In Oklahoma, there’s a growing trend of anti-homeless legislation

Service providers are celebrating after a bill to restrict the locations of homeless shelters in Oklahoma failed. But they are nervous about a growing trend of legislation that criminalizes homelessness.

Senate Bill 484, authored by Sen. Lisa Standridge, R-Norman, would have banned homeless shelters within 3,000 feet of any school or school property in cities with fewer than 300,000 residents. The only cities that would not have been affected by the bill are Oklahoma City and Tulsa, which have populations greater than 300,000. The bill included exemptions for previously existing shelters, youth and domestic violence shelters and shelters operated in places of worship. An earlier version of the bill would have banned most Oklahoma cities from providing homeless services altogether.

“I don’t think that the bill failing in committee necessarily means that the state legislature is more friendly to people who are homeless,” said April Doshier, executive director of the nonprofit Food and Shelter. “I firmly believe we’re going to continue to see more pieces of legislation come out that are moving to criminalize homelessness and make it more difficult for people who are homeless to get out of that situation. So we will just have to continue our advocacy efforts and hope that whatever comes up next that we can advocate, rally our communities and defeat those bills as well.”

SB 484 was the latest in a string of measures aiming to criminalize homelessness or restrict services in the state. In November, Oklahoma’s anti-camping law, which fines or jails people for camping unauthorized on state-owned property, went into effect. A bill proposed this session looks to amend the camping ban to explicitly include county and municipal land. Another active bill would make possession of a shopping cart punishable by up to a $1000 fine,a year in jail or both. Critics of the bill say it unfairly targets Oklahoma’s homeless population.

In recent years, Shawnee passed an ordinance requiring a permit for “feeding operations.” And a bill at the Legislature proposed requiring homeless camps to pass building code inspections.

Meghan Mueller, CEO of the Oklahoma City-based Homeless Alliance, said SB 484 should be a warning that more bills like it may be coming.

“We can’t let ourselves get complacent,” Mueller said. “We need to remember it and take those lessons learned into the future so that we can come up with strategies — strategies that help people instead of moving them around and causing undue burden for folks who are already struggling.”

The life and death of SB 484

Despite recently denying the bill was targeted toward any particular community, Standridge said during a January meeting she created the measure to address constituent concerns in Norman, her hometown.

She called the city “an absolute dumpster fire” and claimed the city had allowed people experiencing homelessness to “establish a vagrant nation.”

“I think it’s a good bill. It’s done in the vein of public safety,” Standridge said during the meeting.

Norman’s emergency homeless shelter on Gray Street has been the subject of intense scrutiny due to its proximity to businesses. Last year there were talks of closing the shelter after a city audit accused Food and Shelter, which operated the shelter at the time, of mismanaging funds. The shelter is now operated by City Care, an Oklahoma City-based nonprofit.

The amended bill’s grandfather clause, however, meant the Norman shelter and any other shelter existing previously — even within 3,000 feet of a school — would not be required to close or relocate. Senators pointed out during a March meeting that the bill then wouldn’t have addressed the constituents’ safety concerns for which Standridge said the bill was created.

“It’s not a perfect bill,” Standridge conceded.

Critics of the bill also worried it would cause the already inundated shelters in Oklahoma City and Tulsa to receive an influx of people in need of services from other cities. Standridge admitted during the meeting she had not spoken with any homeless shelters, municipalities or people who are experiencing homelessness about the bill.

Rep. Kevin West, R-Moore, who co-authored SB 484, said after the bill failed a committee vote that it was possible the bill would have made people experiencing homelessness relocate to Tulsa and Oklahoma City, but that he didn’t view that as an issue.

Jamie Caves, the strategy implementation manager for the Oklahoma City partnership organization Key to Home, said Oklahoma City and Tulsa don’t have the capacity or resources to support the demand currently in the two cities, let alone the need from other communities.

Over 5,000 people were experiencing homelessness in Oklahoma in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Oklahoma City-based Homeless Alliance, for one, exceeded its 300-bed capacity nearly every night this winter, Mueller said.

“This isn’t a situation where we could just snap our fingers and create more space,” Mueller said. “We don’t have it.”

After the meeting, West told The Frontier he believes shelters need more oversight, either from the state or the agencies that supply the shelters’ funding.

“Personally, I’m a little disappointed,” West said after the measure failed. “I would like to have at least gotten a vote on it. I think this is an issue that we absolutely need to address.”

Theoretically, he said, the bill could be heard again next year. Standridge did not respond to The Frontier‘s calls and emails requesting comment or questions on whether she plans to reintroduce the bill in the future.

Service providers say they’re concerned the bill, or one like it, will emerge next session. Caves with Key to Home said unhoused individuals are worried there won’t be a place they can exist without risking incarceration.

Doshier feels like it’s only a matter of time until another bill crops up that would harm the state’s homeless population.

“It’d be really great if we could just get homelessness out of politics and all of us go back to that moral call — whatever your religion is — that moral call that says take care of people who are struggling,” Doshier said.

The Frontier (ReadFrontier.org) is a nonprofit newsroom that produces fearless journalism with impact in Oklahoma.