With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her home through the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she or he fell behind on bills. Living in a automobile, the 34-year-old worries every day about getting cash for food, discovering somewhere to bathe, and saving up enough money for an apartment where her three children can dwell along with her again.

Now she has a brand new worry: Tennessee is about to turn out to be the first U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on local public property equivalent to parks.

“Truthfully, 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 expansion, Sen. Paul Bailey noted that nobody has been convicted below that regulation and mentioned he doesn’t anticipate this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has labored with homeless people in the metropolis of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — in part as a result of he hopes it can spur individuals who care concerning the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The legislation requires that violators receive at least 24 hours notice earlier than an arrest. The felony charge is punishable by up to six years in jail and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be up to prosecutors ... in the event that they wish to difficulty a felony,” Bailey said. “However it’s solely going to come to that if folks actually don’t want to transfer.”

After a number of years of regular decline, homelessness in the USA began increasing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found 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 capability.

Public pressure to do something in regards to the increasing variety of highly seen homeless encampments has pushed even many traditionally liberal cities to clear them. Although tenting has usually been regulated by native vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas handed a statewide ban last 12 months. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban risk losing state funding. Several different states have launched comparable bills, however Tennessee is the only one to make camping a felony.

Bailey’s district consists of Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the native newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the rising number of homeless individuals. The Herald-Citizen reported final yr that complaints about panhandlers practically doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the town put in indicators encouraging residents to present to charities as an alternative of panhandlers. And the City Council twice considered panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville got his consideration. Metropolis council members have told him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey stated. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey appears to consider. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation recently, the homeless people who frequented it disappeared. “The place did they go?” Bailey asked.

Atnip laughed on the idea of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in close by Monterey when she lost her residence and needed to ship her children to reside with her dad and mom. She has received some government assist, however not sufficient to get her back on her feet, she said. At one point she bought 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 automotive and have been working as supply drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they will lose the automobile and have to move to a tent, though she isn’t positive the place they will pitch it.

“It seems like once one factor goes flawed, it type of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We were making money with DoorDash. Our payments have been paid. We have been saving. Then the car goes kaput and every thing goes dangerous.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an sudden advocate of the tenting ban. He mentioned he wants to proceed helping the homeless, but some folks aren’t motivated to improve their situation. Some are hooked on medicine, he mentioned, and some are hiding from legislation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 folks residing outside roughly completely in Cookeville, and he knows them all.

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

Eldridge knows his position is unpopular with different advocates.

“The big downside with this regulation is that it does nothing to unravel homelessness. In truth, it should make the issue worse,” stated Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your document makes it arduous to qualify for some sorts of housing, more durable to get a job, tougher to qualify for benefits.”

Not everybody needs to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but individuals will transfer off the streets given the best opportunities, Watts stated. Homelessness amongst U.S. military veterans, for instance, has been minimize almost in half over the previous decade by a combination of housing subsidies and social services.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in close by Sparta, was once homeless with her children. Many individuals are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she mentioned. Even in her group of 5,000, reasonably priced housing may be very arduous to return by.

“When you have a felony in your report — holy smokes!” she mentioned.

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

He hopes the brand new law will spur a few of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all worked collectively it will mean “a variety of assets and potential funding sources to assist these in need,” he stated.

But other advocates don’t assume threatening individuals with a felony is an efficient way to assist them.

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