LOCAL
Ross Terrell, The Oklahoma Eagle
Amy Sawyer and her boyfriend Jason Milligan stand outside McDonald’s on Tulsa’s westside. Photo: Ross Terrell/The Eagle.
The high temperature hit 93 degrees — above average for a mid-September day in Tulsa. And it showed on Amy Sawyer as she walked into a McDonald’s on the city’s west side, her green T-shirt and pink pair of shorts drenched in sweat.
Outside, her boyfriend Jason Milligan paced in the parking lot alongside their two dogs, pushing a stroller containing the belongings they had left.
Sawyer, who turned 50 in June, and Milligan were recently displaced as a result of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s Operation SAFE — an initiative where he ordered state troopers to dismantle homeless encampments on state property in Tulsa. Stitt said people would be given two options: a ride to jail or shelter.
“We lost all of our clothes,” Sawyer told The Eagle. “There is stuff that my boyfriend had found that, you know, little trinkets and stuff, that we left behind, because it’s not a necessity.”
Once they got word of the sweeps, she said, they had to act fast.
“You grab your tent, you grab what little clothes you can, food if you have any,” she said. Most importantly, they grabbed their backpacks.
“Our daily backpacks consist of everything that’s important, paperwork, documents, stuff that we can use to trade and bargain with,” Sawyer said. “You know, ‘Oh, you got a little bit of food, well I got this.’”
For Sawyer, she lost almost everything but for Stitt, it was a sign of progress in cleaning up downtown Tulsa.
“In 14 days, OHP cleared 64 sites and disposed of 1.97 million pounds of debris,” the governor touted once the cleanup ended. The governor’s office did not provide comment on criticism of Operation SAFE or its impact on unhoused people prior to publication.
But Josh Sanders, outreach director with the downtown homeless shelter Tulsa Day Center, says every pound of trash tells a story.
“What really happened is OHP came through these encampments and threw away the last bit of people’s belongings that they were holding on to from a life that they lost already,” Sanders said.
He says many people experiencing homelessness were faced with an impossible decision when they had to grab their items and flee.
“We lost family heirlooms,” Sanders said. “We lost things that had great importance to people, but they just didn’t have time to think about it, because right now I need to know that I’m going to live tonight.”
Since then, his teams have been replacing everything from clothing and shoes to hygiene products and blankets. And the cost has been “dramatic.”
“Every ID that I get for somebody costs $25,” Sanders said. “Every birth certificate costs $50. So each person that’s lost their ID and their birth certificate, one of our social service providers are now going to have to step in and fill that $75 void for that individual.”
He said the costs trickle out to medication and prescriptions, too.
The desire for permanent housing
Being displaced had another hidden cost for Sawyer and Milligan — a loss of community.
Milligan was arrested Aug. 1 for “abode on public property” – Tulsa police’s citation for camping — and was released four days later. Sawyer said that night was a cause for celebration for her friends and the people they were sharing wooded space with.
“The night he got out of jail, they made it a big thing,” Sawyer said. “They had food, drinks. We had music going. All the dogs are out playing and getting along for once and it was nice just to sit down and be normal.”
Still, the thing Sawyer wants — and needs — the most is stable housing. Following the death of her then-fiancée, she moved to Tulsa from New Mexico. Since 2023, she’s bounced between shelters and staying with friends.
“I’m tired of wondering where my next meal is going to come from, where I’m going to sleep, how I’m going to sleep?” she said.
Her desires fall in line with the Housing First model. It’s described by the National Alliance to End Homelessness as an approach where safe and secure housing is “the foundation for life improvement.”
And Sanders agrees. Tulsa Day Center was part of Mayor Monroe Nichols’ $6 million effort to track unhoused people and place them into rapid rehousing. Sanders, and other social service providers, said Stitt’s sweeps were disruptive to that plan.
“The principle there is that once somebody has a roof over their head, they can then have the capacity to think about what’s next,” he said. “That might be mental health, that might be substance use, but when I’m really concerned about where am I going to lay my head to sleep tonight, what happens next for sobriety or for mental health kind of takes a backseat because I’m more worried about my survival today.”
Searching for a solution
Finding housing in Tulsa for people in Sawyer’s situation is littered with long wait lists and a lack of resources.
Sanders said both waiting lists for rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing are well over 1,000 people long. On a good week, they are able to match two to three people with housing.
“A lot of us are just out here trying to survive because it’s taking so long to get into housing,” Sawyer said. “I’ve been on this list since 2023 and it’s almost 2026.”
But it’s not just affordable housing that Tulsa needs more of. A 2023 study by Housing Solutions found the city was short thousands of units across all income levels.
“We need low-income and we need million-dollar homes being built,” Sanders said. “If we open up housing across the market, then we open up those lower units and we get upward mobility across the entire system.”
Sanders said that’s where the focus of government needs to be, not on just moving people around.
“The entirety of Operation SAFE was poorly planned,” Sanders said. “It was poorly thought out, poorly executed, and did far more damage than good anywhere in our community. I can’t find a single good that this operation did for anybody that it affected.”
However, some people in the business community have applauded Stitt’s efforts.
“We appreciate the governor’s actions to enforce the laws and bolster Tulsa’s pursuit to enhance quality of life,” Bill Knight, chair of the Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce, said in a press release. “This initiative complements the ongoing efforts by various Tulsa entities, reinforcing our collective commitment to addressing complex issues like homelessness and public safety.”
But Sawyer says she has a different message for the governor.
“I would tell him to lay off of us and come talk to us,” Sawyer said. “Instead of assuming that we’re all just degenerates that aren’t trying to do anything, come talk to the ones that are struggling out here to survive, to stay out of jail, to stay out of the hospital and to get into a place.”
Stitt said state troopers would return to make sure encampments don’t get reestablished. Until then, Sawyer said she, Milligan and their two dogs will make the best of their circumstances wherever they can find a safe place in Tulsa.
