“They’re trying to get us out of Nashville,” said Mama V, standing in the mud outside her tent on the banks of the Cumberland River. “We are homeless here.
Felony convictions make it even harder for those not incarcerated to find homes and jobs. “This is a big deal,” says Lindsey Krinks, her outreach worker at her Open Table in Nashville. “A felony carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison, a $3,000 fine, and loss of voting rights.”
Similar bills are being considered in Arizona and Georgia. Similar bills were introduced in Oklahoma and Wisconsin but failed. A similar bill was passed in Texas last year. Austin think tanks founded and funded by tech billionaires have been the inspiration for much of this new law.
“The aim is not to criminalize anyone,” says Judge Glock, senior director of policy and research at the Cicero Institute in Austin. “But we need people with severe mental illness, or who are in danger of drinking or using drugs. We need some kind of stick and carrot to take the next step.”
‘It’s a felony to survive,’ says a woman living on state land
Later this month, another law inspired by the Cicero Institute went into effect in Missouri. Camping on public land is a misdemeanor, not a felony. But local governments that don’t enforce camping bans could see state funding cut. Also, funds previously allocated to build permanent housing for the homeless will be diverted to build treatment programs and temporary state-sanctioned homeless encampments. .
“This is the impetus for putting the most vulnerable people who are citizens in concentration camps,” says Eric Tarz, legal director at the National Homeless Law Center. “For example, in Tennessee, what really matters right now is that the state minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. You will need the state.”
In Nashville, average rents have increased by more than 40% over the past five years.
Tanisha Green, who has lived on a roadside state property in Nashville for a year, says police have already told her she needs to move elsewhere.
“They said it would be action. We’re going to jail,” she says. “To survive is a felony.” Green says he has nowhere else to go.
Glock, who testified before lawmakers in Georgia, said homeless camp residents needed a simple message. “You need it. Both sticks and carrots. And this bill provides them.”
Many homeless activists say they don’t believe “sticks” can persuade people to get out of homelessness.
Howard Allen, who was homeless in Nashville for 17 years, said, “It’s hard to pull yourself up in bootstraps when you’re not wearing boots.”
Glock says crumbling homeless camps are bad for those incarcerated, but they’re also bad for those not incarcerated.
“This is primarily to help the homeless themselves. It’s obviously not good to leave the homeless in this environment,” he said. “This is not just about helping cities.”
‘We know what’s not working,’ says Cicero Institute official
The Cicero Institute was founded in 2017 and, according to its website, “applies the innovative energy of America’s leading technologists and entrepreneurs to the broken systems of the public sector.”
Named after Roman politician Marcus Cicero, who died more than 2,000 years ago, it was funded by Joe Lonsdale, a young tech billionaire and colleague of right-wing political activist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel. I’m here.
“There is no influence other than persuasion,” says Glock. “We’re just saying, ‘This seems like a better idea. We know what can go wrong.'”
Something called “Housing First” has become a leading approach to tackling homelessness across the United States. The basic philosophy is: Find a permanent home, not a shelter bed. Provides addiction and mental health treatment, but does not enforce it. The rest should follow. Many studies support that approach. The Cicero Institute is not.
“Everybody seemed to be rallying around trying to build a free home,” Cicero founder Lonsdale said on an episode of the American Optimist podcast. “Then there will be a lot of mentally ill people in small houses in our city, but they are still in bad shape.”
Soaring rents make homeless housing difficult
Proponents of Housing First admit the process isn’t perfect, but they say it’s because they’re not enthusiastic about it.
“Housing First is documented to have retention rates of over 90 percent when it works, but it doesn’t fund at a sufficient level,” said Tars of the National Homelessness Law Center. I’m here. “In the meantime, everyone is seeing rents rising nationwide.”
Luxury condos are popping up and rents are rising in cities rebranded as tourist destinations, including here in Nashville. Nashville is trying to be the music that Las Vegas is to gambling. It’s “Nash Vegas”.
“I came here right after my daughter was born and pushed her into her stroller,” says professional singer Rebecca Lowe at the gates of Brookmead Park in the leafy Nashville neighborhood. Well thought out never to come back. That was over 10 years ago.”
Walking down winding lanes in what was once riverside countryside with a bit of Civil War history, you’ll notice tall, distinctly human fecal smells, piles of trash, hundreds of shopping carts, and a few You will meet a woman with ten tents scattered about. between the trees. Rowe founded a group called Reclaim Brookmeade Park.
“Nothing is working. Nothing is working,” she says. Lowe now supports the criminalization of the camp.
A new bill in Tennessee to do just that was sponsored by State Senator Paul Bailey. He represents rural areas an hour or two east of him from the state capital. Bailey said in a phone call that voters complaining about the burgeoning homeless camps are the driving force.
Homelessness advocate Tarz said: “I can imagine an elected official coming up and saying there’s a camp on my corner. “Your choice is to address this shortage of very affordable housing…or you can pass a swift law making it illegal to be in that corner.”
Bailey declined a formal interview offer, but said during a debate on the bill: A description of the fix. ”
The bill passed the state Senate by a vote of 22 to 10.
“I think it’s kind of like putting a Band-Aid on cancer,” Senator Heidi Campbell, a Democrat from Nashville, said during the debate. “I think we need to really address the underlying underlying issues.
Another Democrat from Nashville, State Senator Brenda Gilmore, said: “We have a biblical mandate to defend the rights of the poor, and that is why I will not vote for this bill.”
Some park residents refuse shelter
Back in Brookmead Park, Lowe said she hoped the threat of arrest alone would persuade the nonprofit to provide more housing and less services like food and water. He says he hopes the threat will force the homeless to help themselves.
“If you give them the option of staying in the park or asking for help, most of the time they choose to stay in the park,” she said, building permanent homes for these people. I would support that, but added that it was not realistic.
“It would take years to build it,” she says. In the meantime, people living in Brookmead Park should be moved to temporary shelters, she says.
Many non-residents do not want to move to shelters. Mama V is one of them.
“I can’t stay with my dog,” she says. “And I’m not giving them up.”
“I was in a temporary shelter,” says Allen, a homeless man turned homeless advocate. “And I didn’t like it because you’re not treated as a human being.”
Allen now has a permanent home after sleeping outside for 17 years.
“When I moved into the house on January 11th of last year and the keys were handed to me, I cried,” he says. “And I cried again because my brothers and sisters deserve the same as I do. Housing. And we can do that.”
But so far there is no agreement on how to achieve that goal.
Source: www.cnn.com
