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 he or she fell behind on payments. Living in a car, the 34-year-old worries on daily basis about getting cash for meals, discovering somewhere to bathe, and saving up enough cash for an condo where her three children can live along with her once more.

Now she has a 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 similar to parks.

“Honestly, it’s going to be laborious,” Atnip mentioned of the law, 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 famous that no one has been convicted beneath that regulation and mentioned he doesn’t count on this one to be enforced much, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has labored with homeless people in the metropolis of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — partly because he hopes it will spur people who care concerning the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The legislation requires that violators obtain not less than 24 hours discover 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 wish to subject a felony,” Bailey mentioned. “But it’s only going to come to that if folks really don’t need to transfer.”

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

Public stress to do something about the increasing number of highly seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Though tenting has typically been regulated by local vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas handed a statewide ban final yr. Municipalities that fail to enforce the ban danger dropping state funding. Several different states have launched comparable bills, however Tennessee is the one one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district includes 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 final year that complaints about panhandlers almost doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, town put in signs encouraging residents to give to charities as a substitute of panhandlers. And the City Council twice thought of panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville got his consideration. City council members have informed him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey mentioned. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey appears to consider. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation not too long ago, the homeless people who frequented it disappeared. “Where did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed on the concept of people shipped in from Nashville. She was residing in close by Monterey when she misplaced her home and had to send her kids to live along with her dad and mom. She has received some authorities assist, however not sufficient to get her back on her ft, she mentioned. At one level she got a housing voucher however couldn’t discover a landlord who would settle for it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used automobile 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 maneuver to a tent, though she isn’t sure where they will pitch it.

“It looks as if as soon as one thing goes mistaken, it sort of snowballs,” Atnip mentioned. “We were earning profits with DoorDash. Our payments had been paid. We have been saving. Then the automobile goes kaput and the whole lot goes bad.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an surprising advocate of the tenting ban. He mentioned he needs to continue helping the homeless, but some individuals aren’t motivated to enhance their scenario. Some are hooked on medication, he said, and some are hiding from law enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 people residing outside kind of completely in Cookeville, and he is aware of them all.

“Most of them have been here just a few years, and not as soon as have they requested for housing help,” he mentioned.

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

“The large drawback with this law is that it does nothing to resolve homelessness. The truth is, it'll make the issue worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the Nationwide Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony on your file makes it hard to qualify for some sorts of housing, harder to get a job, harder to qualify for benefits.”

Not everybody desires to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, however individuals will move off the streets given the right opportunities, Watts stated. Homelessness among U.S. military veterans, for example, has been lower nearly in half over the previous decade via a combination of housing subsidies and social services.

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

Tina Lomax, who runs Seeds of Hope of Tennessee in nearby Sparta, was as soon as homeless with her children. Many people are just one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she said. Even in her neighborhood of 5,000, reasonably priced housing could be very exhausting to return by.

“In case you have a felony in your file — holy smokes!” she stated.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, stated he doesn’t expect many people to be prosecuted for sleeping on public property. “I can promise, they’re not going to be out here rounding up homeless folks,” he mentioned of Cookeville law enforcement. However he doesn’t know what would possibly occur in other parts of the state.

He hopes the brand new regulation will spur a few of its opponents to work with him on long-term solutions for Cookeville’s homeless. If all of them labored together it will imply “quite a lot of assets and possible funding sources to assist these in want,” he stated.

However different advocates don’t assume threatening folks with a felony is an efficient means to help them.

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