With public tenting a felony, Tennessee homeless seek refuge

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Miranda Atnip misplaced her dwelling through the coronavirus pandemic after her boyfriend moved out and she fell behind on payments. Dwelling in a car, the 34-year-old worries daily about getting money for meals, finding someplace to shower, and saving up sufficient money for an apartment where her three youngsters can reside together with her once more.

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

“Truthfully, it’s going to be laborious,” Atnip stated 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 enlargement, Sen. Paul Bailey noted that no one has been convicted underneath that law and stated he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced much, either. Neither does Luke Eldridge, a person who has worked with homeless individuals within the city of Cookeville and helps Bailey’s plan — partly as a result of he hopes it would spur individuals who care in regards to the homeless to work with him on long-term solutions.

The legislation requires that violators obtain no less than 24 hours notice before an arrest. The felony charge is punishable by up to six years in jail and the lack of voting rights.

“It’s going to be as much as prosecutors ... if they need to situation a felony,” Bailey mentioned. “However it’s solely going to return to that if folks actually don’t wish to move.”

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

Public stress to do something concerning the increasing variety of extremely seen homeless encampments has pushed even many historically liberal cities to clear them. Although camping has generally been regulated by local vagrancy legal guidelines, Texas passed a statewide ban final yr. Municipalities that fail to implement the ban danger losing state funding. Several other states have launched comparable payments, however Tennessee is the only one to make tenting a felony.

Bailey’s district includes Cookeville, a metropolis of about 35,000 people between Nashville and Knoxville, where the native newspaper has chronicled rising concern with the rising variety of homeless people. The Herald-Citizen reported final year that complaints about panhandlers practically doubled between 2019 and 2020, from 157 to 300. In 2021, town put in signs encouraging residents to offer to charities as an alternative of panhandlers. And the Metropolis Council twice thought of panhandling bans.

The Republican lawmaker acknowledges that complaints from Cookeville obtained his consideration. Metropolis council members have told him that Nashville ships its homeless here, Bailey mentioned. It’s a rumor many in Cookeville have heard and Bailey appears to imagine. When Nashville fenced off a downtown park for renovation lately, the homeless individuals who frequented it disappeared. “The place did they go?” Bailey requested.

Atnip laughed at the thought of individuals shipped in from Nashville. She was living in close by Monterey when she misplaced her residence and had to ship her children to stay together with her parents. She has obtained some authorities help, but not sufficient to get her back on her feet, she mentioned. At one point she got a housing voucher but couldn’t discover a landlord who would accept it. She and her new husband saved enough to finance a used automobile and had been working as delivery drivers till it broke down. Now she’s afraid they may lose the automotive and have to maneuver to a tent, though she isn’t positive the place they are going to pitch it.

“It looks like as soon as one factor goes fallacious, it kind of snowballs,” Atnip mentioned. “We had been getting cash with DoorDash. Our payments were paid. We have been saving. Then the automobile goes kaput and all the pieces goes unhealthy.”

Eldridge, who has worked with Cookeville’s homeless for a decade, is an unexpected advocate of the camping ban. He mentioned he desires to continue helping the homeless, but some people aren’t motivated to improve their state of affairs. Some are addicted to medicine, he mentioned, and a few are hiding from legislation enforcement. Eldridge estimates there are about 60 folks dwelling outside more or less completely in Cookeville, and he is aware of them all.

“Most of them have been right here a number of years, and never as soon as have they asked for housing assist,” he said.

Eldridge knows his position is unpopular with different advocates.

“The large problem with this legislation is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. In reality, it would make the issue worse,” mentioned Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Having a felony on your report makes it hard to qualify for some types of housing, more durable to get a job, tougher to qualify for advantages.”

Not everybody wants to be in a crowded shelter with a curfew, but individuals will move off the streets given the proper opportunities, Watts mentioned. Homelessness among U.S. navy veterans, for instance, has been minimize nearly in half over the past 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 close by Sparta, was as soon as homeless along with her youngsters. Many people are only one paycheck or one tragedy away from being on the streets, she said. Even in her group of 5,000, reasonably priced housing could be very laborious to come back by.

“When you have a felony in your document — holy smokes!” she stated.

Eldridge, like Sen. Bailey, stated he doesn’t anticipate 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 stated of Cookeville regulation enforcement. But he doesn’t know what may occur in other components of the state.

He hopes the new law will spur a few of its opponents to work with him on long-term solutions for Cookeville’s homeless. If they all worked collectively it will imply “a whole lot of resources and possible funding sources to help those in need,” he stated.

But other advocates don’t think threatening individuals with a felony is a good way to assist them.

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