The city of Soddy-Daisy has passed an ordinance prohibiting camping on city property, raising concerns as to where the unhoused people camping in city parks will go.
"They're not our responsibility," Commissioner Gene-o Shipley said Thursday before the vote on the ordinance, in response to citizen Curtis Cecil's question of what will happen to the homeless people now living on city property.
"I think there's places in Chattanooga that are trying to accommodate that," Mayor Steve Everett said. "We're not going to put them in jail necessarily."
"It's basically going to keep, you know, transient traffic and things of that nature from stacking up on our public right of ways and our parks and things of that nature."
(READ MORE: Cities seek to control camping amid growing homeless crisis)
The ordinance applies only to public property, Everett said.
"We have a lot of wooded areas here, so if it keeps continually growing, what do we do?" Shipley said. "We don't have the means of taking care of those kind of people."
Cecil said he knows of six people now living in Soddy-Daisy city parks or in the woods behind local churches. He asked the City Commission if those people would be transported to shelters.
Although the city does not provide services for people facing homelessness, Commissioner Mark Penney said he would like for the city to offer people a way to get to a place that does provide those services.
Soddy-Daisy police officers typically ask homeless people where they want to go and take them there, Officer Billy Petty said.
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"I can't tell you the amount of money I've seen officers hand these people to help them on their way," Petty said, adding that neither the city nor its churches have places to shelter homeless people, but Chattanooga does, and Rhea County does to a lesser extent. "I have taken people as far as the other side of Rhea County to try and get them to an area where they can get help, and that's what our guys will continue to do if they'll let us."
Last summer Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly's administration announced the city will open a 24/7 low-barrier shelter funded with $2.8 million in federal pandemic relief funds, but officials haven't yet revealed a location, the Chattanooga Times Free Press previously reported.
The nonprofit Chatt Foundation provides homeless services in Chattanooga, which also has several supervised homeless camps run by nonprofit organization Help Right Here that received funding from the city of Chattanooga.
Some people don't want to go anywhere they can't walk, Petty said, in which case officers keep an eye on them until they pass through town.
Homeless camps can become a public nuisance, or a public health or safety issue, Everertt said.
"We don't know who these homeless people are," Everett said. "We don't know if they're registered sex offenders."
He said he wouldn't want his children or grandchildren going to certain areas of city parks if people are camping there.
"I sure didn't want them to be harmed in any way," Everett said. "I'm not saying that folks can't come out of that and live a normal life, but there are concerns."
City officials will not be cruel to anyone when handling situations involving people camping on city property, he said.
The issue is not a new phenomenon, Everett said, adding he dealt with transient homeless people as a Soddy-Daisy police officer in the 1990s.
"This is not something that we're going to kill a gnat with a sledgehammer, but this also gives us the ability, if we start having issues, to deal with it," he said.
Contact Emily Crisman at ecrisman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6508.
Staff file photo by Emily Crisman / Mayor Steve Everett is shown at Soddy-Daisy City Hall in 2022.