With public camping 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 bills. Dwelling in a automobile, the 34-year-old worries day by day about getting money for meals, finding someplace to shower, and saving up enough money for an condo where her three children can reside with her again.

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

“Actually, it’s going to be arduous,” Atnip stated of the regulation, which takes effect 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 growth, Sen. Paul Bailey famous that no one has been convicted under that legislation and stated he doesn’t anticipate this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has labored with homeless people in the metropolis of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — in part as a result of he hopes it'll spur people who care concerning the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The law requires that violators receive a minimum of 24 hours notice earlier than an arrest. The felony cost is punishable by up to six years in jail and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be up to prosecutors ... in the event that they want to issue a felony,” Bailey mentioned. “However it’s only going to come to that if folks really don’t want to transfer.”

After several years of steady decline, homelessness in america started increasing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found for the primary time that the number of unsheltered homeless individuals exceeded these in shelters. The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public pressure to do something in regards to the rising number of extremely visible homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Although camping has typically been regulated by local vagrancy laws, Texas handed a statewide ban final year. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban threat losing state funding. Several other states have introduced similar bills, but Tennessee is the one one to make camping a felony.

Bailey’s district contains Cookeville, a city of about 35,000 folks between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the local newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the increasing number of homeless folks. The Herald-Citizen reported final yr that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city installed indicators encouraging residents to provide to charities as an alternative of panhandlers. And the Metropolis Council twice considered panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville acquired his consideration. 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 appears to believe. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation recently, the homeless individuals who frequented it disappeared. “Where did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed on the thought of people shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in nearby Monterey when she lost her home and had to send her youngsters to stay along with her mother and father. She has obtained some government help, but not sufficient to get her again on her feet, she said. At one point she obtained a housing voucher however couldn’t discover a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used car and were working as supply drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they are going to lose the automotive and have to move to a tent, although she isn’t certain where they will pitch it.

“It looks as if once one factor goes improper, it sort of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We were earning money with DoorDash. Our bills were paid. We had been saving. Then the car goes kaput and every part goes unhealthy.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an sudden advocate of the camping ban. He stated he desires to proceed serving to the homeless, however some folks aren’t motivated to improve their state of affairs. Some are hooked on medication, he stated, and a few are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 folks living exterior kind of permanently in Cookeville, and he is aware of all of them.

“Most of them have been here just a few years, and not as soon as have they asked for housing assist,” he mentioned.

Eldridge knows his place is unpopular with other advocates.

“The big downside with this regulation is that it does nothing to resolve homelessness. In fact, it'll make the problem worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your report makes it arduous to qualify for some sorts of housing, harder to get a job, harder to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody needs to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however people will transfer off the streets given the suitable alternatives, Watts stated. Homelessness among U.S. navy veterans, for example, has been minimize almost in half over the previous decade via a mixture of housing subsidies and social companies.

“It’s not magic,” he stated. “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 stated. Even in her group of 5,000, reasonably priced housing is very laborious to come back by.

“If you have a felony in your report — holy smokes!” she mentioned.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, mentioned 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 mentioned of Cookeville law enforcement. However he doesn’t know what may occur in other elements 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 all of them worked collectively it might mean “quite a lot of sources and attainable funding sources to help those in need,” he said.

However other advocates don’t suppose threatening people with a felony is a good method to help them.

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