. The Herald-Citizen reported last year that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in 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 instructed him that Nashville ships its homeless right here, Bailey stated. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey appears to believe. 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 idea of people shipped in from Nashville. She was dwelling in close by Monterey when she lost her dwelling and had to send her children to dwell with her parents. She has obtained some authorities help, but not enough to get her again on her toes, she stated. At one level she received a housing voucher but couldn’t discover 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 till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they will lose the car and have to move to a tent, although she isn’t certain the place they will pitch it.

“It looks like as soon as one thing goes incorrect, it form of snowballs,” Atnip said. “We had been earning profits with DoorDash. Our bills were paid. We were saving. Then the automobile goes kaput and all the pieces goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an surprising advocate of the camping ban. He mentioned he wants to proceed serving to the homeless, however some individuals aren’t motivated to enhance their scenario. Some are hooked on medication, he mentioned, and some are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 people residing outside roughly completely in Cookeville, and he is aware of them all.

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

Eldridge knows his place is unpopular with different advocates.

“The large problem with this law is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. Actually, it'll make the issue worse,” said Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your record makes it arduous to qualify for some varieties of housing, harder to get a job, tougher to qualify for advantages.”

Not everyone desires to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however people will move off the streets given the correct alternatives, Watts mentioned. Homelessness amongst U.S. military veterans, for instance, has been minimize nearly in half over the past decade by means of a mix of housing subsidies and social companies.

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

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

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

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, stated he doesn’t count on 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 stated of Cookeville law enforcement. But he doesn’t know what may occur 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 options for Cookeville’s homeless. If all of them labored together it will mean “loads of assets and doable funding sources to assist those in want,” he mentioned.

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

“Criminalizing homelessness just makes individuals criminals,” Watts stated.