Recalling the fallen homeless
The second annual “Homeless Person's Memorial Service” is scheduled Saturday in Oklahoma City to remember those homeless individuals who died during 2019.
The service is open to the public and will be at 1 p.m. at Eighth Street Church of the Nazarene, 701 NW 8. It's part of a nationwide effort led by the National Coalition for the Homeless, the National Consumer Advisory Board and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council.
The local service is being hosted by the Oklahoma City chapter of the Ignation Spirituality Project in partnership with Eighth Street Church.
“One of the things most of us have heard from people who have experienced homelessness is how invisible they feel,” Sherry Alexander, area coordinator for the Ignation Spirituality Project, told The Oklahoman's Carla Hinton. “Either they don't have families or they are disassociated from family and yet each of them are our brothers and sisters. These are cherished lives.”
Last year's memorial service drew roughly 100 people. Alexander's colleague, Chris Flanagan, said the goal is to “bring the whole community together, not just to remember those who died, but also to continue to inspire the community to respond to the needs of the homeless.”
Kudos to those leading this noble undertaking.
Another indictment of the OK County jail
This page commented not long ago on a man's decision to initially plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit because he wanted to get out of the Oklahoma County jail and be placed in the state system instead (the plea was later withdrawn and the man set free). Another indictment of the jail was included in a story this week about a man sentenced to 20 years in prison for several crimes. Brenton Hager pleaded guilty in Cleveland County District Court. While leading police officers on a chase in a stolen vehicle in November 2017, Hager broadcast himself live on Facebook. “I'm thinking, hopefully, if I get to Cleveland County I'll go to jail there and not Oklahoma County,” he said. “I'm not trying to go back to Oklahoma County.” The high-rise on North Shartel is quite the place, clearly.
Liquor sales vote heads to March 3 ballot
Oklahoma County residents will have an opportunity March 3 to decide whether liquor stores in the county can be open on Sundays. Changes last year in statewide liquor laws gave grocery stores the green light to sell beer and wine seven days a week. But the law didn't apply to liquor stores; instead, that's to be decided county by county. This week, Oklahoma County's commissioners voted 2-1 to put the issue before voters. Commissioners Carrie Blumert and Kevin Calvey voted “yes.” Commissioner Brian Maughan cast the “no” vote. Maughan is concerned about the effects that expanding liquor sales will have on society. Calvey, however, argues that the proposal, if approved, “evens the playing field for different vendors.” We'll see in March how voters feel about the issue.
State's poverty statistics tell a familiar story
As a Republican candidate for governor in 2018, Tulsa attorney Gary Richardson often said, “We are not a poor state, we're a poorly run state.” In fact, Oklahoma is a poor state, as recent estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau make plain. The state's overall poverty rate was 15.5% in 2018, a slight improvement from 15.8% the year before (the national poverty rate in 2018 was 13.1%). For those Oklahomans younger than 18, the poverty rate in 2018 was 21.4%. As has been the case for generations, southeastern and southern parts of Oklahoma have the highest concentrations of poverty. The state's highest poverty rate belonged to Okfuskee County, at 26.1%. “Understanding poverty in our state is a crucial part of tackling so many of Oklahoma's challenges,” the Oklahoma Policy Institute said recently. That's the truth.