Tennessee Law On Encampments On Public Land Forces Hard Choices

All across the country people are frustrated by inaction by state and local governments on encampments on public right of way. We’ve all seen them; tents, campers, and worse all huddled here and there. Some feel like government should sweep the people and their camps away, others are demanding housing units as the solution. Some communities have taken a hard line, banning encampments completely, while others have avoided taking action, even decriminalizing possession of drugs which many claim fuel the encampments in the first place. In Memphis, a solution has emerged that addresses the visible problem with these camps and the invisible ones as well.

The sub-headline of a story posted in Vox earlier this year is true: “People living in tents has become one of the most urgent issues in American politics.” On the right, encampments in larger, blue cities as indication of a failed ideology and permissiveness. From the left, the problem is an economic failure, an indication of deep flaws in the capitalist system. Often, both sides seem to rely on reductionism; the right demanding more law enforcement as the solution, and on the left building more subsidized housing. I’ve noted elsewhere that this ideological divide grinds against basic public health principles that population based health interventions depend on a spectrum of intervention ranging from light touch harm reduction to interdiction of disease vectors using law enforcement.

Regardless of where one falls on this spectrum, there are encampments that end up forcing some kind of action. This is especially true when camps are in areas of public right of way like parks, median strips, or public schools. The debate can become heated because of access. Areas like parks, for example, are intended for wide use. When tents and garbage encroach on play areas or fields, people get angry. “Don’t we pay taxes for this?” and “Isn’t this our park, too?”

When it comes to schools the issue becomes safety. Why should children have to step over used needles and other unsafe waste? Recently, in Memphis, an encampment near a freeway sparked community concern and debate. What should be done with a camp not just visibly blighting the landscape, but in a truly unsafe area near speeding cars on a freeways?

Such camps are also illegal in Tennessee. A year ago, on July 1^st, it became a felony to camp in public areas. House Bill 0978 “expands Equal Access to Public Property Act of 2012, under which it is a Class E felony offense for a person to camp on property owned by the state knowing that the area on which the camping occurs is not specifically designated for use as a camping area, to apply the offense of unauthorized camping to all public property.” In the recent controversy, on at the I-40 and 240 interchange, State Senator Brent Taylor demanding something be done.

“If MPD and the City of Memphis can transfer the homeless people to appropriate shelters, TDOT will perform the necessary clean-up,” Taylor wrote. “I ask the City of Memphis to help in these efforts and enforce TCA 39-14-414.”

But the problem was neither agency wanted to intervene. Later, Taylor said, “So then it became this jurisdictional finger pointing about the city of Memphis saying [Tennessee Highway Patrol] needed to do it, and [Tennessee Highway Patrol] saying [Memphis Police Department] needed to do it.”

Meanwhile, with the law passed last year making Tennessee the first to make camping on public land a felony, national voices weighed in. In a story on National Public Radio, Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council, said, “The big problem with this law is that it does nothing to solve homelessness. In fact, it will make the problem worse,” said “Having a felony on your record makes it hard to qualify for some types of housing, harder to get a job, harder to qualify for benefits.”

It’s a good point. Yet, isn’t the idea of leaving people in hazardous areas doing them any favors? Is it compassionate to simply leave people living in camps on the side of or under a freeway? These questions are ones that have become more and more intractable and immune to ideological litmus tests. Advocates urge immediate housing options that might be unavailable and others demanding that the law be equally enforced. Add to this the fact, in many cases, people living in encampments don’t want the shelter offered.

In the same NPR story, Luke Eldridge, who works with homeless people, said, “Most of them have been here a few years, and not once have they asked for housing help.” Eldridge is an unlikely supporter of the new law because he thinks it might spur some of the people, he works with who have resisted various shelter or housing options take them. In my next post, we’ll take a look a solution to the problem in Memphis that could demonstrate a new best practice for dealing with encampments on public property.