With public camping a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her home throughout the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she or he fell behind on payments. Dwelling in a automobile, the 34-year-old worries daily about getting money for meals, finding someplace to shower, and saving up sufficient money for an condominium the place her three children can dwell together 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 comparable to parks.

“Actually, it’s going to be laborious,” Atnip said of the law, which takes impact July 1. “I don’t know where 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 nobody has been convicted below that regulation and said he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has labored with homeless folks within the city of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — in part as a result of he hopes it is going to spur individuals who care about the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

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

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

After several years of regular decline, homelessness in the US began rising in 2017. A survey in January 2020 discovered for the first time that the number of unsheltered homeless folks exceeded these in shelters. The problem was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capability.

Public stress to do something concerning the rising number of extremely seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Although tenting has typically been regulated by local vagrancy laws, Texas handed a statewide ban final year. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban threat shedding state funding. A number of different states have introduced comparable payments, but Tennessee is the one one to make camping a felony.

Bailey’s district includes Cookeville, a city of about 35,000 folks between Nashville and Knoxville, where the local newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the rising variety of homeless people. The Herald-Citizen reported last yr that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in indicators encouraging residents to offer to charities instead of panhandlers. And the Metropolis Council twice thought-about panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville got his attention. Metropolis council members have advised him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey stated. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey seems to consider. 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 concept of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was dwelling in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her residence and needed to send her kids to live with her dad and mom. She has obtained some government assist, but not enough to get her again on her feet, she said. At one level she obtained a housing voucher however couldn’t discover a landlord who would settle for it. She and her new husband saved sufficient to finance a used car and had been working as delivery drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they are going to lose the automobile and have to maneuver to a tent, though she isn’t certain the place they are going to pitch it.

“It looks as if once one factor goes wrong, it form of snowballs,” Atnip mentioned. “We had been creating wealth with DoorDash. Our payments had been paid. We have been saving. Then the car goes kaput and everything goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the tenting ban. He stated he desires to proceed helping the homeless, however some people aren’t motivated to improve their state of affairs. Some are hooked on medication, he stated, and some are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 folks living outside roughly permanently in Cookeville, and he knows them all.

“Most of them have been here a number of years, and never once have they asked for housing help,” he said.

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

“The massive problem with this legislation is that it does nothing to unravel homelessness. In fact, it would make the problem worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your record makes it laborious to qualify for some sorts of housing, more durable to get a job, harder to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however people will move off the streets given the suitable opportunities, Watts mentioned. Homelessness amongst U.S. army veterans, for example, has been lower practically in half over the previous decade by a combination of housing subsidies and social services.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in nearby Sparta, was as soon as homeless with her youngsters. Many people are only one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she said. Even in her community of 5,000, reasonably priced housing could be very exhausting to come by.

“If you have a felony in your document — holy smokes!” she said.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, mentioned 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 right here rounding up homeless folks,” he said of Cookeville law enforcement. But he doesn’t know what might happen in other parts of the state.

He hopes the new law will spur some of its opponents to work with him on long-term solutions for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all worked collectively it could imply “a number of sources and possible funding sources to assist those in need,” he said.

However other advocates don’t think threatening people with a felony is a good approach to assist them.

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