A bill that could set deadlines on homeless encampment clearings and the disposal of people’s personal belongings passed the Tennessee Senate on Thursday, causing concerns among service providers.
The proposal, sponsor Sen. Brent Taylor, R-Memphis, said, is designed to allow the state Department of Transportation to enter into individual memoranda of understanding with local authorities in different cities to create a system for clearing encampments that are in public areas like bridges and underpasses, which are within the department’s purview.
In a committee meeting earlier this month, Taylor said the bill was spurred by his months-long struggle to get an encampment cleared in Memphis.
“It was the most complicated thing I’ve done, I think, as an adult,” Taylor said, adding that transportation department and local authorities “didn’t want to deal with it” and lacked a cohesive plan for encampment clearings.
“Everyone was pointing fingers,” Taylor said.