With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless search refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip lost her residence during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she or he fell behind on payments. Living in a car, the 34-year-old worries every single day about getting cash for meals, finding someplace to bathe, and saving up sufficient cash for an condo the place her three children can reside with her once more.

Now she has a new worry: Tennessee is about to change into the primary U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on local public property such as parks.

“Honestly, it’s going to be exhausting,” Atnip mentioned of the law, which takes effect 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 regulation and mentioned he doesn’t count on this one to be enforced much, both. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has worked with homeless people in the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partially because he hopes it'll spur individuals who care in regards to the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

The regulation requires that violators obtain at the least 24 hours discover 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 up to prosecutors ... in the event that they want to situation a felony,” Bailey said. “However it’s only going to come to that if individuals actually don’t want to move.”

After a number of years of steady decline, homelessness in the USA began growing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found for the primary time that the number of unsheltered homeless people exceeded these in shelters. The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public pressure to do one thing concerning the growing variety of highly visible homeless encampments has pushed even many traditionally liberal cities to clear them. Though tenting has typically been regulated by native vagrancy laws, Texas passed a statewide ban last 12 months. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban threat dropping state funding. Several other states have launched comparable bills, however Tennessee is the only one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district consists of Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 folks between Nashville and Knoxville, where the native newspaper has chronicled growing concern with the growing variety of homeless folks. The Herald-Citizen reported final 12 months that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in signs encouraging residents to give to charities as an alternative of panhandlers. And the City Council twice thought of panhandling bans.

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

Atnip laughed on the thought of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her dwelling and needed to ship her children to stay together with her dad and mom. She has received some government help, however not enough to get her back on her feet, she mentioned. At one point she got a housing voucher however 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 maneuver to a tent, although she isn’t sure where they will pitch it.

“It seems like once one factor goes improper, it type of snowballs,” Atnip said. “We were earning money with DoorDash. Our payments had been paid. We have been saving. Then the car goes kaput and all the pieces goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the camping ban. He said he wants to continue serving to the homeless, however some individuals aren’t motivated to enhance their scenario. Some are addicted to drugs, he mentioned, and some are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 people residing exterior roughly completely in Cookeville, and he knows all of them.

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

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

“The large downside with this regulation is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. In fact, it's going to make the issue worse,” stated Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony on your file makes it exhausting to qualify for some types of housing, tougher to get a job, tougher to qualify for benefits.”

Not everybody wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however individuals will move off the streets given the precise alternatives, Watts stated. Homelessness amongst U.S. navy veterans, for instance, has been reduce almost in half over the previous decade by way of a combination of housing subsidies and social companies.

“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 as soon as homeless along with her kids. Many people are only 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 laborious to come by.

“When you have a felony on your report — holy smokes!” she said.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, said he doesn’t expect 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 said of Cookeville legislation enforcement. But he doesn’t know what might occur in different components of the state.

He hopes the brand new regulation will spur some of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all labored together it could imply “plenty of resources and possible funding sources to help those in need,” he said.

However different advocates don’t think threatening individuals with a felony is a good way to help them.

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