With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her dwelling through the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she or he fell behind on payments. Living in a automotive, the 34-year-old worries day by day about getting money for food, discovering someplace to bathe, and saving up enough cash for an residence the place her three youngsters can stay together with her once more.

Now she has a new fear: Tennessee is about to grow to be the primary 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 mentioned of the law, 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 beneath that legislation and mentioned he doesn’t count on this one to be enforced much, both. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has labored with homeless people in the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partly because he hopes it would spur people who care about the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The legislation requires that violators obtain no less than 24 hours discover before an arrest. The felony cost is punishable by up to six years in prison and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be up to prosecutors ... if they wish to situation a felony,” Bailey said. “Nevertheless it’s only going to return to that if folks really don’t need to transfer.”

After a number of years of regular decline, homelessness in the United States started rising in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found for the first time that the number of unsheltered homeless individuals exceeded these in shelters. The problem was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public stress to do something in regards to the growing variety of highly visible homeless encampments has pushed even many traditionally liberal cities to clear them. Although camping has typically been regulated by native vagrancy laws, Texas passed a statewide ban final year. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban risk dropping state funding. Several other states have launched similar payments, but Tennessee is the one one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district includes Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the native newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the rising variety of homeless individuals. The Herald-Citizen reported final yr that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the town installed signs encouraging residents to provide 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 attention. Metropolis council members have informed him that Nashville ships its homeless 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 just lately, the homeless individuals who frequented it disappeared. “Where did they go?” Bailey asked.

Atnip laughed at the idea of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her residence and had to ship her youngsters to stay along with her dad and mom. She has acquired some government help, but not sufficient to get her back on her ft, she mentioned. At one point she bought 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 car and were working as supply drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they will lose the car and have to move to a tent, though she isn’t certain the place they'll pitch it.

“It looks like once one thing goes improper, it type of snowballs,” Atnip mentioned. “We have been making money with DoorDash. Our payments were paid. We were saving. Then the car goes kaput and the whole lot goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an sudden advocate of the tenting ban. He mentioned he wants to continue helping the homeless, however some people aren’t motivated to improve their situation. Some are hooked on drugs, he mentioned, and a few are hiding from regulation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 folks dwelling exterior roughly completely in Cookeville, and he knows them all.

“Most of them have been here a couple of years, and never once have they asked for housing assist,” he stated.

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

“The large downside with this regulation is that it does nothing to unravel homelessness. In fact, it will make the issue worse,” said Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your document makes it onerous to qualify for some kinds of housing, tougher to get a job, harder to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but individuals will move off the streets given the correct alternatives, Watts stated. Homelessness amongst U.S. navy veterans, for instance, has been cut practically in half over the past decade by a combination of housing subsidies and social providers.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in nearby Sparta, was once homeless together with her children. Many individuals are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she said. Even in her community of 5,000, inexpensive housing could be very laborious to return by.

“When you've got a felony in your file — holy smokes!” she said.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, said 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 here rounding up homeless individuals,” he said of Cookeville law enforcement. However he doesn’t know what would possibly occur in other elements of the state.

He hopes the new law will spur a few of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If all of them worked collectively it could mean “lots of resources and potential funding sources to help those in want,” he stated.

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

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