With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless search refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her dwelling throughout the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she or he fell behind on payments. Residing in a car, the 34-year-old worries each day about getting cash for meals, discovering someplace to bathe, and saving up enough cash for an condominium the place her three youngsters can stay with her once more.

Now she has a brand new worry: Tennessee is about to grow to be the first U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on native public property comparable to parks.

“Truthfully, it’s going to be laborious,” Atnip said of the law, which takes effect July 1. “I don’t know where else to go.”

Tennessee already made it a felony in 2020 to camp on most state-owned property. In pushing the expansion, Sen. Paul Bailey famous that nobody has been convicted underneath that law and mentioned he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced much, both. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has worked with homeless folks in the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — in part because he hopes it can spur people who care concerning the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

The law requires that violators receive at the least 24 hours notice 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 as much as prosecutors ... in the event that they need to concern a felony,” Bailey mentioned. “However it’s only going to come back to that if individuals really don’t wish to move.”

After a number of years of steady decline, homelessness in the United States began rising in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found 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 capability.

Public pressure to do something in regards to the increasing variety of extremely visible homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Although tenting has usually been regulated by native vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas handed a statewide ban last yr. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban threat shedding state funding. A number of other states have introduced related bills, but 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, where the native newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the rising variety of homeless individuals. The Herald-Citizen reported last year that complaints about panhandlers practically doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the town installed indicators encouraging residents to give to charities as a substitute of panhandlers. And the City Council twice considered panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville received his attention. City council members have informed him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey stated. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey appears to consider. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation just lately, the homeless individuals who frequented it disappeared. “Where did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed at the concept of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her dwelling and needed to send her kids to reside with her parents. She has obtained some authorities help, but not sufficient to get her back on her toes, she stated. At one level she received a housing voucher but couldn’t find a landlord who would settle for it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used automobile and were working as supply drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they will lose the car and have to move to a tent, although she isn’t certain where they may pitch it.

“It looks like once one factor goes wrong, it type of snowballs,” Atnip said. “We have been creating wealth with DoorDash. Our bills have been paid. We have been saving. Then the car goes kaput and the whole lot goes unhealthy.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an sudden advocate of the camping ban. He mentioned he desires to continue helping the homeless, however some individuals aren’t motivated to improve their situation. Some are hooked on medication, he stated, and some are hiding from legislation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 folks residing outside roughly completely in Cookeville, and he is aware of all of them.

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

Eldridge knows his position is unpopular with other advocates.

“The massive problem with this law is that it does nothing to unravel homelessness. In actual fact, it is going to make the problem worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your file makes it exhausting to qualify for some varieties of housing, harder to get a job, tougher to qualify for benefits.”

Not everyone wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but individuals will move off the streets given the appropriate alternatives, Watts stated. Homelessness amongst U.S. army veterans, for example, has been cut nearly 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 each inhabitants.”

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in close by Sparta, was once homeless with her kids. Many individuals are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she mentioned. Even in her neighborhood of 5,000, reasonably priced housing may be very hard to return by.

“You probably 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 right here rounding up homeless individuals,” he mentioned of Cookeville law enforcement. However he doesn’t know what might happen in other components 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 would mean “a lot of assets and possible funding sources to help these in want,” he stated.

But different advocates don’t think threatening folks with a felony is an efficient means to assist them.

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