State says it spent nearly $900k on Tulsa, Oklahoma City homeless camp cleanups

While the letters penned by Chief Operating Officer David Ostrowe don’t demand immediate payments, it warns the state will attempt to pass legislation to recover costs for any past, present or future homeless encampment cleanups conducted by the state.

Operation SAFE also conducted cleanup efforts in Norman, but a city spokesperson said they have not yet received a letter from the state. It was not immediately clear why Norman did not receive a letter or how much cleanup costs totaled there. 

The state coordinated with a nonprofit for the homeless encampment cleanup efforts in Oklahoma City, but not with the municipal governments. Officials said the state sometimes conducted its cleanup operations without warning, according to reporting by Oklahoma Watch. 

Ostrowe’s office referred questions to the Governor’s Office. 

Tevis Hillis, a Stitt spokesperson, did not answer specific questions from Oklahoma Voice but said the state has shielded cities from the costs of providing mental health and social services. 

“The least the municipality can do is keep the streets clean and safe,” Hillis said in a statement. 

Ostrowe wrote in the letter that the state expenditures were necessary because local police failed to “enforce the law and address these encampments.” When the city fails to act, the cost is shifted to all taxpayers, he wrote. 

“The State has repeatedly stepped in to remove dangerous and unsanitary encampments, dispose of abandoned property and waste, restore public areas, and address conditions that Oklahoma City has allowed to persist,” Ostrowe wrote in one of the letters. “Each time the City refuses to act, the financial burden is shifted from Oklahoma City to taxpayers across all 77 counties. That arrangement cannot continue.”

Tulsa received the same letter except it was personalized to that city.

Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols in a statement said the city already dedicates resources to maintain state property and has spent about $300,000 annually to clean state highways. 

“This should not be a competition over who can send the other government the largest bill,” he said in a statement. 

He said Tulsa is actively doing its part to address homelessness and public safety and has been able to move hundreds of people out of homelessness and closed 10 encampments. 

“The State made a decision to conduct a large-scale cleanup of property that it owns and maintains,” Nichols said. “It is difficult to understand how the City of Tulsa then becomes financially responsible for that cleanup simply because the State wants to be reimbursed for their own expenses.”

The City of Tulsa has also expended resources to respond to the “consequences” of Operation SAFE, like locating displaced individuals and connecting them to resources for medication, identification and more. 

“If the State’s position is that governments should simply bill one another for work they believe the other should have done, then we are certainly capable of having that conversation – and we can start by sending the State the bill for the work the City is already doing on its property,” Nichols said.

A spokesperson for Oklahoma City and the Tulsa Police Department declined to comment Thursday. A spokesperson for the Oklahoma City Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment. 

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