As the City of Lawton continues to address homelessness, officials are assessing the legal feasibility of establishing a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization to help sustain and expand services for unhoused individuals.
“We recognize the essential work being done by local nonprofits and service providers, and we are grateful for their ongoing support,” City Manager John Ratliff said. “However, as the need grows, we are committed to stepping up and exploring additional solutions to ensure vulnerable individuals have access to shelter and assistance.”
The Lawton Police Department “has been going out and interacting with the homeless,” Sgt. Matt Dimmitt said. “We are trying everything we can to build a rapport with the homeless in our town.”
As part of this effort, the City is evaluating potential locations for a designated homeless encampment to provide a safe, low-barrier option for people in need. Officials anticipate having a plan in place in the coming weeks, should the Salvation Army be unable to continue its current operations.
In addition, the City’s bus program remains available for individuals who wish to reconnect with family, friends, or support networks in other cities. Funded by the City Manager’s Contingency Fund, this initiative provides bus tickets to destinations within the contiguous United States.
“If we find out they were brought here on terms they weren’t happy with, or were let out of jail and don’t want to be here, or were bused here against their will, we have the means to help them get back home or to a location of their choosing,” he said. “We can buy a bus ticket for them to take them wherever they want to go to get reunited with a family member or a friend.”
In addition, “We have homeless outreach contacts in other towns, and we can alert them if a homeless person here has a family member or friend in another town,” Dimmitt said. “We have a couple of churches in town who contribute in this way.”
Lawton has “a network of outreach people in town who assist those who have a need for housing, clothing, a shower – things we can provide to help them get their feet back on the ground,” the police officer said.
Also, drug and alcohol rehab services are available “for those who want to get help for their addiction.”
Lawton “wants to be a community of hand-ups, not hand-outs,” Dimmitt said. “We want to give them the tools and opportunity to better themselves.”
City Hall is working with community partners to develop “practical, compassionate, and long-term solutions” to address homelessness and support those in need, Ratliff said.
Unfortunately, homelessness is a knotty problem that won’t be solved anytime soon, if ever.
Precise head count probably impossible The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reported in January 2024 that more than 771,000 people experienced homelessness in the United States. That was a record high number and an 18% increase from 2023 – constituting 23 of every 10,000 Americans experiencing homelessness.
A head count of the homeless population in Lawton last fall by the Southwest Oklahoma Continuum of Care placed the number at 350-plus people, “but the actual number is much higher than that,” said Bernita Taylor, founder and CEO of MIGHT Community Development and Resource Center.
Obtaining a precise head count on the number of homeless individuals in Lawton is virtually impossible to quantify because “it’s skewed,” Dimmitt said.
“There are the those who lost their house or their apartment and are temporarily living on the street or with a relative or friend; there are approximately 150 to 200 addicts and the chronically homeless who live that way because they prefer it; there are ‘the hidden homeless’,” Dimmitt said, who are “couch surfers” living at the residence of a relative or friend “until they overstay their welcome”. And there are those “who are staying in someone’s back yard or in a garage or storage shed.”
There also are homeless children staying in the Marie Detty Center because they were removed from their parents’ custody and became wards of the state. “There’s a lot of that,” Dimmitt said.
And there are sex offenders. “We have about 30 of those who claim to be homeless,” he told Southwest Ledger.
Municipal agencies cope with problems In 2023 (the latest year for which local statistics are available), the Lawton Police Department (LPD) received 1,200 calls for service that involved the homeless. Those calls involved a panoply of issues, such as petty larceny, trespassing, unwanted guest, arrests on warrants, etc. As a result, approximately 175 homeless individuals were booked into Lawton’s city jail that year.
The Lawton Fire Department responded in 2023 to 50 fires in vacant houses that were attributed to homeless individuals igniting fires accidentally or deliberately. Each of those fires required “some kind of action on the part of 10 to 20 firefighters,” LPD Sgt. Matt Dimmitt said.
During a five-month period that year, city workers removed piles of trash and other debris from nine locations in waterways throughout town.
According to Dimmitt, various cleanups resulted in the removal of five tons of trash, three and a half tons of trash, three tons of trash at one, and two tons of trash and debris at another. Other cleanup jobs netted nine 42-gallon bags of trash, three 42-gallon bags of trash, and six 42-gallon bags of trash. One clean out culminated in the recovery of 17 shopping carts.
Collectively “that was 35,700 pounds of trash and debris removed from municipal waterways,” Dimmitt said.
“We as a city are working diligently to assist the homeless. Taxpayer money is being spent to do this,” he said. “We can’t let people just trash our city.”
Ordinances address camping and carts Dimmitt pointed to the city ordinance adopted last October that prohibits unauthorized camping in public areas. The municipal law 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 fine of up to $50 and/or confinement in the city jail for up to 15 days.
However, the ordinance 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.”
Dimmitt also mentioned the city ordinance that prohibits recycling centers from buying metal shopping carts from the homeless. In fact, it is against the law for a scrap metal dealer here to purchase, sell – or even be in possession of – a shopping cart or parts of a shopping cart.
Metal recyclers can legally acquire shopping carts only from representatives of the companies that own the carts; this is intended to prevent thefts of the carts. Wal-Mart pays $255 per cart and has had to buy them in bulk quantities to replace units that were stolen, the LPD officer said.
Some stores in Lawton have upgraded to shopping carts that have wheel locks, Dimmitt noted; when the cart crosses a threshold the rear wheels lock, preventing their removal from the premises.
“We are doing everything we can as a city to maintain order and cleanliness and to assist people in being able to live within our societal norms,” Sgt. Dimmitt asserted.