With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her dwelling in the course of the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she or he fell behind on bills. Dwelling in a car, the 34-year-old worries daily about getting money for food, finding somewhere to shower, and saving up enough money for an house the place her three children can live along with her once more.

Now she has a new worry: Tennessee is about to develop into the primary U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on native public property equivalent to parks.

“Actually, it’s going to be laborious,” Atnip mentioned of the law, 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 expansion, Sen. Paul Bailey noted that no one has been convicted underneath that legislation and said he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has worked with homeless people within the metropolis of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partially as a result of he hopes it will 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 discover earlier than an arrest. The felony cost is punishable by up to six years in prison and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be as much as prosecutors ... in the event that they wish to issue a felony,” Bailey said. “Nevertheless it’s solely going to return to that if individuals really don’t want to transfer.”

After a number of years of steady decline, homelessness in america started growing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 discovered 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 capability.

Public pressure to do one thing about the growing variety of highly seen homeless encampments has pushed even many traditionally liberal cities to clear them. Although camping has usually been regulated by native vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas passed a statewide ban last 12 months. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban risk losing state funding. A number of other states have launched comparable payments, however 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 individuals. The Herald-Citizen reported last yr that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city installed indicators encouraging residents to offer to charities instead of panhandlers. And the City Council twice considered panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville got 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 just lately, the homeless people who frequented it disappeared. “Where did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed on the concept of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was living in nearby Monterey when she lost her home and needed to ship her children to stay with her parents. She has received some authorities assist, but not enough to get her back on her toes, she mentioned. At one point she received a housing voucher however couldn’t find a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved sufficient to finance a used automotive and had been working as delivery drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they may lose the automobile and have to maneuver to a tent, although she isn’t sure where they may pitch it.

“It looks as if as soon as one thing goes flawed, it kind of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We were making money with DoorDash. Our payments were paid. We had been saving. Then the automotive goes kaput and all the pieces goes unhealthy.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the tenting ban. He mentioned he needs to proceed helping the homeless, but some people aren’t motivated to improve their state of affairs. Some are hooked on medicine, he mentioned, and a few are hiding from regulation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 folks dwelling outdoors roughly completely in Cookeville, and he is aware of all of them.

“Most of them have been right here a few years, and not once have they requested for housing help,” he said.

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

“The big downside with this legislation is that it does nothing to unravel homelessness. In fact, it can make the problem worse,” said Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your record makes it arduous to qualify for some forms of housing, harder to get a job, tougher to qualify for benefits.”

Not everybody wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but people will move off the streets given the best opportunities, Watts stated. Homelessness among U.S. navy veterans, for instance, has been cut almost in half over the previous decade through a mixture of housing subsidies and social companies.

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

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

“When you have a felony on your record — 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 here rounding up homeless people,” he mentioned of Cookeville regulation enforcement. However he doesn’t know what may occur in other parts of the state.

He hopes the 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 together it could mean “lots of assets and potential funding sources to assist these in need,” he stated.

But other advocates don’t suppose threatening people with a felony is an efficient means to assist them.

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