With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless search refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her dwelling during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she or he fell behind on bills. Dwelling in a car, the 34-year-old worries every single day about getting money for food, discovering somewhere to shower, and saving up enough money for an residence the place her three youngsters can dwell together 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 mentioned 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 famous that nobody has been convicted underneath that regulation and mentioned he doesn’t count on this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has worked with homeless people within the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partly as a result of he hopes it can spur individuals who care about the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The law requires that violators obtain at 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 up to prosecutors ... if they want to challenge a felony,” Bailey stated. “But it surely’s only going to come to that if folks really don’t wish to move.”

After a number of years of steady decline, homelessness in the US started increasing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found for the first time that the variety of unsheltered homeless people exceeded those in shelters. The problem was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public pressure to do something in regards to the increasing variety of highly visible homeless encampments has pushed even many traditionally liberal cities to clear them. Although tenting has typically been regulated by native vagrancy laws, Texas handed a statewide ban final yr. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban risk dropping state funding. A number of different states have introduced comparable payments, however Tennessee is the one one to make camping a felony.

Bailey’s district contains Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, where the native newspaper has chronicled growing concern with the increasing variety of homeless individuals. The Herald-Citizen reported last year that complaints about panhandlers nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the town put in signs encouraging residents to provide 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 attention. City council members have instructed him that Nashville ships its homeless right here, Bailey mentioned. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey seems to believe. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation just lately, the homeless people who frequented it disappeared. “Where did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed at the concept of people shipped in from Nashville. She was living in close by Monterey when she misplaced her residence and needed to send her kids to dwell with her parents. She has received some government assist, however not sufficient to get her again on her toes, she stated. At one level she got a housing voucher but couldn’t find a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved sufficient to finance a used car and had been working as delivery drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they'll lose the automotive and have to maneuver to a tent, although she isn’t positive where they'll pitch it.

“It looks like as soon as one factor goes flawed, it kind of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We had been making money with DoorDash. Our payments had been paid. We have been saving. Then the car goes kaput and all the things goes unhealthy.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an surprising advocate of the tenting ban. He said he needs to continue serving to the homeless, but some individuals aren’t motivated to enhance their situation. Some are hooked on medicine, he mentioned, and a few are hiding from legislation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 people dwelling outside kind of completely in Cookeville, and he is aware of all of them.

“Most of them have been here a couple of years, and never once have they requested for housing help,” he mentioned.

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

“The large problem with this legislation is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. In actual fact, it would make the issue worse,” stated Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony on your record makes it exhausting to qualify for some kinds of housing, tougher to get a job, harder to qualify for advantages.”

Not everyone needs to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however individuals will transfer off the streets given the right alternatives, Watts stated. Homelessness amongst U.S. military veterans, for example, has been minimize nearly in half over the previous decade via a mix of housing subsidies and social services.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in nearby Sparta, was once homeless together with her youngsters. Many individuals are only one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she stated. Even in her community of 5,000, affordable housing may be very hard to return by.

“When you've got a felony on your file — holy smokes!” she stated.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, stated he doesn’t count on many people to be prosecuted for sleeping on public property. “I can promise, they’re not going to be out right here rounding up homeless people,” he said of Cookeville law enforcement. However he doesn’t know what may happen in other parts of the state.

He hopes the new regulation will spur some of its opponents to work with him on long-term solutions for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all labored collectively it will mean “a variety of sources and attainable funding sources to assist those in need,” he mentioned.

However different advocates don’t assume threatening people with a felony is an efficient way to help them.

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