With public camping a felony, Tennessee homeless search refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her house during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she fell behind on bills. Residing in a car, the 34-year-old worries every single day about getting cash for food, finding someplace to bathe, and saving up enough money for an apartment where her three children can reside with her again.

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

“Truthfully, it’s going to be arduous,” Atnip mentioned of the regulation, 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 nobody has been convicted under that law and stated he doesn’t count on this one to be enforced much, both. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has labored with homeless folks within the metropolis of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — partly as a result of he hopes it will spur people who care about the homeless to work with him on long-term options.

The law requires that violators obtain not less than 24 hours notice earlier than an arrest. The felony cost is punishable by as much as six years in prison and the loss of voting rights.

“It’s going to be up to prosecutors ... in the event that they want to difficulty a felony,” Bailey said. “But it’s solely going to come back to that if people actually don’t want to transfer.”

After several years of steady decline, homelessness in the US started growing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 discovered 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 capability.

Public pressure to do something about the increasing variety of extremely visible homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Although camping has usually been regulated by local vagrancy laws, Texas handed a statewide ban last year. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban threat shedding state funding. Several different states have launched comparable payments, but Tennessee is the only one to make camping a felony.

Bailey’s district includes Cookeville, a city of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the native newspaper has chronicled growing concern with the increasing number of homeless folks. The Herald-Citizen reported final yr that complaints about panhandlers nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the town installed indicators encouraging residents to offer to charities as a substitute of panhandlers. And the Metropolis Council twice thought of panhandling bans.

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

Atnip laughed at the idea of people shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her home and had to send her kids to reside along with her parents. She has obtained some government help, but not sufficient to get her again on her feet, she mentioned. At one level she received a housing voucher but couldn’t find a landlord who would settle for it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used car and were working as delivery drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they'll lose the automobile and have to maneuver to a tent, though she isn’t positive where they are going to pitch it.

“It seems like as soon as one factor goes improper, 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 every little thing goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an surprising advocate of the camping ban. He said he wants to continue serving to the homeless, but some individuals aren’t motivated to improve their situation. Some are hooked on medicine, he said, and a few are hiding from legislation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 individuals dwelling outside more or less permanently in Cookeville, and he is aware of them all.

“Most of them have been right here just a few years, and never once have they requested for housing assist,” he stated.

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

“The big downside with this regulation is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. The truth is, it will make the problem worse,” stated Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your file makes it arduous to qualify for some varieties of housing, tougher to get a job, tougher to qualify for benefits.”

Not everyone wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however people will transfer off the streets given the correct opportunities, Watts mentioned. Homelessness among U.S. navy veterans, for example, has been lower nearly in half over the previous decade by means of a mix of housing subsidies and social providers.

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

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

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

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, stated 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 right here rounding up homeless people,” he stated of Cookeville legislation enforcement. However he doesn’t know what would possibly occur 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 they all labored collectively it might mean “lots of resources and potential funding sources to assist these in want,” he stated.

But different advocates don’t assume threatening people with a felony is an effective manner to assist them.

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