Before Gov. Kevin Stitt moved to clear homeless encampments in Tulsa, the state’s new anti-camping law had gone largely unenforced in some of Oklahoma’s largest cities.

Sen. Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, who voted against the anti-camping measure during the 2024 legislative session, said there’s confusion surrounding who is meant to enforce the law.

“If there’s state property inside cities, inside counties, I think there’s always questions on who’s in charge of what,” Kirt said. 

Some city police departments told The Frontier they believed implementing the law fell outside of their jurisdiction. Other officials said there hasn’t been a need to crack down on homeless encampments. 

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Senate Bill 1854, commonly referred to as the anti-camping law, went into effect in November and makes unauthorized camping on state property a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of $50, up to 15 days in county jail, or both after a warning. Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma said the law was needed to address safety issues associated with a growing number of homeless encampments under highway overpasses and on other state property. 

Enforcing the camping ban has fallen largely to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. But Sarah Stewart, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, said that any law enforcement agency in the state can enforce this law. 

Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers cleared over 60 homeless encampments in Tulsa earlier this month, displacing what officials and homeless service providers estimate to be hundreds of unhoused people as part of an initiative the governor’s office has dubbed Operation SAFE, or Swift Action for Families Everywhere. Unhoused individuals were given the option of a ride to services or, for those who elected not to leave their camps, a trip to jail. Neither the anti-camping bill nor Operation SAFE provided additional resources for service providers. 

The encampment clearings came just two months after Oklahoma Department of Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton said the Oklahoma Highway Patrol is spread thin and announced it would need to pull resources from the state’s urban areas in order to properly cover other parts of the state for routine operations. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said this move would be illegal in an opinion released last month.

Troopers had been enforcing the anti-camping law when necessary before the crack-down in Tulsa, but “not on the level we’ve done with Operation SAFE,” Stewart said. 

District Attorneys for Tulsa, Oklahoma, Cleveland, Pottawatomie and Lincoln counties said they have not prosecuted any cases for unauthorized camping, or had any such cases forwarded to them from law enforcement. Brook Arbeitman, communications director for Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna, said the statute for the anti-camping law isn’t even in their system. 

Operation SAFE drew widespread criticism from advocates and some city officials who say the quick nature of the operation only displaces individuals with no plan or added resources to help them. There are only 965 emergency and transitional housing beds in Tulsa, according to available data, but at least 1,449 people are experiencing homelessness. 

It takes time to build trust with the homeless population and to help individuals secure stable housing, said Sabine Brown, senior housing policy analyst at the nonpartisan think tank Oklahoma Policy Institute.

“When you come in with rushed operations like Operation SAFE, you bulldoze all of that work,” Brown said, adding that the anti-camping law is the “wrong approach” for addressing homelessness and safety issues in the state.

The governor’s office announced completion of the operation last week, casting responsibility back on the city to enforce state and local laws and to ensure swept areas remain clear. 

Little enforcement

While the anti-camping law doesn’t specify which agencies are responsible for enforcing it, Sen. Darrell Weaver, R-Moore, who co-authored the ban, had removed municipal land from the bill language so city officials could make their own decisions about how to address homeless encampments in their areas. Weaver said during a hearing in March of 2024 that the measure “has nothing to do with municipalities.” A different measure introduced last session aimed to add city and county land to the statute, but it never got a vote on the Senate floor. 

The Norman Police Department isn’t widely enforcing the anti-camping law since the statute specifically addresses “state-owned lands,” said Sarah Schettler, public information officer for the Norman Police Department. The only exception is the George M. Sutton Wilderness Park, which is state-owned but contracted to the city for management.

Schettler said for Norman officers to enforce the state anti-camping law, there would need to be a city ordinance to match. The city has this type of ordinance for Sutton Wilderness Park, which is why officers can enforce the camping ban there, Schettler added.

Enforcement of the law instead falls under the jurisdiction of the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office, Schettler said. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said they’re not enforcing the camping ban. 

The Oklahoma City Police Department also doesn’t have a city ordinance allowing officers to enforce the state anti-camping law, according to a department spokesperson. A spokesperson for the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office said deputies cover areas outside of the city, where there are no known homeless encampments, so they haven’t needed to enforce the camping ban. The Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office also has not enforced the anti-camping law, a spokesperson said.

In cases where it’s unclear how a law should be enforced — or which agencies are responsible for enforcing it — officials can request an opinion from the Oklahoma Attorney General, which provides legal guidance for how to apply a law. 

The office had not received any requests for an opinion on the anti-camping law as of Sept. 24, said Leslie Berger, the press secretary for the Attorney General. 

Gov. Stitt has so far singled out Tulsa for greater enforcement of the anti-camping law. Unlike Norman and Oklahoma City, Tulsa has a city ordinance similar to the state anti-camping law that prohibits setting up an abode on public property within city limits. Between November and August, 58 people have been arrested for violating the ordinance, according to a Frontier review of police records. And at least two people have been booked into the Tulsa County jail based on the state anti-camping law, according to a department spokesperson. 

Tulsa officers can’t write citations using state statute, but they can book people into the county jail under state statute charges, the spokesperson said.

Weaver said during a committee meeting in February of 2024 that he proposed Senate Bill 1854 to improve public safety and help people who are experiencing homelessness. Similarly, the bill’s house author, Rep. Chris Kannady, R-Oklahoma City, said in April 2024 the measure is intended to give law enforcement a “road map” to help unhoused Oklahomans. 

“We care about the homeless population,” Kannady told representatives last year. “Go out and focus on who’s out there. How can we help them? Give them a warning first, you don’t just arrest them and take them to jail.”

The Frontier contacted Weaver multiple times for comment about how the law has been implemented and if Operation SAFE is what he intended with his measure, but did not receive a response. The Frontier also contacted Kannady, but he was unavailable for comment before publication.

For two weeks in Tulsa, bulldozers tore through vacated encampments, carrying away tents, belongings and debris. Several service providers in the area said they received no prior notice from either the governor’s office or the Oklahoma Highway Patrol about the operation. 

Without a plan or additional resources, individuals are just pushed from one place to another, providers and advocates said. Studies show encampment sweeps can result in adverse health outcomes and create traumatic stress. Many people also lost important belongings like prescriptions, personal identification and birth certificates during the sweeps, which are difficult and expensive to replace and can create barriers to securing employment and housing.

A spokesperson for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol told The Frontier that troopers were taking important items like personal identification found during encampment sweeps to the day center. Mack Haltom, CEO of the Tulsa Day Center, said their staff have not received any belongings from the highway patrol and were never contacted about storing items. The same is true for Denver House, a drop-in center in Tulsa run by Mental Health Association Oklahoma. 

Sen. Brent Howard, R-Altus, who voted in favor of the anti-camping measure, said Operation SAFE is not a sustainable solution for addressing the homeless crisis in the state long term. 

“It might move it a little bit more out of sight in some ways, but it’s not putting it completely at rest,” Howard said. 

When he voted for the measure, he said he didn’t envision the state highway patrol would be called in to clear encampments. He worries the sweeps will only push people onto municipal and private land, and said though he believes Operation SAFE is a first step, more needs to be done to make Oklahoma “less welcoming” for people experiencing homelessness in order to push them toward services. 

Kirt argued the opposite. 

“I just hope that we can have more empathy and compassion for that and figure out how we can reduce those challenges, instead of trying to turn them into criminals or assume that they don’t want a better life for themselves or their families,” Kirt said.

Kannady said last year during a hearing if the law doesn’t work, he would repeal it in a year.