With public camping a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her house during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she or he fell behind on bills. Living in a car, the 34-year-old worries each day about getting money for meals, discovering somewhere to bathe, and saving up sufficient cash for an house the place her three youngsters can dwell with her once more.

Now she has a brand new fear: Tennessee is about to develop into the primary U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on native public property such as 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 no one has been convicted beneath that legislation and stated he doesn’t count on this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has worked with homeless folks in the metropolis of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — in part because he hopes it can spur individuals who care in regards to the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

The law requires that violators obtain a minimum of 24 hours notice earlier than an arrest. The felony charge is punishable by as much as six years in prison and the loss of voting rights.

“It’s going to be as much as prosecutors ... if they wish to challenge a felony,” Bailey mentioned. “Nevertheless it’s solely going to return to that if individuals really don’t want to move.”

After a number of years of steady decline, homelessness in the USA began rising in 2017. A survey in January 2020 discovered for the first time that the variety of unsheltered homeless people exceeded these in shelters. The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capability.

Public pressure to do something concerning the increasing number of highly seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Though camping has generally been regulated by native vagrancy laws, Texas handed a statewide ban last 12 months. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban risk losing state funding. A number of different states have launched related bills, however Tennessee is the only one to make camping a felony.

Bailey’s district consists of Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 people between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the native newspaper has chronicled growing concern with the increasing variety of homeless folks. The Herald-Citizen reported last yr that complaints about panhandlers practically doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, town installed signs encouraging residents to provide to charities as an alternative of panhandlers. And the City Council twice thought of panhandling bans.

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

Atnip laughed at the idea of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was living in close by Monterey when she misplaced her house and needed to ship her youngsters to dwell with her dad and mom. She has received some government assist, but not enough to get her back on her feet, she stated. At one level she bought 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 have been working as delivery drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they'll lose the automotive and have to maneuver to a tent, though she isn’t sure where they will pitch it.

“It looks as if as soon as one factor goes flawed, it type of snowballs,” Atnip said. “We had been getting cash with DoorDash. Our bills had been paid. We had been saving. Then the automobile goes kaput and the whole lot goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an surprising advocate of the camping ban. He mentioned he desires to continue serving to the homeless, but some individuals aren’t motivated to enhance their scenario. Some are hooked on medicine, he stated, and some are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 individuals residing outside kind of permanently in Cookeville, and he knows them all.

“Most of them have been here a couple of years, and not once have they requested for housing assist,” he stated.

Eldridge knows his position is unpopular with other advocates.

“The big drawback with this law is that it does nothing to resolve homelessness. In actual fact, it should make the problem worse,” said Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony on your document makes it arduous to qualify for some kinds of housing, more durable to get a job, harder to qualify for benefits.”

Not everybody needs 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 reduce almost in half over the past decade by way of a mixture of housing subsidies and social services.

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

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

“When you've got 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 here rounding up homeless people,” he stated of Cookeville law enforcement. However he doesn’t know what would possibly happen in other components of the state.

He hopes the brand new regulation will spur some of its opponents to work with him on long-term solutions for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all labored together it could imply “numerous assets and doable funding sources to help these in need,” he stated.

However different advocates don’t think threatening individuals with a felony is an efficient approach to help them.

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