With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

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

Now she has a brand new fear: Tennessee is about to grow to be the first U.S. state to make it a felony to camp on native public property resembling parks.

“Truthfully, it’s going to be hard,” Atnip mentioned of the legislation, 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 growth, Sen. Paul Bailey noted that nobody has been convicted below that law and mentioned he doesn’t anticipate this one to be enforced much, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has worked with homeless folks in the city of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partially as a result of he hopes it is going to spur individuals who care in regards to the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

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

“It’s going to be as much as prosecutors ... in the event that they wish to problem a felony,” Bailey said. “But it surely’s solely going to come back to that if individuals really don’t want to move.”

After a number of years of regular decline, homelessness in the United States started growing in 2017. A survey in January 2020 found for the first time that the variety of unsheltered homeless folks exceeded these in shelters. The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19, with shelters limiting capability.

Public stress to do one thing in regards to the increasing number of highly seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Although tenting has typically been regulated by local vagrancy laws, Texas passed a statewide ban final 12 months. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban danger shedding state funding. A number of different states have introduced similar bills, but Tennessee is the one one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district includes Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the local newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the growing variety of homeless folks. The Herald-Citizen reported final year that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city 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 received his consideration. Metropolis council members have informed him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey stated. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey appears to consider. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation lately, the homeless people who frequented it disappeared. “Where did they go?” Bailey asked.

Atnip laughed at the thought of people shipped in from Nashville. She was living in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her house and had to ship her kids to reside together with her dad and mom. She has obtained some authorities assist, however not sufficient to get her back on her ft, she stated. At one level she got 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 automotive and were working as supply drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they'll lose the automotive and have to move to a tent, though she isn’t positive where they are going to pitch it.

“It looks like as soon as one thing goes incorrect, it form of snowballs,” Atnip mentioned. “We have been getting cash with DoorDash. Our bills have been paid. We were saving. Then the automobile goes kaput and the whole lot goes unhealthy.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the camping ban. He stated he needs to continue helping the homeless, but some individuals aren’t motivated to enhance their scenario. Some are addicted to medicine, he said, and some are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 people residing outside roughly permanently in Cookeville, and he knows all of them.

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

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

“The massive downside with this legislation is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. The truth is, it is going to make the issue worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony in your document makes it onerous to qualify for some varieties of housing, harder to get a job, more durable to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but folks will transfer off the streets given the appropriate alternatives, Watts mentioned. Homelessness among U.S. navy veterans, for example, has been minimize practically in half over the past decade by way of a mixture of housing subsidies and social services.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in close by Sparta, was as soon as homeless with her youngsters. Many individuals are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she mentioned. Even in her group of 5,000, reasonably priced housing could be very onerous to come back by.

“If you have a felony on your report — holy smokes!” she stated.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, stated he doesn’t expect 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 said of Cookeville law enforcement. But he doesn’t know what may happen in different parts of the state.

He hopes the brand new legislation will spur some of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all worked collectively it might mean “quite a lot of sources and attainable funding sources to help these in need,” he said.

But different advocates don’t think threatening individuals with a felony is an efficient manner to assist them.

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