With public camping a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her dwelling through the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and he or she fell behind on payments. Residing in a car, the 34-year-old worries daily about getting cash for food, discovering somewhere to bathe, and saving up enough money for an condo the place her three kids can reside together with her again.

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

“Honestly, it’s going to be exhausting,” Atnip stated of the regulation, 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 famous that nobody has been convicted beneath that law and stated he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced a lot, both. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has labored with homeless folks within the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partially as a result of he hopes it would 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 earlier than an arrest. The felony cost is punishable by up to six years in jail and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be up to prosecutors ... if they want to challenge a felony,” Bailey stated. “However it’s only going to come to that if individuals really don’t need to move.”

After a number of years of regular decline, homelessness in the USA started growing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 discovered for the primary time that the variety of unsheltered homeless individuals exceeded those in shelters. The problem was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capability.

Public pressure to do something about the rising number of highly visible homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Though tenting has generally been regulated by native vagrancy laws, Texas handed a statewide ban last yr. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban danger losing state funding. A number of other states have launched related bills, but Tennessee is the one one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district includes Cookeville, a city of about 35,000 people between Nashville and Knoxville, where the local newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the rising variety of homeless folks. The Herald-Citizen reported final year that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in indicators encouraging residents to give to charities as a substitute of panhandlers. And the City Council twice thought-about panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville bought his consideration. Metropolis 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 imagine. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation lately, the homeless people who frequented it disappeared. “Where did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed on the idea of people shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in nearby Monterey when she lost her house and needed to ship her children to live along with her parents. She has acquired some authorities assist, but not enough to get her again on her feet, she stated. At one point she received a housing voucher but couldn’t discover a landlord who would settle for it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used automobile and had been 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 sure where they are going to pitch it.

“It looks like once one factor goes incorrect, it sort of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We have been earning money with DoorDash. Our bills were paid. We had been saving. Then the automobile goes kaput and everything goes unhealthy.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the tenting ban. He stated he wants to proceed helping the homeless, but some folks aren’t motivated to enhance their situation. Some are addicted to medicine, he stated, and a few are hiding from legislation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 people living outside kind of permanently in Cookeville, and he knows all of them.

“Most of them have been here a number of years, and not once have they asked for housing help,” he mentioned.

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

“The massive drawback with this regulation is that it does nothing to resolve homelessness. In fact, it can make the problem worse,” stated Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your record makes it exhausting to qualify for some kinds of housing, harder to get a job, more durable to qualify for benefits.”

Not everyone wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however individuals will transfer off the streets given the suitable alternatives, Watts mentioned. Homelessness among U.S. navy veterans, for example, has been cut practically in half over the previous decade by means of a mix of housing subsidies and social companies.

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

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

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

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, mentioned 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 said of Cookeville legislation enforcement. But he doesn’t know what might happen in different components of the state.

He hopes the brand new law will spur some of its opponents to work with him on long-term solutions for Cookeville’s homeless. If all of them worked together it might mean “a lot of assets and possible funding sources to assist these in want,” he mentioned.

But different advocates don’t assume threatening folks with a felony is a good method to help them.

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