With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless search refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip lost her home during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she or he fell behind on payments. Living in a automobile, the 34-year-old worries daily about getting money for food, finding somewhere to bathe, and saving up sufficient money for an condo where her three youngsters can dwell with her again.

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

“Actually, it’s going to be arduous,” Atnip said of the regulation, 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 expansion, Sen. Paul Bailey famous that nobody has been convicted under that legislation and mentioned he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced much, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has labored with homeless people within the city of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — partially because he hopes it is going to spur people who care in regards to the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

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 jail and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be as much as prosecutors ... in the event that they wish to problem a felony,” Bailey said. “But it’s solely going to come to that if folks actually don’t need to move.”

After a number of years of steady decline, homelessness in the US started increasing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found for the first time that the number of unsheltered homeless people exceeded those in shelters. The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public stress to do one thing concerning the rising number of highly seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Though tenting has generally been regulated by local vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas handed a statewide ban last yr. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban danger dropping state funding. Several different states have introduced similar payments, but Tennessee is the only one to make camping a felony.

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

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville acquired his consideration. City council members have advised him that Nashville ships its homeless right here, Bailey stated. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey appears to imagine. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation lately, the homeless individuals who frequented it disappeared. “The place did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed on the concept of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in close by Monterey when she lost her dwelling and had to send her youngsters to reside together with her dad and mom. She has received some authorities help, but not sufficient to get her back on her feet, she mentioned. At one point she acquired 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 had been working as delivery drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they will lose the automobile and have to move to a tent, although she isn’t positive the place they'll pitch it.

“It looks like once one factor goes improper, it type of snowballs,” Atnip said. “We had been making a living with DoorDash. Our payments have been paid. We have been saving. Then the automobile goes kaput and all the things goes unhealthy.”

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

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

Eldridge knows his place is unpopular with other advocates.

“The large problem with this legislation is that it does nothing to resolve homelessness. In actual fact, it'll make the issue worse,” stated Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your document makes it laborious to qualify for some sorts of housing, tougher to get a job, harder to qualify for benefits.”

Not everyone needs to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however folks will transfer off the streets given the appropriate alternatives, Watts stated. Homelessness amongst U.S. army veterans, for example, has been cut practically in half over the previous decade by way of a mix of housing subsidies and social companies.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in nearby Sparta, was once homeless along with her youngsters. Many individuals are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she mentioned. Even in her group of 5,000, affordable housing is very onerous to return by.

“When you have a felony on your file — holy smokes!” she mentioned.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, stated 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 folks,” he said of Cookeville law enforcement. But he doesn’t know what may happen in other parts of the state.

He hopes the brand new legislation will spur a few of its opponents to work with him on long-term solutions for Cookeville’s homeless. If all of them worked collectively it would imply “a whole lot of assets and doable funding sources to help these in need,” he said.

However other advocates don’t suppose threatening people with a felony is an effective approach to assist them.

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