Oklahoma Senator Julie Daniels (R) has proposed legislation that would allow certain residents in large cities to submit claims for compensation if the city doesn’t conduct sweeps and other actions targeting street-homeless residents in their area. The “Oklahoma Safe Neighborhoods Act of 2026” would consider claims from homeowners as well as from triple net leaseholders of commercial properties—renters who also pay the insurance, maintenance and property tax. In essence the bill is only for property owners and business owners.
Senate Bill 1205 was introduced November 26, and is scheduled for a hearing in early February 2026. If passed, it would declare an emergency and take effect July 1, 2026.
Residents “may submit a written claim for compensation” if they live in a qualifying city that has bans targeting street-homelessness but declines—whether by law or informal “practice”—to enforce them. Bans on any of the following would qualify: “illegal public camping”; “obstructing public thoroughfare”; “loitering”; “panhandling”; “public urination or defecation”; “public consumption of alcoholic beverages”; “possession or use of illegal substances”; or “shoplifting.”
The bill then appears to moot all of that, stating that a city could also qualify as long as it “maintains a public nuisance.”
Property owners could submit claims for reimbursement if they demonstrated that they’d expended personal funds “to mitigate the effects” of the city’s underenforcement. They could also submit claims for an amount equal to what they’d lost in property value as a result of the “public nuisance”; there’s no indication of how this would be measured.
If their claim were rejected or they didn’t receive a response within 30 days, they could challenge the decision in district court. If approved, the maximum payout would be whatever the claimant paid in primary property tax for the past year. In Oklahoma, this would be in the ballpark of $1,500. If someone believed they were owed more, however, they could file a claim for the remaining amount the following year, and keep repeating each year if necessary.
Lastly, the property would have to be located in a municipality with a population over 130,000. Currently there are three Oklahoma cities with populations large enough to qualify: Oklahoma City has about 720,400 residents, Tulsa has about 415,500 and Norman has around 131,700.
After the Supreme Court’s 2024 Grants Pass decision, Oklahoma enacted a state-wide public camping ban.
State and local legislators have been increasingly frustrated that the law doesn’t allow street-homeless residents to be targeted outright.
In 2015, Oklahoma City proposed a ban on “standing, sitting or staying on any portion of a median either less than thirty feet wide or located less than two hundred feet from an intersection,” which the chief of police explained in slideshow that was originally titled “Panhandler Presentation” before being changed to “Median Safety Presentation.” The ordinance was enacted, then struck down by a federal appeals court in 2020.
In 2024, the Supreme Court’s Johnson v. Grants Pass decision upheld the criminalization of homelessness even when no shelter beds are available. In the wake of that decision, Oklahoma enacted a state-wide public camping ban. Oklahoma City and Tulsa only have shelter beds for about two out of three residents sleeping outside.
The camping ban has gotten off to a slow start, with local law enforcement unclear on whether various state-owned lands fell under city versus county jurisdiction. The Frontier reported that due to the law’s phrasing and conflict with local ordinances, the Oklahoma City Police Department and the Norman Police Department weren’t enforcing the ban, except for inside a state-owned wilderness park in Norman due to a local ordinance there that didn’t cover the rest of the city.
Meanwhile some county sheriffs’ offices weren’t enforcing the ban because people weren’t camping in the areas under their jurisdiction. However, Tulsa officials were pressured to begin crackdowns, and according to the Frontier at least 58 people have been arrested for violating the city-specific camping ordinance since November 2024.
SB 1205 specifically proposes to measure population size not according to current estimates or projections for 2026, but “according to the latest Federal Decennial Census,” which as the name suggests is conducted once every 10 years. The latest Federal Decennial Census is from 2020, and states that the population of Norman is 128,026. A different population cutoff, or more current source of data, might prompt less confusion.
Image via San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria