With public camping a felony, Tennessee homeless search refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her home in the course of the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she fell behind on bills. Residing in a car, the 34-year-old worries each day about getting cash for food, finding someplace to shower, and saving up sufficient cash for an condo the place her three youngsters can dwell together with her once more.

Now she has a brand new fear: Tennessee is about to turn out to be the primary U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on native public property resembling parks.

“Actually, it’s going to be onerous,” Atnip mentioned of the legislation, which takes impact 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 enlargement, Sen. Paul Bailey noted that no one has been convicted below that regulation and stated he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has labored with homeless folks in the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partly as a result of he hopes it can spur people who care about the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The law requires that violators receive a minimum of 24 hours notice 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 as much as prosecutors ... in the event that they need to challenge a felony,” Bailey stated. “But it surely’s only going to come back to that if folks really don’t need to transfer.”

After several years of regular decline, homelessness in the US began increasing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 discovered for the first time that the number of unsheltered homeless individuals exceeded those in shelters. The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public pressure to do one thing in regards to the increasing variety of extremely seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Though tenting has usually been regulated by local vagrancy laws, Texas passed a statewide ban last 12 months. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban risk losing state funding. Several other states have introduced related bills, however Tennessee is the only one to make camping a felony.

Bailey’s district contains Cookeville, a city of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the native newspaper has chronicled growing concern with the rising number of homeless people. The Herald-Citizen reported last 12 months that complaints about panhandlers nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in signs encouraging residents to present to charities instead of panhandlers. And the Metropolis Council twice thought of panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville acquired his attention. City council members have informed him that Nashville ships its homeless right here, Bailey said. 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 asked.

Atnip laughed at the thought of people shipped in from Nashville. She was dwelling in nearby Monterey when she lost her house and had to send her children to stay along with her dad and mom. She has acquired some authorities help, but not sufficient to get her again on her ft, she said. At one point she bought a housing voucher but couldn’t discover a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used automotive and had been working as delivery drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they may lose the car and have to move to a tent, although she isn’t certain where they are going to pitch it.

“It seems like once one thing goes fallacious, it kind of snowballs,” Atnip said. “We had been earning profits with DoorDash. Our bills have been paid. We have been saving. Then the car goes kaput and all the pieces goes unhealthy.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the tenting ban. He stated he needs to continue helping the homeless, however some people aren’t motivated to enhance their state of affairs. Some are addicted to medicine, he stated, and a few are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 people residing outdoors kind of completely in Cookeville, and he is aware of all of them.

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

Eldridge knows his position is unpopular with other advocates.

“The big downside with this legislation is that it does nothing to unravel homelessness. The truth is, it would make the problem worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your file makes it laborious to qualify for some types of housing, harder to get a job, harder to qualify for benefits.”

Not everybody needs to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however individuals will transfer off the streets given the proper alternatives, Watts mentioned. Homelessness among U.S. navy veterans, for instance, has been minimize nearly in half over the previous decade through a combination of housing subsidies and social providers.

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

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

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

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, mentioned 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 stated of Cookeville regulation enforcement. But he doesn’t know what would possibly happen in different elements of the state.

He hopes the new legislation will spur a few of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If all of them labored collectively it will imply “lots of assets and attainable funding sources to assist those in want,” he said.

However different advocates don’t assume threatening people with a felony is an effective means to assist them.

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