With public camping a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip lost her house during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and he or she fell behind on bills. Residing in a car, the 34-year-old worries day-after-day about getting cash for food, finding somewhere to bathe, and saving up sufficient money for an condominium where her three kids can live with her again.

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

“Truthfully, it’s going to be arduous,” Atnip mentioned of the regulation, 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 enlargement, Sen. Paul Bailey noted that no one has been convicted underneath that regulation and said he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced a lot, both. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has labored with homeless folks in the city of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — partly because he hopes it'll spur individuals who care concerning the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

The law requires that violators obtain at the very least 24 hours discover earlier than an arrest. The felony charge is punishable by up to six years in prison and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be up to prosecutors ... in the event that they need to concern a felony,” Bailey mentioned. “But it’s solely going to come back to that if people actually don’t need to move.”

After several years of regular decline, homelessness in the United States 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 strain to do something about the rising variety of extremely seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Although tenting has usually been regulated by native vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas passed a statewide ban last yr. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban threat dropping state funding. A number of different states have launched similar 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, the place the local newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the growing variety of homeless folks. The Herald-Citizen reported final 12 months that complaints about panhandlers nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in signs encouraging residents to give to charities as a substitute 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 informed him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey stated. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey appears to believe. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation just lately, the homeless individuals who frequented it disappeared. “The place did they go?” Bailey asked.

Atnip laughed on the thought of people shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her home and needed to send her youngsters to dwell with her dad and mom. She has obtained some authorities help, however not enough to get her back on her toes, she stated. At one level she obtained 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 automobile and had been working as delivery drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they'll lose the automobile and have to move to a tent, although she isn’t sure the place they will pitch it.

“It seems like as soon as one thing goes unsuitable, it form of snowballs,” Atnip mentioned. “We were making a living with DoorDash. Our bills had been paid. We were saving. Then the automobile goes kaput and everything goes dangerous.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an surprising advocate of the camping ban. He stated he needs to continue helping the homeless, however some folks aren’t motivated to improve their state of affairs. Some are hooked on medicine, he stated, and a few are hiding from regulation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 individuals dwelling outside more or less permanently 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 requested for housing help,” he said.

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

“The big drawback with this law is that it does nothing to resolve homelessness. In fact, it is going to make the issue worse,” stated Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your record makes it arduous to qualify for some types of housing, tougher to get a job, more durable to qualify for benefits.”

Not everybody wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but folks will transfer off the streets given the suitable alternatives, Watts stated. Homelessness among U.S. army veterans, for instance, has been cut almost in half over the past decade by way of a combination of housing subsidies and social companies.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in close by Sparta, was as soon as homeless along with her children. Many individuals are only one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she mentioned. Even in her neighborhood of 5,000, affordable housing may be very onerous to come back 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 here rounding up homeless folks,” he mentioned of Cookeville law enforcement. However he doesn’t know what may occur in other parts 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 together it will imply “a variety of sources and possible funding sources to help those in want,” he said.

But different advocates don’t suppose threatening individuals with a felony is an efficient means to help them.

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