When Lisa A. first heard that Tennessee had made camping on public land a felony, she channeled her frustrations into a poem.
“Felonious Sleeping”
My state ID says Tennessee
Our public property is for all to see
But don’t touch
The park is for everyone but me
It was 2022, and the legislative move made Tennessee the first state to make camping on public land punishable as a felony. At the time, Lisa was struggling to find stable housing. She was living in a camper van in a friend’s yard, following a stint in a tent. (She asked to withhold her last name to avoid stigma as she rebuilds her life.)
Like many people, she became unhoused during the COVID-19 pandemic. And as visible homelessness increased nationwide, legislation began to crop up.
Tennessee had already passed a law prohibiting camping on most state-owned property in 2012, during the Occupy Wall Street Movement. In 2020, in the thick of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests, lawmakers elevated the penalties to a felony. And, in 2022, legislators expanded that law to make it illegal to camp on all public property, unless otherwise specified. The class E felony comes with a penalty of up to six years in prison and a $3,000 fine.
New legislation kept coming this year.
“Advocates have seen huge waves of bills that punish people who are experiencing homelessness for their homelessness,” said Lindsey Krinks, co-founder of housing advocacy group Open Table Nashville. “They punish people that have nowhere else to go.”
‘No dignity’
Krinks spent much of the session lobbying legislators to amend or reconsider a handful of bills.
One new law expedites the clearing of encampments under highways or bridges. Krinks calls it a “sister” to the felony camping bill of 2022.
“Both bills are operating with the understanding that homelessness is something that you can clear out of sight, out of mind. It’s like a band-aid,” Krinks said. “It’s dressing something up on the outside without addressing the underlying causes of homelessness.”
The new law calls on the Tennessee Department of Transportation to work with local governments and partner organizations to remove temporary shelters within 30 days after a resident complaint.
That timeline stands at odds with Nashville’s approach to clearing encampments.
Nearly 40% of Tennessee’s unhoused population — estimated at around 8,000 people — lives in Nashville. Over the past three years, Metro has committed to a strategy of closing encampments once providers have put those residents on a pathway to housing. That’s tapped into pandemic relief funds for support services, encampment clean-ups and more shelter options — even using motel rooms as transitional housing.
The city’s process has its detractors. Currently, Metro is looking to clear out Old Tent City, an encampment south of downtown, near the Cumberland River. The area has been inhabited by a community of unhoused Nashvillians for nearly 40 years. Last month, residents were handed 60-day eviction notices. Now, a handful of residents have signed a petition asking for more time, permanent (rather than transitional) housing options, and outdoor space for those who struggle to live indoors.
“You also have to realize that there are some of us who struggle with being inside, in a box,” residents wrote in the petition. “It’s because of our past, our traumas. Some people will go out of their mind indoors. We need other options.”
According to Krinks, homelessness isn’t a criminal issue — it’s about social services.
“We know that housing and support services is the most effective way to end homelessness,” Krinks said. “We want people to have housing and the support they need — not to end up in ERs that are costly, not to end up in jails and prisons that are costly, not end up at the morgue, which is too often what we see our people doing.”
Sen. Brent Taylor, a Memphis Republican, filed many of the homelessness bills this session.
He made it a priority after receiving constituent complaints in 2023, early on in his tenure. Taylor says he’s not looking to criminalize homelessness in the same way the 2022 law did — rather, he hoped to establish a statewide process.
“[The] bill basically directs TDOT to develop a plan including local stakeholders and local nonprofits that are working with homeless people,” Taylor said. “So that when a homeless encampment crops up, there’s actually a process that we follow that will get it removed quickly.”
Taylor disagrees with advocates who want to maintain encampment spaces.
“There is no dignity living under a bridge,” Taylor said. “Whatever life circumstances and life choices have led people to have to live under a bridge is not getting better by continuing to live under a bridge.”
But, “the shelters are full. The housing waiting lists are long or closed,” Krinks said.
“We need places for people to be able to exist and we know that it’s way more expensive to do expensive campsite removals, to lock folks up, to cite, to fine or arrest them for simply existing.”
‘Downhill fast’
Another new measure this year makes it easier to evict people sleeping at vacant commercial properties. It follows similar anti-squatting legislation on residential properties that passed last year.
The organizations finding people housing have also become subject to new rules. That’s under another of Taylor’s bills, which opens charities to lawsuits if people they have help house are undocumented and go on to commit a crime.
Judith Tackett, who works on homelessness across non-profit and government sectors (and formerly directed Metro’s Homeless Impact Division), says the measure feels overly-punitive.
“Now we’re not just going after the people that already have nothing,” Tackett said, “we’re also going after people who try to actually solve what we say we want to solve — which is homelessness.”
More: From homelessness to permanent housing
Tackett has found that removing campsites in 30 days wouldn’t account for the months it often takes to get people housed. Plus, the disruption can result in lost property and documents — things people need to access resources. And felony convictions can create long-term barriers to finding a job and housing.
“It is really, really hard for people that have felonies to re-enter into society,” Tackett said. “So why would we create these barriers and make it harder for people to work rather than support them in their job searches?”
Lisa — who is now living in a subsidized apartment and has found part-time work — wants legislators to have a better understanding of what it’s actually like to be unhoused.
“People are not as resilient as we think,” Lisa said. “We must have water, sleep, and food, and it must be safe. If you don’t have that, you’re gonna go downhill fast. And I challenge you to try it.”
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