With public camping a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

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

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

“Honestly, it’s going to be laborious,” Atnip said of the law, 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 nobody has been convicted below that regulation and said he doesn’t count on this one to be enforced much, both. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has labored with homeless individuals in the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — in part because he hopes it will spur people who care about the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

The regulation requires that violators obtain at the very least 24 hours discover earlier than an arrest. The felony charge is punishable by as much as six years in jail and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be as much as prosecutors ... in the event that they need to difficulty a felony,” Bailey said. “However it’s solely going to come to that if people really don’t wish to move.”

After a number of years of steady decline, homelessness in the US started growing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found for the primary time that the variety of unsheltered homeless folks exceeded these in shelters. The problem was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capacity.

Public stress to do one thing concerning the growing variety of highly visible homeless encampments has pushed even many traditionally liberal cities to clear them. Although tenting has generally been regulated by local vagrancy laws, Texas passed a statewide ban final 12 months. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban threat dropping state funding. A number of different states have introduced similar payments, but Tennessee is the one one to make camping a felony.

Bailey’s district contains Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 folks between Nashville and Knoxville, where the local newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the growing variety of homeless people. The Herald-Citizen reported last yr that complaints about panhandlers nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, town put in indicators encouraging residents to give to charities instead of panhandlers. And the City Council twice thought-about panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville obtained his consideration. City council members have advised him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey mentioned. 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 asked.

Atnip laughed at the concept of people shipped in from Nashville. She was living in close by Monterey when she misplaced her residence and had to send her kids to dwell with her mother and father. She has received some authorities help, however not enough to get her again on her toes, she said. At one point she received a housing voucher but couldn’t find a landlord who would settle for it. She and her new husband saved sufficient to finance a used automotive and have been working as supply drivers till 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'll pitch it.

“It seems like as soon as one factor goes improper, it form of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We were making money with DoorDash. Our bills had been paid. We had been saving. Then the car goes kaput and all the things goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an sudden advocate of the tenting ban. He stated he needs to proceed helping the homeless, however some individuals aren’t motivated to improve their scenario. Some are addicted to medication, he said, and some are hiding from regulation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 folks residing outside roughly permanently in Cookeville, and he is aware of all of them.

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

Eldridge knows his place is unpopular with different advocates.

“The big problem with this law is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. In actual fact, it's going to make the issue worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your file makes it exhausting to qualify for some types of housing, more durable to get a job, more durable to qualify for benefits.”

Not everyone needs to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however people will move off the streets given the appropriate alternatives, Watts said. Homelessness amongst U.S. navy veterans, for example, has been cut almost in half over the previous decade through a combination of housing subsidies and social services.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in nearby Sparta, was as soon as homeless together with her youngsters. Many individuals are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she stated. Even in her community of 5,000, reasonably priced housing is very exhausting to come back by.

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

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, said 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. But he doesn’t know what would possibly occur in other components of the state.

He hopes the brand new legislation will spur a few of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all labored collectively it will imply “plenty of sources and doable funding sources to help these in need,” he mentioned.

However different advocates don’t suppose threatening people with a felony is an efficient way to assist them.

“Criminalizing homelessness simply makes folks criminals,” Watts mentioned.