With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless search refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip lost her home during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she fell behind on bills. Living in a car, the 34-year-old worries every day about getting cash for food, finding somewhere to shower, and saving up enough money for an apartment the place her three kids can live together 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 equivalent to parks.

“Truthfully, it’s going to be exhausting,” 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 famous that nobody has been convicted below that legislation and said he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced much, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has worked with homeless people within the metropolis of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — in part because he hopes it should spur people who care about the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

The law requires that violators obtain at the least 24 hours notice earlier than an arrest. The felony cost is punishable by as much as six years in jail and the loss of voting rights.

“It’s going to be up to prosecutors ... in the event that they wish to problem a felony,” Bailey said. “But it surely’s solely going to come back to that if folks really don’t need to transfer.”

After several years of steady decline, homelessness in america began increasing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found for the primary time that the number of unsheltered homeless people exceeded those in shelters. The problem was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capability.

Public stress to do one thing about the increasing variety of highly seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Although camping has generally been regulated by local vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas handed a statewide ban last year. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban danger losing state funding. A number of different states have launched related bills, but Tennessee is the only one to make camping a felony.

Bailey’s district contains Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 folks between Nashville and Knoxville, where the local newspaper has chronicled growing concern with the growing number 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, town installed signs encouraging residents to offer to charities as an alternative of panhandlers. And the City Council twice thought of panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville acquired his attention. Metropolis council members have told him that Nashville ships its homeless right here, Bailey stated. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey seems to imagine. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation lately, the homeless individuals who frequented it disappeared. “Where did they go?” Bailey asked.

Atnip laughed at the concept of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was living in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her house and had to send her children to reside along with her dad and mom. She has received some government help, however not enough to get her back on her feet, she stated. At one point she received a housing voucher however couldn’t discover a landlord who would settle for it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used automotive and had been working as supply drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they may lose the car and have to move to a tent, though she isn’t certain the place they'll pitch it.

“It seems like as soon as one factor goes improper, it kind of snowballs,” Atnip said. “We had been earning profits with DoorDash. Our payments have been paid. We were saving. Then the car goes kaput and every little thing goes dangerous.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an sudden advocate of the camping ban. He mentioned he needs to continue helping the homeless, however some people aren’t motivated to enhance their situation. Some are hooked on medicine, he said, and a few are hiding from regulation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 people living exterior more or less completely in Cookeville, and he is aware of all of them.

“Most of them have been right here a couple of years, and not once have they requested for housing assist,” he mentioned.

Eldridge knows his position is unpopular with different advocates.

“The big problem with this regulation is that it does nothing to unravel homelessness. In truth, it's going to make the problem worse,” said 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, tougher to qualify for benefits.”

Not everyone desires to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however folks will transfer off the streets given the suitable opportunities, Watts said. Homelessness amongst U.S. army veterans, for instance, has been reduce almost in half over the previous decade by means of a combination of housing subsidies and social providers.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in nearby 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 community of 5,000, affordable housing is very laborious to return by.

“You probably have a felony on your record — holy smokes!” she said.

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 here rounding up homeless individuals,” he said of Cookeville regulation 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 options for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all worked together it might mean “lots of assets and potential funding sources to assist those in need,” he said.

But other advocates don’t suppose threatening people with a felony is an efficient approach to help them.

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