LAWTON – An ordinance that prohibits unauthorized camping in public areas attracted a parade of critics to the City Council meeting Oct. 22.
The ordinance – which one opponent branded as “heinous” – decrees that no person “may utilize public property” to establish an “unauthorized camp.”
Camping is defined in the ordinance as “to reside or dwell temporarily in a place, with shelter,” which includes “any tent, tarpaulin, lean-to, sleeping bag, shanty, bedroll, blankets, or any form of cover or protection from the elements other than clothing.”
Conviction for a violation will be a misdemeanor for which the penalty is a f ine of up to $50 and/or confinement in the city jail for up to 15 days. However, the new law provides that anyone who commits an initial violation will receive a warning, and no citation will be issued “unless the person refuses any assistance offered to them” by the police officer.
That assistance may include “information about or transportation to a shelter, food pantry, or other place where resources are made available to assist the indigent and unhoused.”
“We are a caring, compassionate community,” Lawton Police Sgt. Matt Dimmitt said in a recorded interview posted on the City of Lawton’s Facebook page. “We are trying to provide a service, get them the help they need and protect them from the elements and from crimes that happen to them on a daily basis.”
Ordinances of this nature “do not work,” David Reeves told the City Council. Initially those laws result in “a reduction in the visibility of the homeless” but often they “reduce the possibility that a homeless person can get a job.”
“This ordinance isn’t about camping. It’s about homelessness,” said Destiny “Rowan” Wilson. Many Americans are “one disaster, one bad week, away from being homeless,” she said.
Lawton has only three shelters, she said: one for families, one for victims of domestic violence, and one for children. One of those shelters – The Salvation Army’s, which can accommodate up to 26 individuals, closed in August for extensive repairs to plumbing and the electrical system that may take several months to complete.
Jordan Harris told the council he was homeless as a child and again as an adult. “Punishing them with fines” isn’t the answer, he said.
Robert Ratcliffe asserted that, “If we perpetuate homelessness by criminalizing it, you make it harder for them to get back on their feet.”
“We are criminalizing only those individuals who refuse to accept assistance,” City Attorney John Andrew said at a council meeting last month.
“We do not have the structure in Lawton to support this ordinance,” said Christal Thompkins. “What kind of training are we giving these police officers” who interact with people who are homeless? she asked.
“Our officers will receive training on how to interact with the public, with the homeless,” Dimmitt said in the city’s Facebook video.
“We don’t have enough beds” in Lawton for homeless individuals and families, Bernita Taylor, founder and CEO of MIGHT Community Development and Resource Center, said during an interview with Southwest Ledger in September. “We need collaboration among support agencies and nonprofits and municipalities” to address this issue, she said.
“We just can’t have people camping in public,” Andrew told the council at its Oct. 22 meeting.
The most recent head count of the homeless population in Lawton by the Southwest Oklahoma Continuum of Care, which is administered by MIGHT, placed the number at 350-plus people, “but the actual number is much higher than that,” Taylor said. Complaints increasing Complaints about homelessness in Lawton – and throughout the nation – are mounting.
Lawton police officers “are hearing from businesses that their employees coming to work in the mornings are having to wake up people who are sleeping at their entrances,” Dimmitt told the City Council. “They’re having problems with homeless people defecating on their property. Customers are having to walk around people who are sleeping on sidewalks. This is somebody who’s in a sleeping bag or in a tent, not somebody sitting at a curb or waiting for a bus,” Dimmitt said.
Other concerns associated with homeless populations include needles and other paraphernalia, trash and other types of waste.
The anti-camping ordinance includes an exception: its provisions “shall not apply to public property where authorized camping has been expressly allowed by city ordinance, state statute, or by express written authorization” of the City of Lawton.
That section was needed, in part, because of a council discussion last month when Olson Park, nine-tenths of an acre at Southwest E Avenue and Southwest 12th Street, was discussed as a proposed location for homeless “outreach and support services,” including tents. The park was suggested because it is “often utilized as a temporary shelter site,” Parks Director Larry Parks explained.
However, those plans were shelved after Capt. Bryan Brinlee told Parks The Salvation Army would open a lot behind their facility at 1306 SW E Ave. “to allow the homeless to camp there, where they will have access to a cot, food, and ministry services if they want it,” City Hall spokesperson Caitlin Gatlin related.
Allowing a homeless encampment at Olson Park “would have created problems,” City Manager John Ratliff said. For one thing, the City of Lawton would have had to rent port-a-potties, at taxpayer expense, because Olson Park has no restrooms.