Norman community, city leaders discuss recent bill aimed at eliminating homeless outreach by cities
NORMAN, Okla. (KFOR) — A controversial bill that was filed last week has become a big talking point online. It would make it illegal for every city except Oklahoma City and Tulsa to provide shelters or outreach for homeless citizens, and they would have to end any existing programs.
"I feel this bill is very divisive and I want to say that homelessness is a nonpartisan issue,” Ward 4 Norman City Councilwoman Helen Grant said.
Grant is referring to Senate Bill 484 in that statement. As written by newly-elected Senator Lisa Standridge (R-Norman), the bill would make it illegal for any city with a population less than 300,000 to provide shelters or outreach for the homeless and would also require them to immediately end any existing programs. Only OKC and Tulsa would have more than that number, so if passed, they would be the only two cities in the state excluded from it.
"We all need to do our part to help address this holistically as a community,” Grant said.
According to Grant, the City of Norman uses a building to serve as a temporary emergency shelter right now with a long-term plan to have a shelter that is always open through their home based study and action plan. She said city spending on helping homelessness is less than one percent of their budget at about $68,000 per month.
“To put that in perspective, we spend $200,000 on the animal welfare shelter,” Grant said.
However, she feels it’s necessary.
"Because there are not enough services and funding to go around,” Grant said.
"If they are receiving funds to help with nonprofits who are trying to help our community, that's important,” said Angela Jiménez-Calhoun, founder of the nonprofit Beacon Project, an organization that helps teenagers in a multitude of ways to prevent homelessness and hunger among that population.
Jimenez-Calhoun and their organization has received grants from the city on just a couple of occasions. While she said the community is a huge help and other organizations at churches or otherwise do great work, all help is appreciated.
"We all work together to try to resolve all these issues and to help people,” she said. "So, it's a little frustrating when that is being questioned or jeopardized."
Standridge took to the airwaves recently on a radio show on Freedom 96.9. Discussion of the bill in this story starts at about the 36:40 mark.
At one point during the show, she claimed Norman is becoming San Francisco and she believes there’s a “vagrants problem.” She argued that people don’t always want the help and churches and nonprofits should be the main source of that help. A quote from that radio interview reads as follows, “it's like giving a bird a bread crumb. Turn around you've got a whole flock behind you."
"This affects everyone and we should be coming together to find evidence based solutions to address this nationwide problem,” Grant said.
KFOR reached out to Standridge’s office by phone and email through her profile on the OK Senate website. We have not heard back.