With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip lost her home through the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and he or she fell behind on payments. Dwelling in a car, the 34-year-old worries every day about getting money for meals, discovering somewhere to shower, and saving up sufficient cash for an apartment the place her three kids can dwell with her once more.

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

“Honestly, it’s going to be arduous,” Atnip stated of the legislation, which takes impact 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 no one has been convicted below that legislation and said he doesn’t anticipate this one to be enforced a lot, both. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has worked with homeless people within the metropolis of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partially because he hopes it would spur individuals who care concerning the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The law requires that violators receive at least 24 hours notice earlier than an arrest. The felony charge is punishable by as much as six years in prison and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be up to prosecutors ... if they wish to problem a felony,” Bailey stated. “Nevertheless it’s only going to come to that if individuals really don’t wish to transfer.”

After a number of years of regular decline, homelessness in the USA began rising in 2017. A survey in January 2020 discovered for the primary time that the variety of unsheltered homeless people exceeded those in shelters. The problem was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public pressure to do something about the rising variety of highly visible homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Though tenting has typically been regulated by local vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas passed a statewide ban last year. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban danger shedding state funding. A number of other states have introduced similar payments, however Tennessee is the only one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district contains Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the native newspaper has chronicled growing concern with the growing variety of homeless folks. The Herald-Citizen reported last year that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, town installed signs encouraging residents to offer to charities as a substitute of panhandlers. And the City Council twice considered panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville obtained his attention. City council members have instructed him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey mentioned. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey seems to consider. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation recently, the homeless people who frequented it disappeared. “The place did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed on the idea of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her dwelling and needed to ship her youngsters to reside together with her parents. She has obtained some authorities assist, but not enough to get her back on her toes, she said. At one level she received a housing voucher however couldn’t find a landlord who would settle for it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used automobile and were working as delivery drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they may lose the car and have to move to a tent, though she isn’t positive the place they will pitch it.

“It seems like as soon as one thing goes wrong, it kind of snowballs,” Atnip mentioned. “We had been earning money with DoorDash. Our payments had been paid. We had been saving. Then the automobile goes kaput and every part goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an sudden advocate of the camping ban. He mentioned he desires to continue helping the homeless, but some folks aren’t motivated to improve their situation. Some are addicted to medicine, he stated, and some are hiding from regulation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 individuals dwelling outside kind of permanently in Cookeville, and he is aware of them all.

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

Eldridge knows his place is unpopular with other advocates.

“The big downside with this law is that it does nothing to unravel homelessness. In fact, it will make the issue worse,” stated Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your document makes it onerous to qualify for some forms of housing, tougher to get a job, tougher to qualify for benefits.”

Not everybody desires to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but people will move off the streets given the right opportunities, Watts said. Homelessness amongst U.S. navy veterans, for example, has been cut practically in half over the past decade by a mixture of housing subsidies and social companies.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in nearby Sparta, was once homeless together with her children. Many individuals are only one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she said. Even in her group of 5,000, inexpensive housing may be very laborious to come back by.

“You probably have a felony in your document — holy smokes!” she said.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, stated he doesn’t anticipate many individuals 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 mentioned of Cookeville regulation enforcement. However he doesn’t know what would possibly 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 all of them worked together it will mean “a number of assets and potential funding sources to help these in want,” he mentioned.

However other advocates don’t think threatening people with a felony is an efficient means to help them.

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