Public camping felony law rarely enforced within past 2 years

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Two years after a Tennessee law passed making it a felony to camp on public property, News 2 discovered only a handful of people have been arrested, but some advocates say it’s still made an impact, both good and bad.

The law, which went into effect July 1, 2022, didn’t pass without opposition from some legislators, advocates, and those it directly affects. However, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ryan Williams (R-Cookeville) told lawmakers its intent was to give law enforcement officers an “actionable opportunity” to approach those experiencing homelessness.

Cookeville Vice Mayor Luke Eldridge, who has worked to help the homeless community for decades and “went homeless” multiple times himself to learn more about the problem, advocated for the legislation as it progressed through the General Assembly because of what he believed the law could potentially do.

“It at least gave us a boundary finally to where now people start talking about, ‘How do we help? What’s a long term solution?’ and that’s not a long term solution,” Eldridge said. “It just gave us a point to start talking with individuals. Not just homeless individuals, but local groups. ‘What do we do?'”

Eldridge told News 2 the law has helped start some conversations on ways to address homelessness, but there is still a lot of work to do. He is not aware of anyone in Cookeville who has been arrested or charged under the law, which appears to be a trend statewide.

Dozens of public records requests filed by News 2’s State Capitol reporter, Tori Gessner revealed just four arrests have been made from the time the law went into effect in July of 2022 to June 25, 2024.

According to the arrest numbers obtained, two people in Knoxville on the University of Tennessee’s campus, one person within Knoxville’s city limits, and one person in Nashville on Tennessee State University’s campus were arrested under the law in the past two years. However, district attorneys offices across the state told News 2 no one has been prosecuted with the felony.

Despite that, Elliot Pinsly, CEO of the Behavioral Health Foundation, believes simply having the law on the books is harmful enough.

“This is a law that does not seem to follow best practice when it comes to what we need to be doing to help people who are experiencing homelessness,” Pinsly said.

Pinsly told News 2 the law does nothing to help homelessness, but instead punishes people experiencing homelessness for merely living where they can when they have nowhere else to go due to full shelters and the lack of affordable housing. In addition, he argued having a felony on one’s record makes it even more difficult to find a job and a place to live, which are necessities when trying to get out of homelessness.

“We really hope we’re not going to arrest these folks, but it’s very possible that people could be arrested and prosecuted, or that people could be charged with these kinds of crimes and then plead down to lower offenses,” Pinsly said. “This could be used as a way to essentially pull someone into the criminal justice system and start putting them in situations where they feel less like they have a choice of what they do next.”

Both Pinsly and Eldridge are both advocates of creating more supportive housing for those experiencing homelessness, but they know there’s no such thing as one quick fix.

“We need to come together, state, local, we all need to come together, ‘What can we do?’ Eldridge said. “I’m a Bible man, and the Bible says, ‘The poor will always be with you,’ and you can use that word however you want to, but we’re always going to have somebody, there’s always going to be somebody on the streets. You’ll never cure homelessness because it’s so multifaceted.”

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