With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her dwelling during the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she fell behind on payments. Residing in a automobile, the 34-year-old worries day-after-day about getting money for meals, discovering someplace to bathe, and saving up sufficient cash for an condominium the place her three youngsters can live together with her again.

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

“Honestly, it’s going to be onerous,” Atnip stated of the legislation, 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 enlargement, Sen. Paul Bailey famous that no one has been convicted beneath that law and stated he doesn’t anticipate this one to be enforced a lot, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has labored with homeless people in the metropolis of Cookeville and supports Bailey’s plan — partly because he hopes it should spur individuals who care in regards to the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The regulation requires that violators receive no less than 24 hours notice before an arrest. The felony cost 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 ... if they want to subject a felony,” Bailey stated. “However it’s solely going to come to that if folks really don’t want to move.”

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

Public strain to do one thing in regards to the growing number of extremely visible homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Although camping has generally been regulated by native vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas handed a statewide ban final 12 months. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban danger dropping state funding. Several different states have launched comparable payments, however Tennessee is the only one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district contains Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 folks between Nashville and Knoxville, the place the native newspaper has chronicled growing concern with the increasing variety of homeless individuals. The Herald-Citizen reported last 12 months that complaints about panhandlers practically doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, the city put in indicators encouraging residents to present to charities as a substitute of panhandlers. And the City Council twice considered panhandling bans.

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

Atnip laughed at the thought of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was dwelling in close by Monterey when she lost her residence and had to ship her kids to dwell together with her mother and father. She has obtained some authorities help, but not sufficient to get her again on her ft, she said. At one point she received a housing voucher but couldn’t find a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used car and had been working as supply drivers until it broke down. Now she’s afraid they will lose the automobile and have to move to a tent, though she isn’t positive where they may pitch it.

“It looks like once one thing goes fallacious, it form of snowballs,” Atnip stated. “We have been making a living with DoorDash. Our bills had been paid. We were saving. Then the car goes kaput and every part goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has labored with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an sudden advocate of the camping ban. He mentioned he needs to continue serving to the homeless, but some individuals aren’t motivated to enhance their state of affairs. Some are addicted to medication, he mentioned, and a few are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 people living exterior more or less permanently in Cookeville, and he is aware of all of them.

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

Eldridge knows his position is unpopular with other advocates.

“The massive downside with this law is that it does nothing to unravel homelessness. In truth, it will make the problem worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony on your report makes it onerous to qualify for some varieties of housing, more durable to get a job, harder to qualify for advantages.”

Not everyone desires to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but folks will transfer off the streets given the best alternatives, Watts said. Homelessness amongst U.S. army veterans, for instance, has been lower almost in half over the previous decade by a mixture of housing subsidies and social services.

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

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

“When you've got a felony on your document — holy smokes!” she said.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, said 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 individuals,” he mentioned of Cookeville regulation enforcement. But he doesn’t know what would possibly occur in different parts of the state.

He hopes the brand new law will spur a few of its opponents to work with him on long-term options for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all labored together it will mean “loads of sources and possible funding sources to assist those in need,” he stated.

But other advocates don’t think threatening people with a felony is an effective means to assist them.

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