SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2025 |
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| What we get wrong about homelessness and mental health (Commentary) Too often, when conversations about homelessness come up, someone says it: "Well, they're all mentally ill." It's a comment tossed off as fact, but it reveals something deeper – not truth, but comfort. If homelessness is just the result of personal dysfunction, then no one has to admit it's a failure of policy. But that claim isn't true, and it's more harmful than most people realize. [Sabine Brown / OK Policy] |
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You're invited to our Community Insights + Action Meetings!
OK Policy hosted listening sessions across Oklahoma to hear directly from residents about the challenges and opportunities in their communities. Now, we're going back — this time to share what we heard and turn those conversations into action. At our Community Insights to Action meetings, attendees will review local and statewide data, discuss key takeaways from the listening sessions, and learn practical ways to advocate for change in their communities and across the state. All Oklahomans are invited to join the conversation and help shape a stronger future for Oklahoma.
Make your voice heard — find a session near you and join the conversation. |
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Tuesday | Nov. 81 | 6:00 p.m. Pontotoc Co. AgriPlex (North Room), 1710 N Broadway Ave, Ada, OK 74820 |
| Thursday | Nov. 20 | 6:00 p.m. Owens Multipurpose Center Gymnasium, 1405 SW 11th St, Lawton, OK 73501 |
| Thursday | Nov. 20 | 6:00 p.m. Enid Public Library, 120 W Maine St, Enid, OK 73701 |
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"You may care little about the street-corner panhandlers or the shanty towns near you. You may care even less if your neighborhood and environs rarely see either. But you should care about how your elected public policymakers approach problems involving the least among us. What they say and do goes a long way toward determining what kind of communities we live in." — Arnold Hamilton, writing in an op-ed about the differing approaches that the governor and Tulsa's mayor are taking to the issue of homelessness. [The Journal Record] |
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Feedback results from information gathering meetings shared: Over this past summer, the Oklahoma Policy Institute held meetings in Oklahoma, gathering data on concerns of residents in towns across the northeastern portion of the state. Austin Webb, interim outreach director and Northeast region organizer for OPI, said community voices are driving OPI's 2026 policy priorities. [Tahlequah Daily Press] Juvenile Justice in Oklahoma: A Roadmap: Unless you've had some sort of firsthand experience with youth justice, the juvenile system can be overwhelming because it's different than the (adult) criminal system most of us are more familiar with. We're here to answer your questions. Below, you will find an infographic—the first in a series of interactive posts that we've developed to help people understand how the juvenile justice system works, why it exists, and what we can do to better support the youth in it. [Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice] Death row inmate receives rare reprieve: Oklahoma has the nation's highest per capita rate for executions, according to the Oklahoma Policy Institute. Tremane Wood is the second person in the United States to have a death sentence commuted by a state governor in 2025, in a rare reprieve. [Gaylord News] Opinion: Two leaders, two visions for the unhoused: How serious is Oklahoma's homeless problem? This year's federal Point In Time count identified 1,882 unhoused in Oklahoma City, up 2.4% from 2024, and 1,449 in Tulsa, up 4%. Statewide, 13 of every 10,000 Sooners reported experiencing homelessness last year – a higher rate than Texas, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri, according to OKPolicy. [Arnold Hamilton / The Journal Record] |
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Budget Reconciliation Budget reconciliation is a special process that makes specific legislation easier to pass in the U.S. Congress. In the Senate, reconciliation bills aren't subject to the filibuster and therefore need only a simple majority of 51 votes to pass. The process starts when the House and Senate agree on an annual budget resolution that includes "reconciliation directives" for specified committees. These instruct specified House and Senate committees to prepare and report legislation by a certain date that: 1) increases or decreases spending (outlays) by specified amounts over a specified time; 2) increases or decreases revenues by specified amounts over a specified time; or 3) modifies the public debt limit. In most cases, a single budget resolution can generate only two reconciliation bills: a tax-and-spending bill or a spending-only bill and, if desired, a separate debt limit bill. To ensure that reconciliation bills remain focused on budget measures, the Senate adopted the "Byrd Rule", which treats as extraneous any provision that doesn't change the level of spending or revenues, or where the change in spending or revenues is "merely incidental" to the provision's non-budgetary effects. The Byrd Rule is enforced by points of order raised by members and decided on by the Senate Parliamentarian. In 2021, the Parliamentarian rejected efforts to pass a minimum wage increase and provide a path to legalization for certain categories of unauthorized immigrants in reconciliation bills. As of 2025, Congress has passed reconciliation bills 24 times since the procedure was first employed in 1980. It has been used on several occasions to pass major tax cuts, including the Republicans' tax cut of 2017, as well as the major welfare overhaul bill in 1996 and parts of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. In March 2021, the Democrats used reconciliation to pass a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). After repeated failures in 2021 to approve the multi-trillion Build Back Better Act, a centerpiece of the Biden Administration's agenda, the Democratic majority in Congress was able to use the reconciliation process to pass the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. In 2024, Republicans used reconciliation to narrowly pass President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act that extended most of the 2017 tax cuts, enacted additional tax cuts, raised the debt ceiling, and imposed major spending cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs. Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here. |
