In May, Operation SAFE, the governor’s initiative to remove homeless encampments from state property, was enacted in Norman.
Two weeks later, the Norman City Council was criticized by residents and officials over an agenda item proposing a temporary suspension of the zoning ordinance to allow camping in residential areas. The agenda item was not scheduled for a vote, but was met with a unanimous rejection after public outcry.
And, while a wave of anti-homeless policy and rhetoric has swept through Norman and the state, the State Fire Marshal on Monday temporarily shut down the Norman Night Shelter for code violations, a move that put more than 50 people at risk of sleeping outside.
Shelter Shutdown
City Care employee Rebecca Seals said that when she arrived at the shelter on Monday, about 10 a.m., she was greeted by a Norman city employee, a Cleveland County fire marshal and three other people that she didn’t recognize. Those three were state fire marshals.
Seals said she was told that a complaint had been filed and that the marshals would be inspecting the property.
City Care, a homeless shelter and support services organization based in Oklahoma City, operates the Norman Night Shelter, but the building is owned by the city.
The complaint was anonymous and delivered to the state fire marshal on June 1 via the United States Postal Service, according to a report from the marshal’s office.
Seals said the inspection took about an hour and a half, but it felt like forever as the possibilities of what could happen raced through her head.
That’s when the group of officials came back and told her about the code violations. No one was allowed to stay in the shelter until the violations were fixed. The required modifications included:
- The northeast exit door is to open outwards instead of inwards, as well as removing the barrel bolt and installing panic exit hardware.
- Install panic exit hardware on the south exit doors.
- Repair or replace inoperable exit signage.
- Repair or replace all inoperable emergency egress lighting.
- Replace all missing, damaged or stained ceiling tiles.
- Install a fire extinguisher in the men’s side of the shelter.
- All fire extinguishers must be maintained.
- Open junction boxes and exposed wiring are prohibited.
Tiffany Martinez Vrska, the Norman chief communications officer, said repairs are estimated to cost the city $10,000 to $12,000. She said the repairs should be completed by Friday.
“As soon as that (the repairs) are taken care of, we can get in there,” Vrska said.
That meant no person experiencing homelessness could stay in the shelter for at least four days. It also gave the City Care service providers a limited time to find a shelter for more than 50 people. According to the marshal’s report, the inspection was completed at 12:31 p.m. The shelter normally opens at 5 p.m.
“I didn’t know if anybody would step up and take us in on such short notice,” Seals said.
Pop-Up Shelter at the First Presbyterian
City Care President and CEO Rachel Freeman said that after calls to several organizations that could provide shelter for a few days, First Presbyterian Church of Norman agreed to temporarily house those experiencing homelessness.
That’s when the work began to convert the church atrium into a pop-up shelter.
Following the lead of Shawn Loyd, the chief programs officer for City Care, and Michael East, the senior pastor of First Presbyterian, workers with City Care and a Norman police officer moved tables and chairs, brought in beds and took breakable objects out of the room.
Oklahoma Watch visited the shelter for three days to witness the setup, meet with service providers and speak to people experiencing homelessness.
The wall of the First Presbyterian has text that reads, “Making our corner of the world more like the kingdom of God.”
East, the senior pastor, said that is the vision of the church and why they have been placed in Norman.
“When complications or problems or needs arise within the community, that’s the role of the church; we should be the first to step up and say, ‘We can help,’” East said.
East hearkened back to a sermon he gave the Sunday prior on being a good Samaritan, and how that connected to the need that arose in the community when the shelter was shut down.
“In that sermon, I talked about how there are places where in our community it becomes a no man’s land,” East said. “Everyone has a good, reasonable excuse not to help, but Jesus says, ‘You have to go a step further if you want to follow me.’”
Despite the quick response from the service providers and the church, the move destabilized the homeless community.
Decommissioning and Destabilization
Some staying at the shelter are disabled, others are elderly and many experience mental health problems. When they arrived at the shelter, they were asked by service workers to board a bus provided by Care-A-Van and go somewhere many had never been.
It was hot out, and tensions were high. Freeman said that because of Operation SAFE and the shelter being shut down, many of the people experiencing homelessness were at risk of crisis.
“They’ve been decommissioning encampments with no plan on the back end,” Freeman said. “In Norman, right now, there’s really nowhere for people experiencing homelessness to legally be.”
It was especially harmful to one woman, who was checked into the hospital with problems breathing after her first night at the pop-up shelter. She was in a wheelchair and required a mobile ventilator.
William, 47, is a homeless man staying at the church, and has been homeless for a year. Oklahoma Watch is only using William’s first name to protect his identity and avoid repercussions in his housing search.
He said he’s tried several times to get housing, but is still struggling. William said he cannot work because he can’t lose his disability check and benefits. That’s not for lack of trying. He said he still dreams of writing and creating his Dungeons & Dragons-like tabletop game, the Legends of Yaugmire.
“If I do anything to better my life, I get kicked on my ass,” he said.
William was not directly affected by the encampment sweeps during Operation SAFE, but said he had friends lose their belongings, and that the sweeps and recent legislation have only made it harder for him to survive and get back on his feet.
“This whole thing has been fucked,” William said. “You can’t live. Most of these people get disability checks. They want to get off the streets, but tell me some place I make three times more in rent when I make less than $1,000 a month.”
Karrie, another woman experiencing homelessness and staying at the church, said she did lose items in an encampment sweep, though she wasn’t sure if it was Operation SAFE.
Karrie lost her tent, blankets, her daughter's jacket, her medications and her birth certificate. Without those items, she was at serious risk of health complications, and without a birth certificate, the progress she had made towards housing was gone. Then, she was told the shelter was shut down.
“It’s scary,” she said. “My first thought was, ‘I guess I’ll sleep on the sidewalk if they don’t open up.’”
Wynton White, 43, is also staying at the shelter. She has been sporadically homeless since 2020. White said the shutdown threw her a curveball.
“People like us just need assistance because deep down we’re scared,” she said.
White has health complications, and after her mother died, her support system in Oklahoma was nonexistent, which opened the door for her to be homeless. She said the shutdown and the sweeps have only displaced and dehumanized homeless people.
She said that, because of this dehumanization and her personal experiences, she hopes to give back to the community one day through service work.
“We’re people, we’re not the plague,” White said. “We just had a stroke of bad luck.”
Criminalizing the Problem
Freeman said that because Norman lacks infrastructure in its homeless services, the shelter mainly serves people with high levels of chronicity, meaning they’ve been homeless outside longer and their needs are higher.
Sabine Brown, a senior policy analyst at Oklahoma Policy Institute, said that avoiding chronic homelessness starts with the housing-first model.
Housing-first projects prioritize permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness to improve their quality of life through shelter and resources like case management, healthcare and food.
“Unfortunately, we’re seeing a shift away from that,” Brown said. “Instead of investing in affordable housing, the state has chosen to pass legislation that criminalizes people.”
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
