Oklahoma cities might be one step closer to reducing the number of people evicted in the state after Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond on July 12 issued an opinion regarding constitutional uses of taxpayer money.
Allocating municipal money to a nonprofit to fund eviction prevention services is constitutional in Oklahoma, Drummond wrote in the opinion, since eviction prevention services provide a public purpose.
Rep. Chris Kannady, R-Oklahoma City, submitted the question to Drummond. In Kannady’s letter, he wrote that Oklahoma City has been actively engaged in initiatives to address homelessness, including one initiative to provide funding to Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma to furnish legal representation to tenants facing eviction proceedings.
The effort to fund legal representation in eviction court, known as right-to-counsel, is aimed at mitigating the rising number of people experiencing homelessness and to yield substantial savings for Oklahoma City by alleviating the financial burden the problem of homelessness imposes on taxpayer funds, Kannady stated in the letter.
Kannady authored the House version of a Senate bill that passed the Oklahoma State Legislature, creating anti-camping laws that could negatively affect people experiencing homelessness. Kannady did not respond to Oklahoma Watch’s request for comment.
Removing Obstacles to Keeping Oklahomans at Home
Although cities such as Tulsa and Oklahoma City may decline to fund such efforts, Legal Aid Services Oklahoma Executive DIrector Michael Figgins said the opinion takes away barrier.
“The Oklahoma Attorney General’s opinion brings taxpayer dollars to the table when considering how to fund eviction prevention,” Figgins said.
Figgins and the Legal Aid Services team of housing attorneys recently completed a pilot program, implementing right to counsel in the areas of Tulsa and Oklahoma City with the highest concentration of eviction filings.
The pilot program served 1,824 individuals with their eviction cases. Of those, 27% reported they had experienced homelessness due to a past eviction. Legal Aid Services issued a report stating that the positive financial impact of providing legal representation in eviction cases during the pilot program was about $6.3 million – for every $1 spent on the right-to-counsel program, Oklahoma County and Tulsa County saved approximately $7.37.
For 2023, Shelterwell reported 48,278 eviction cases filed in Oklahoma. This year, according to the Legal Aid report, eviction totals could top last year’s.
Guaranteeing legal representation for people facing eviction is a step toward remedying the state’s growing number of people experiencing homelessness, as evictions are a known cause for homelessness nationwide.
If city money can be allocated directly to groups that advocate for tenants, in addition to an upcoming HUD grant opportunity offering $2.4 million to support right-to-counsel citywide programs, guaranteed legal assistance for tenants in eviction court could be attainable and sustainable.
Figgins said implementing right-to-counsel will cost about $2 million in Tulsa and the same in Oklahoma City.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimated that one chronically homeless person costs taxpayers an average of $35,578 per year.
According to the 2024 Point-in-Time counts, 1,838 Oklahoma City residents are homeless and 1,427 Tulsans are homeless.
Since eviction is a factor in as many as one-in-four causes of homelessness in Oklahoma, tens of millions could be saved by providing legal advocacy before people become homeless.
“Keeping an individual or family housed is far less expensive than the wrap-around support needed should they become homeless,” Amy Coldren, executive director of Shelterwell, said.
In Oklahoma City’s recent Point in Time count in which people experiencing homelessness were counted and surveyed, 36% of the 1,838 people counted had been evicted previous to their homelessness. Tulsa’s Point in Time count shows lack of affordable housing and loss of income as the top two factors respondents said contributed to their homelessness.
Genrally; Oklahoma’s efforts to prevent evictions are federally funded by HUD and the U.S. Treasury’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program. Rental assistance dollars are passed from the federal government to local control, but will dry up at the end of July. .
“Attorney General Drummond’s opinion could allow the city to invest in programs they believe are important and necessary,” she said.
Evictions Affect Everybody
Providing expanded eviction protections such as legal representation in court are important steps to improving what is not just a landlord-tenant issue, but a community issue, Coldren said.
“The ripple effects of eviction touch all of us,” Coldren said.
She said victions increase the likelihood that a worker will lose their job by 22%, they cause school absenteeism and increase a tenant’s mortality rate, placing an increased burden on our healthcare system.
Coldren said evictions weaken neighborhoods and communities, increase family separation, and place an enormous burden on taxpayers.
An investment in eviction prevention at any level – state, city, or private dollars – is an investment in our schools, workforce, families, childhood well-being, and physical and mental health outcomes, she said.
“Oklahoma has the sixth-highest eviction rate in the nation and is among the poorest performers in outcomes directly relating to an individual’s ability to thrive,” Coldren said. “Prioritizing eviction prevention benefits everyone.”
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
