Oklahoma City Council strikes proposed ordinance outlawing homeless camps

A line of local clergy members stacked Bibles on the lectern before the Oklahoma City Council Tuesday in a demonstration alongside the Rev. Lori Walke to say that in no translation does the Good Samaritan fine or jail the man in need.

"Please meet with us and the agencies our congregations work closely with in ministering to our unhoused neighbors and we can reason together about compassionate and effective care," Walke said. "You have a great cloud of witnesses praying for you and for your heart, but our prayers also come with our presence and we will continue to insist on mercy."

The demonstration came before Oklahoma City council members voted unanimously to strike ordinances introduced by Ward 8 Councilman Mark Stonecipher that would have criminalized homeless camps.

Area residents, elected officials and business owners joined clergy speaking overwhelmingly in opposition to the ordinances. Of the dozens who signed up to speak during public comment, only two spoke to support the proposed new rules.

After nearly five hours of discussion and public comment, Stonecipher first moved to defer the ordinances, before altering to a motion to strike when countered by Ward 7 Councilwoman Nikki Nice.

"Today was a great exchange of ideas. We are all working hard on resolving the homeless issue in Oklahoma City, but at this time we need to keep discussing these issues among council and staff," Stonecipher said via email following the meeting. "The good news is that we all agree our city is trying to do a better job of delivering services to those experiencing homelessness."

Stonecipher's explanation of the ordinances and community reaction

Stonecipher originally said in a letter to fellow council members that he composed the ordinance, as well as amendments to the city's trespassing laws to add definitions of trespassing including homeless camps, after an October shooting at an encampment near Interstate 44 and Pennsylvania Avenue.

"The number one call that we receive in Oklahoma City — it's not about potholes, it's not about a broken water line, it's not about the neighbor didn't mow their yard, it's not about an abandoned car in the front yard — it is about homeless issues, and so it is time for us to have that discussion," Stonecipher said during Tuesday's meeting.

Stonecipher also said that he modeled the ordinances off of programs that had seen success in cities such as San Diego and Houston.

The proposed ordinance sought to define a homeless camp as "any one or more of the following conditions occurring in an outdoor place":

• The use of fabric, metal, cardboard, or other materials as a tent or other temporary structure for living accommodation purposes or human habitation.

• The use of a heating device.

• The accumulation of personal property (other than durable medical equipment) three feet high, three feet wide, and three feet deep.

These definitions are essentially the same as those in Houston's 2017 ordinance.

However, under the Houston Homeless Encampment Strategy, homeless camps are only "decommissioned" when there is permanent housing available for each of the camp's residents. Additionally, the city of Houston, Harris County and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development together invested $200 million in street outreach, behavioral health and housing, according to Dan Straughan, executive director of the Homeless Alliance.

Ward 6 Councilwoman JoBeth Hamon said any implication that conversations about homelessness have not been underway ignores the work done by the city's homeless service providers and those on the mayor's taskforce to address the issues.

"Welcome to the conversation, because a bunch of us have been having it and they have not been prioritized," Hamon said. "Most people living outside are not just sitting around. They're just trying to scrape together resources to survive because our systems have failed them."

During the meeting, Stonecipher touted the city's reduced use of the Oklahoma County jail for municipal charges. But the new ordinance would have allowed police officers to arrest people in homeless camps for trespassing if they refuse to leave after a warning and citation.

"He claims he wants to protect those without homes from freezing to death; the answer to that is not to put them in a jail that has seen 15 deaths this year," said Amy Warne, a city resident. "Homelessness is a problem with a solution and that solution is housing."

Understanding homelessness in Oklahoma City

"We have 1,339 homeless people according to the count, 35% of those were unsheltered," Stonecipher said. "That's 468 people, we have 850 beds, so if my math's wrong, somebody correct me."

Straughan did correct an inaccuracy in Stonecipher's breakdown of the city's Point In Time count.

"Any given night in Oklahoma City, 1,400 people experience homelessness. Across our eight homeless shelters, we have 850 beds. That's the mismatch," Straughan said.

"That's why there's 471 unsheltered homeless. Those people literally have nowhere to go. They cannot go to a shelter because there is no shelter bed."

Ward 2 Councilperson James Cooper asked Straughan how often people experiencing homelessness do not want or accept help.

"If you are able to offer the kind of help that they are able to accept, they will accept it. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people that we have not been able to house because of resistance from the individual," Straughan said.

Straughan said the city's model should continue to focus on housing first and then move to addressing additional barriers once a person is placed.

Lindsay Cates, homeless strategy implementation manager for the city, said that while homelessness has variables and numerous contributing factors, the basic problem comes back to the reality that stagnant wages paired with rising housing costs and limited housing availability creates greater housing instability.

One example given is that two people both working full-time on Oklahoma's minimum wage cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment at the fair-market rate, $1,016 in fiscal year 2023, according to HUD, without exceeding the recommended 30% of rent that would be considered "cost burdened."

Cates said her office hopes to continue advancing the city's homelessness action plan, with a focus on helping to dispel some of the myths surrounding homelessness and spreading the word about the available services more effectively through the development of a public information committee in the next year.

Cates said that there has been significant success in the last few years in Oklahoma City, stating that through coordinated work by homeless services providers more than 1,600 individuals have been housed and after two years, 96% remained housed. However, she said bureaucratic processes to take people from homeless to housed are one of the biggest obstacles that service providers and the city are working together to overcome.

"We have to make systems more efficient and easier for people to navigate," Cates said.

Staff reporter Jana Hayes contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Homeless camp ordinances draw opposition, stricken by OKC council