By Ciera Terry
The discussion of the homelessness crisis in Oklahoma often lacks nuance. It’s always either “the homeless are evil” or “ the homeless are good” but rarely (if ever) is it the latter.
Recently, Mayor Stan Booker implemented a Homelessness Reduction plan — a plan generated through the use of AI. The plan is a step by step guide on how to stabilize and reduce local homelessness without expanding capacity in a way that could inadvertently draw in non-residents. This plan sounds good in theory but after reading the document, and following along with his other policies, the Reduction Plan is harmful.
For example, one policy that states that a homeless person must have written permission to stay in a public place or they will be escorted from the premises.
It all leaves me wondering just how often government officials have interacted with those affected by homelessness. Public officials consistently converse about the homeless community in locked council rooms, full of people who refuse to acknowledge the true economic reasons on why the homeless community exists in the first place, most if not all claiming it is a personal failing, or out of laziness providing less than helpful advice like “just get a job”.
According to a KOSU article, in a council meeting Mayor Stan Booker said, “The City of Lawton does not have a responsibility to house people, but rather should be focusing on maintaining public safety. The council discussed possible ways to confirm an individual’s connection to Lawton before providing support with federal grant funds but did not land on a final conclusion. Suggestions included determining whether someone went to school in the area, had a previous address or family in the city or whether they were registered to vote in Lawton.”
The inherent questioning and doubt that a homeless person is subjected to in order to live or gain resources can be incredibly degrading, and if the responsibility to house people does not fall within the government’s hands, whose responsibility is it to fix? Are homeless people not part of the public? Are they not citizens who also deserve public safety? Homeless communities are disproportionately vulnerable to the exact same harm and violence that government officials are trying to protect individuals from. It seems even with the effort to help just local Lawton residents, that the plan is quite flawed, something that even the public officials recognize themselves.While government officials sit in rooms consulting with each other on how to solve the homelessness crisis, those who are homeless and are still homeless.
Mayor Stan Booker isn’t the only government official with these views. In an interview with KOCOs anchor Evan Ontot, governor Kevin Stitt spoke about Operation SAFE (which is an initiative that is to clean up state property by removing homeless camps, picking up trash and restoring safety).
Kevin Stitt said, “I am not solving the homelessness issue here in Oklahoma, that’s up to the nonprofits, the mental health providers, the rehab facilities, but I will enforce the law, and we are not gonna allow people to live under bridges. That’s not compassion either and so I’ve instructed them to work with the nonprofits here in Oklahoma City.”
Both Mayor Booker and Governor Stitt expressed that solving the homeless crisis will mainly be up to the nonprofits but nonprofits, rehabs facilities are actively being defunded under Trump’s budget plan. Who will help them then?
What does compassion mean to Oklahoma government officials? From these interviews, it’s clearly not much. Those who are homeless aren’t just struggling with mental health issues, they are struggling with unjust laws and regulations that fail to consider their circumstances. Not every homeless person is mentally ill or drug addicts. According to the National Insitute of Health, most people who are homeless develop those issues after enough time on the streets essentially begging for scraps. We have individualized struggle — claiming that when a person becomes homeless it is that person’s own personal failing but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
In today’s society, a person has to make twice as much money. A middle class individual has to experience just one bad week, with just the right amount of circumstances to end up homeless. For example a person could experience a life or death crisis the week that rent is due and now has to decide to either pay the hospital bill or their rent. According to investopedia, 67% of all Americans continue to live paycheck to paycheck and with just the right amount of inconvenience from a late car insurance payment, to accidents — a person’s life can be fundamentally changed.
The world doesn’t stop for the people; it just keeps going leaving the rest who can’t keep up, behind. When monetary value trumps everything else, where do government officials draw the line between this loose-leafed idea of fairness and public safety? The truth is that the value of a human life has always been tied down to how able our bodies are but with our economy and the ever growing hustle culture — that is no longer enough.
The thing is, life could be forgiving, but the economy is not and using Kevin Stitt words — that’s not compassion either.