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Committee adopts amendment to bar governments from abandoning people experiencing homelessness in other jurisdictions
Summary
An amendment to House Bill 16-71 (the "homeless busing" bill) was adopted to prohibit governmental entities from transporting people experiencing homelessness to other jurisdictions without permission and to allow receiving municipalities to seek damages for incurred expenses. The committee advanced the amended bill.
Chairman Rudd offered a rewrite amendment to House Bill 16-71 aimed at preventing governmental entities from transporting people experiencing homelessness from one jurisdiction to another without the receiving entity's knowledge or consent. The sponsor described cases where people were reportedly dropped at public squares or bus areas instead of being taken to shelters, and said the amendment removes an attorney-general enforcement provision while preserving the receiving municipality's right to seek damages for expenses.
"We have an occurrence not only in, in the Bridled Tennessee area but also in other areas of the state where government, not nonprofits or private agencies, but governments are shipping homeless people from 1 jurisdiction to the other without the other's knowledge ... and they're just abandoned there," Chairman Rudd said. Members asked which cities had been implicated; the sponsor identified Nashville-Davidson County and Knoxville. The committee approved the amendment and moved the bill forward.
