With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her house during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and he or she fell behind on payments. Residing in a automobile, the 34-year-old worries each day about getting cash for food, finding someplace to bathe, and saving up sufficient money for an condominium the place her three kids can reside with her once more.

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

“Actually, it’s going to be arduous,” Atnip stated of the regulation, 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 enlargement, Sen. Paul Bailey noted that no one has been convicted below that legislation and said he doesn’t anticipate this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has worked with homeless individuals in the metropolis of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — in part because 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 not less than 24 hours notice earlier than an arrest. The felony charge is punishable by as much as six years in prison and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be as much as prosecutors ... if they wish to situation a felony,” Bailey said. “But it surely’s only going to come to that if folks actually don’t want to move.”

After several years of steady decline, homelessness in the US began growing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found for the primary time that the variety of unsheltered homeless folks exceeded those in shelters. The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capability.

Public pressure to do one thing concerning the growing variety of highly visible homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Though tenting has generally been regulated by local vagrancy laws, Texas passed a statewide ban last yr. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban danger losing state funding. Several other states have launched comparable bills, but Tennessee is the one one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district contains Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, where the local newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the increasing number of homeless individuals. The Herald-Citizen reported final yr that complaints about panhandlers nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in indicators 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 bought his attention. City council members have told him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey said. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey seems to consider. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation recently, the homeless individuals who frequented it disappeared. “The place did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed at the thought of people shipped in from Nashville. She was dwelling in close by Monterey when she misplaced her dwelling and had to send her children to stay along with her parents. She has received some government assist, however not enough to get her back on her toes, she stated. At one point she acquired a housing voucher but couldn’t find a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved sufficient to finance a used automotive and were working as delivery drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they may lose the automobile and have to maneuver to a tent, though she isn’t sure where they will pitch it.

“It looks as if once one factor goes mistaken, it form of snowballs,” Atnip said. “We had been making a living with DoorDash. Our payments had been paid. We had been saving. Then the automotive goes kaput and all the things goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the tenting ban. He mentioned he wants to proceed helping the homeless, but some folks aren’t motivated to enhance their situation. Some are addicted to medicine, he said, and some are hiding from regulation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 folks residing outdoors more or less completely in Cookeville, and he is aware of all of them.

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

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

“The large problem with this regulation is that it does nothing to resolve homelessness. Actually, it should make the problem worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your record makes it arduous to qualify for some forms of housing, more durable to get a job, harder to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but people will move off the streets given the fitting opportunities, Watts stated. Homelessness among U.S. navy veterans, for example, has been cut nearly in half over the past decade via a mix of housing subsidies and social services.

“It’s not magic,” he said. “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 together with her youngsters. Many people are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she stated. Even in her group of 5,000, affordable housing is very laborious to come back by.

“You probably have a felony in your document — holy smokes!” she mentioned.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, mentioned he doesn’t anticipate 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 regulation enforcement. However he doesn’t know what may happen in different parts of the state.

He hopes the new regulation will spur some of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all worked together it might mean “lots of sources and attainable funding sources to help these in want,” he mentioned.

However different advocates don’t think threatening folks with a felony is an efficient method to help them.

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