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Opinion: What I've learned in prison about political disagreements A recent political discussion between myself and a friend in the college lab at my prison could have ended like other political discussions these days, with insults, yelling, then ignoring each other. But such behavior is not allowed in the college department at Oklahoma's Mabel Bassett Correctional Center for women, and it would get us banned. We blinked at each other in silence for a few seconds, egos flaring, both likely re-playing political debates before our incarceration that ended friendships. After 20 minutes of debating if SNAP benefits should cancel coverage of "junk" food items, we came to realization neither one of us would change our stance. Our past experiences played too big a role in our lives to believe any different. Instead of over-reacting, my friend simply raised her hands and said, "Hey let's just agree to disagree." A simple solution for when ideologies differ between friends. Holding a liberal ideology while incarcerated in a Republican-run state has taught me a vital lesson: it is easier to have a conversation regarding politics with people inside the fences than those free in society. [Read the full op-ed from Lindsey Smith in The Oklahoman] |
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15.4% - The average share of Oklahoma households between 2021 and 2023 that reported being food insecure. Oklahoma was one of seven states (along with Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas) with a higher rate of food insecurity than the national average of 12.2%. [USDA] 22% - The estimated share of people experiencing homelessness who have a serious mental health condition. While higher than the rate in the general population, this finding challenges the common misconception that most unhoused individuals are homeless because of a mental illness. [KFF] 25 - The number of people currently incarcerated on death row in Oklahoma. Of those, only one has been recommended for clemency, while the rest await execution dates. Maintaining Oklahoma's death penalty system continues to cost the state millions of dollars each year in legal proceedings, housing, and appeals. [OK Policy] $55.9 million - Amount spent on 2024 federal elections in Oklahoma. This is compared to $19.7 million (or $28.7 million, when adjusted for inflation) spent in the state during the 2008 presidential election cycle, the last before the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that the First Amendment protects the right of wealthy individuals and corporations to spend unlimited money on elections. [Open Secrets] |
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Map the Meal Gap 2025: A Report on Local Food Insecurity and Food Costs in the United States: Food insecurity occurs when at least one member of the household lacks access to enough food for an active, healthy life because of limited money or other resources. It is often linked to one or multiple factors that lead to food insecurity, creating a cycle that can be hard to break. These factors can be related to household income, expenses, access to affordable health care, the surrounding social and physical environment, and barriers to opportunity. [Feeding America] A Look at the New Executive Order and the Intersection of Homelessness and Mental Illness: In July 2025, an executive order redirected homeless-services policy toward greater enforcement of urban-camping and public-drug-use bans, expanded thresholds for civil-commitment of unhoused individuals with serious mental illness, and steered federal funds away from "Housing First" models toward treatment-first pathways. This shift marks a departure from decades of deinstitutionalization and community-based supports. In the context of rising unsheltered homelessness driven by housing unaffordability, the order's focus on enforcement — rather than housing access and wrap-around care — risks widening health and justice gaps without providing additional resources for institutional or community-based solutions. [KFF] The Cost of Life: The Economic Impacts of the Death Penalty: The death penalty places a heavy economic burden on public finances, with costs for capital trials, appeals, and death row incarceration substantially exceeding those for life-without-parole cases. These elevated costs stem from longer proceedings, more complex legal safeguards, and extended stays on death row — all while executions remain rare and carry uncertain deterrent or public-safety benefits. Redirecting resources to alternative justice measures could free up funds for crime prevention, rehabilitation, and community safety without sacrificing accountability. [University of Wisconsin–Madison Undergraduate Journal of Economics] State Legislatures Can Push Back Against Citizens United: State lawmakers can fight the influence of big money in politics by passing trigger laws that would go into effect if the Supreme Court's misguided ruling is reversed. [Brennan Center for Justice] |
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What's up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know. |
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Contact Oklahoma Policy Institute
907 S. Detroit Ave #1005
Tulsa, OK 74120
United States 918-794-3944 | info@okpolicy.org |
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