Last Updated on February 6, 2024, 5:26 PM | Published: November 20, 2022
According to the American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare, homelessness is one of the grand challenges facing our society in the 21st Century. A grand challenge embodies largescale, complex, and interrelated social issues, creating an enduring problem that requires a great deal of innovation, collaboration, and skill to resolve.
Recognizing a social issue as a grand challenge involves the understanding that our society must meet the challenge with determination, patience, and sustained effort.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, homelessness in the United States became a national issue in the 1870’s. In the years immediately after the Civil War, the rise of industrialization and urbanization brought a great demand for housing in American cities, creating slums and tenements most often populated by recent immigrants.
Meeting the demand for these workers was one of the first issues embraced by the newly formed profession of Social Work, most notably the work of Jane Addams and the establishment of Hull House, a settlement house opened in 1889 that focused on building community and support for the thousands of immigrants arriving in Chicago’s Halsted neighborhood located on the near west side.
By 1911 Hull House expanded to 13 buildings, and the various programs offered to residents included an art gallery, a library, English classes, theater, music, and art classes, as well training in practical and technical skills, education for citizenship, and American government.
Jane Addams was among the first social reformers in the United States to utilize a multifaceted approach to resolving tough social issues, mobilizing people across the socioeconomic spectrum to improve the lives of all people.
Since the 1980’s homelessness in the United States has become an entrenched problem due to the gentrification of inner cities, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, cutbacks in government funding to Housing and Urban Development, and rising unemployment during economic downturns.
Over the last 40 years, the incremental decrease of funding for mental health and substance abuse services has contributed to a population of people who experience persistent and prolonged homelessness.
Though faith communities and nonprofit organizations have responded to the crisis by opening shelters and service programs in inner cities, many people struggling with addiction face compulsory participation in recovery programs, many lacking resources needed to provide comprehensive treatment.
Failing to maintain sobriety often results in being expelled from shelters and alienated from services.
Additionally, people with chronic and severe mental health diagnoses like Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective disorder, and Bipolar I often have difficulty managing stress and regulating emotions. When they suffer a crisis, they may become agitated and exhibit hostile behavior, resulting in suspension of services and restricted access to shelter.
They are among the people who sleep under bridges, establishing tent cities, and homeless camps often seen near public byways, remote expanses of undeveloped land, and occupying abandoned industrial facilities and neglected commercial properties.
In recent years, the City of Oklahoma City has passed various ordinances targeting panhandling and the occupation of public and private properties. Some of these ordinances have been declared unconstitutional because they effectively restrict freedom of speech and freedom of movement, two essential rights available to all Americans.
These ordinances also criminalize poverty and lack of housing, creating overcrowded jails, essentially violating the rights of people trying to endure homelessness and poverty and failing to accommodate people with mental health disabilities.
Considering the recent announcement by the Department of Justice investigating Oklahoma’s Mental Health Service System, Oklahoma City, and the Oklahoma City Police Department, ordinances proposed by Oklahoma City Councilors Stonecipher (Ward 8), Carter (Ward 1), and Stone (Ward 4), are not timely measures, demonstrating a lack of real concern for the complexity of issues that contribute to the problem of homelessness and a disregard for the collaboration and innovation needed to make real progress in resolving one of Oklahoma City’s grand challenges.
Criminalizing homelessness is an attempt to make the homeless disappear, but these efforts usually chase people from downtown Oklahoma City to outlying areas like I-44 and North Pennsylvania Avenue, Hefner Parkway and NW Expressway, and I-40 and MacArthur Boulevard, to name a few.
As they seek solace from encounters with police, Oklahoma City’s vulnerable homeless population often find themselves further away from service providers like the Homeless Alliance a mile west of downtown. When they move into suburban communities like Yukon, Edmond, Moore, and Midwest City, they often encounter an environment bereft of services and full of hostile citizens unwilling to accommodate their presence. The resultant migrations from one place to another comes with increased encounters with law enforcement and higher rates of arrest, most of which comprise misdemeanor charges.
People arrested for misdemeanor charges in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area are usually released on their own recognizance within 24 to 48 hours, sometimes in as little as 10 hours, and they are released directly onto the streets of downtown Oklahoma City where the migration patterns begin again.
Because of multiple arrests, homeless people are perpetually subject to bench warrants, frequently targeted by police officers. After warrant arrests, people typically have longer jail stays, which interrupt mental health treatment and recovery efforts. People in jail find themselves subjected to environments with higher rates of infectious diseases and interpersonal violence, sometimes resulting in homicides.
Increasing criminal penalties is not a viable solution to a persistent and complex problem like homelessness.
Councilors Stonecipher, Carter, and Stone would find better results by collaborating with human service providers, mental health professionals, faith communities who engage in ministries that focus on social reform, and business stakeholders who would benefit from a more comprehensive, thoughtful, and humane approach to one of our community’s grand challenges.
These leaders would also benefit from listening to the concerns of their fellow city councilors who support implementing the recommendations proposed by 21CP Solutions, a consultant firm hired by the City of Oklahoma City to study the Oklahoma City Police Department for the purpose of police reform. It’s going to take imagination, innovation, and commitment to resolve this issue, and the City of Oklahoma City has the resources to do it, if only they have the will.
Paula Sophia is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Oklahoma City and a former Oklahoma City Police officer.
Guest Columnist Paula Sophia is a licensed clinical social worker in Oklahoma City and a former Oklahoma City Police Officer.
