Norman Leaders Consider Moving Downtown Homeless Shelter To Griffin Memorial Site

The City of Norman is considering a new location for an emergency homeless shelter after a scathing audit of the current facility.

The current shelter location in downtown Norman off James Garner Avenue & West Gray Street has drawn the anger of area business owners and criticism from a city audit that found 19 deficiencies with the current setup.

“What we have right now is unsustainable. It’s not safe,” Councilman Austin Ball said at a Tuesday Norman City Council meeting.

“I visited with many of the people staying there and many of them are terrified for their lives that we are going to vote to kick them out on the street,” Councilman Stephen Holman said.

As Norman City leaders workshop the idea of what to do with the city’s homeless population of 240 people in the most recent survey, one thing has become clear. The current location on Gray Street is not safe or sustainable.

“I wouldn’t have it in my backyard. I wouldn’t have it next to my kid’s school,” Ball said. Adding he would be against any proposal to move the facility. 

A new possible location once overlooked due to an anticipated sell-off is back on the city’s radar; a property on the Griffin Memorial Hospital campus off East Main and 12th Avenue Northeast.

“This seems like the best, the most logical place in all of Norman for something like this to go,” Holman said.

The site being evaluated by city staff would double the current shelter’s capacity, be removed from businesses and eventually schools be close to county mental health services. City leaders said Tuesday the building does need upgrades to air conditioning and fire suppression systems.

The city still has some major questions to answer like, who has the final say on an agreement to rent the space and how much repairs would cost. City councilors and the mayor also discussed other systems to address homelessness like hotel vouchers and sobering centers.

“This is the most pressing issue facing local government in the United States of America. Darn it, we’re not going away. We’re going to keep fighting the good fight until we achieve a level of satisfaction,” City Manager Darrel Pyle said.

Jason Olsen, the Director of Norman Parks and Recreation, said the facility could be up and running in three to six months. He said repairs could cost between $100,000 to $500,000

This comes as the state facility at Griffin Memorial is planning to transition services to a new state-of-the-art facility currently being constructed in Oklahoma City.