With public tenting 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 fell behind on bills. Dwelling in a automotive, the 34-year-old worries every single day about getting cash for food, discovering somewhere to shower, and saving up sufficient cash for an condo the place her three kids can dwell along with her again.

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

“Honestly, it’s going to be hard,” Atnip said of the legislation, 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 expansion, Sen. Paul Bailey famous that no one has been convicted beneath that legislation and said he doesn’t count on this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a man who has worked with homeless individuals in the city of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — partially as a result of he hopes it'll spur individuals who care in regards to the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The legislation requires that violators receive not less than 24 hours discover before an arrest. The felony cost 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 ... if they wish to challenge a felony,” Bailey said. “But it’s only going to come back to that if folks really don’t wish to move.”

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

Public stress to do one thing concerning the rising number of highly visible homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Though tenting has typically been regulated by local vagrancy laws, Texas handed a statewide ban last 12 months. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban risk losing state funding. Several different states have launched similar payments, however Tennessee is the only one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district contains Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 individuals between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the native newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the increasing variety of homeless people. The Herald-Citizen reported last yr that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in signs encouraging residents to present to charities as an alternative of panhandlers. And the Metropolis Council twice considered panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville obtained his consideration. City council members have informed him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey said. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey seems to consider. 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 on the idea of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was dwelling in nearby Monterey when she misplaced her house and had to send her youngsters to live along with her dad and mom. She has received some authorities assist, but not sufficient to get her back on her ft, 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 sufficient to finance a used car and have been working as delivery drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they are going to lose the automobile and have to move to a tent, though she isn’t sure where they may pitch it.

“It seems like as soon as one thing goes mistaken, it kind of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We had been making a living with DoorDash. Our payments have been paid. We have 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 wants to proceed helping the homeless, but some individuals aren’t motivated to improve their state of affairs. Some are hooked on medicine, he stated, and some are hiding from regulation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 folks residing exterior roughly completely in Cookeville, and he knows them all.

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

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

“The big drawback with this regulation is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. In fact, it would make the issue worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony on your record makes it hard to qualify for some types of housing, harder to get a job, tougher to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however people will transfer off the streets given the correct opportunities, Watts mentioned. Homelessness amongst U.S. army veterans, for instance, has been reduce 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 close by Sparta, was once homeless along with her children. Many individuals are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she said. Even in her community of 5,000, inexpensive housing is very onerous to come back by.

“In case 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 law enforcement. However he doesn’t know what may occur in different elements of the state.

He hopes the new law will spur some of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If all of them worked together it would imply “a variety of resources and possible funding sources to assist those in want,” he mentioned.

However different advocates don’t suppose threatening folks with a felony is a good manner to help them.

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