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A Norman lawmaker is considering proposing legislation that would allow the state to bill cities for the governor’s effort to clear homeless encampments from state land.

Sen. Lisa Standridge, R-Norman, has asked for state troopers to clear the same homeless encampment in her city three times in the past four months as part of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s Operation SAFE. 

Clusters of tents soon sprang up again in a state-owned field next to a homeless shelter in Norman after the first two times troopers cleared the camp. Oklahoma Highway Patrol arrested 17 people found living in the field during the most recent raid on Aug. 19.

Standridge said people caught up in the sweeps should “go home.” 

“I think they should make every effort to go home, to go to their families so they can get the support, and then they need to, if they’re able-bodied, to go and get a job, so that they can have some self-respect,” Standridge said.

Standridge said Operation SAFE sends a clear message that the state is “putting its foot down” to protect public safety and that illegal camping won’t be tolerated. 

State officials earlier this month sent separate letters to Tulsa and Oklahoma City threatening to bill the cities for the cleanup efforts costing nearly $900,000 over the past year. As of Thursday, Norman hasn’t received a letter. 

It’s illegal to camp on state property, but there’s confusion around whether cities are responsible for enforcing the law. 

Even so, State Chief Operating Officer David Ostrowe wrote in the letters that if Tulsa and Oklahoma City don’t enforce the camping ban, the state will “pursue every available avenue” to have the cities pay the resulting costs.

Ostrowe wrote in his letters that the state would seek legislation to authorize the recovery of funds. He didn’t respond to The Frontier’s emails and phone calls. 

Standridge told The Frontier she’s “looking into” proposing such a measure, though she says she hasn’t communicated with Ostrowe or other state officials. She has previously supported legislation to restrict homeless services to all but two Oklahoma cities and create state oversight of homeless shelters. Neither measure passed.

Standridge said it may be warranted for some cities to pay the state back for Operation SAFE efforts if a city “encourages homelessness.” 

There are about 120 emergency shelter beds in Norman to serve the roughly 240 people experiencing homelessness, and providers say they’re nearly always at capacity.

Standridge said she believes Norman has enough services and shelter space.

Even so, Standridge attempted to send nearly a third of Norman’s homeless population 20 miles north to Oklahoma City in June. Norman’s Gray Street homeless shelter had just been forced to temporarily close due to fire code violations. And state troopers had booted people off state land weeks earlier. 

In emails to Oklahoma City homeless shelters and service providers obtained by The Frontier, Sarah Bross, Standridge’s executive assistant, wrote that the lawmaker wanted to know if they had room for 70 unhoused people from Norman. 

“Her main goal is finding alternative locations for these individuals outside the already inundated Cleveland County,” Bross wrote in a June 18 email.

Erin Goodin, president and CEO of the Oklahoma City shelter City Rescue Mission, was one of the recipients of the email. She said Oklahoma City doesn’t have enough shelter beds to absorb 70 more people. 

“During that emergency, we would have stepped in and done whatever was needed to make sure people were safe,” Goodin said. “But an emergency response is different from relocating people away from the community they call home. Norman is their community, and ideally the resources and support they need should be available there.”

Standridge told The Frontier she requested assistance from Oklahoma City to help move people out of the extreme heat so they could “quit living like an animal.” 

“It wasn’t about trying to move people just because they were unsightly, or I wanted them out of the city. It was actually trying to get them help to see if they could come and stand alongside the services that Norman was providing and offering to see if maybe they could get some people to help,” Standridge said. “But that didn’t work out.”

When Dan Straughan, founder and former executive director of The Homeless Alliance, first read the email from Standridge’s office, he thought it was a joke. 

Moving someone from city to city, or displacing them from their encampment, only ruptures any progress they’d made toward securing housing and services, he said. Plus there was no way Oklahoma City providers could take on dozens of new clients at once — and they shouldn’t have to.

“Oklahoma City is not responsible for Norman’s homeless issues,” Straughan told The Frontier.

Standridge said shelters don’t need more funding to create additional space. She also isn’t in favor of additional funding for programs to help people find jobs and reconnect with their families. 

“Government is not the answer,” she said.  

“I feel like it’s just going to take personal responsibility, and we can’t continue to allow this to happen,” Standridge said. “Sometimes our compassion enables, and so I feel like we have to change our way of thinking on that.”