In Oklahoma, much has changed since 2016. The population has increased and more people have moved to the state’s urban centers. Oklahoma’s Latino/Hispanic population is up, as is the state’s gross domestic product. Employment is high and the prison population has declined.

Yet, eviction filings have skyrocketed.

In 2024, alone, court records show that 48,070 eviction cases were filed, an increase of more than 1,400 over 46,668 filings in 2022.

This year, a handful of lawmakers thought they had taken the first step to address that problem with Senate Bill 128, which would have added more time for tenants in the eviction process. By increasing time, advocates of the bill said, tenants had a better chance of staying in their homes.

That bill was vetoed by Gov. Kevin Stitt.

And though there was, briefly, talk of a veto override, the vote margins for the bill were too slim to support an override vote. In the House, the bill only had 51 yes votes, and of the remaining 50, 11 lawmakers were excused from voting. In the Senate, 19 members – including almost all of the Senate’s far right caucus – voted no.

“It was bipartisan, but the vote was very close,” Sen. Julia Kirt, the bill’s Senator author, said.

Politics aside, the number of eviction filings continues to increase. 

According to Shelterwell, a policy group pushing for affordable housing, eviction filings in Oklahoma have jumped by almost 27% since 2016.

For Kirt, that ever-increasing rate and the politics surrounding the Residential Landlord Tenant Act, will occupy her time for the next few months. But even she acknowledged it will take more than just extending the eviction timeline to reduce the number of evictions in Oklahoma.

“We can get together on the supply side discussion, but that won’t solve everything,” Kirt said. “We also have the issue of stability. We have a ridiculously high eviction rate. We have taken for granted, for years, that we have enough affordable housing and we don’t.”

And evictions, she said, hold children back. 

A study by Yale University’s Tobin Center for Economic Policy underscores that. The study, released in April, said children who are evicted from their homes are more likely to change schools, miss days of school and be chronically absent.

In addition, the study reported that evictions reduce the credits completed in high school.

“It also reduces a child’s likelihood of graduating high school by 12.5 percentage points, which suggests being evicted has about the same impact on graduation rates as juvenile incarceration,” the study said.

State Rep. Daniel Pae, the Lawton Republican who co-authored SB 128, agreed. Like Kirt, Pae said he would continue the push to upgrade the Landlord Tenant Act but, he added, reducing the eviction rate will involve changes to more than one area.

“This isn’t just about housing,” he said. “We have to think holistically when it comes to this issue. It’s also about access to good wraparound services, such as social services and other things to make sure we’re helping individuals to get on a better path.”

Pae said interim hearings on the issue and meetings with both supporters and opponents would be considered.

“We have to continue the discussions,” he said.

Policy experts said issues such as minimum wage, the amount of affordable housing available, zoning laws and even changes in the court system all needed to be addressed.

Victoria Wilson, an attorney for Oklahoma City University’s Tenant Rights Clinic, said part of the state’s eviction problem is a low minimum wage and rapidly increasing rental costs.

“Fewer and fewer people can afford them (increasing rent cost) and very, very few low-income folks actually get any kind of housing subsidy, so money is the broader answer,” she said.

Data from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development shows that nationally, just 92,000 residents lived in subsidized housing in 2023.

Wilson isn’t alone in that belief. Kafrey Landers, the executive director of the Apartment Association of Central Oklahoma, told Oklahoma Watch last year that skyrocketing multifamily insurance rates have played a big role in the rising cost of rent. 

A survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis reported that annual premiums had increased by an average of 14% from 2021 to 2022, 22% from 2022 to 2023, and 45% from 2023 to 2024. 

Wilson said that in addition to low incomes and high rental costs, tenants in Oklahoma have fewer rights than those in other states. She said many tenants have seen massive maintenance problems with the property they are renting and they eventually end up in court.

“When you’re in court over non-payment of rent, it’s almost never going to come up in front of the judge that you have maintenance issues,” Wilson said. “And when it does come up, it’s almost never helpful to the tenant’s case.”

Oklahoma’s Landlord Tenant Act does not include rent control, so landlords can increase rent anytime. In addition, the law doesn’t include a right to counsel for tenants and has no anti-retaliation provisions.

Katie Dilks, the executive director of the Oklahoma Access to Justice Foundation, told Oklahoma Watch in December that Oklahoma renters experience eviction at higher rates than most Americans.

“This is not because they are poorer or worse tenants, or because housing costs are higher here, but because our laws have been structured to make evictions cheap and fast,” Dilks said.

Wilson said the state needs to extend the amount of time an eviction case has to be set.

“When the case is filed, it has to be set for hearing in a five-day window,” she said. “And that has caused us many problems over the years.”

Wilson said that in Oklahoma, if you miss rent on the first of the month, you can be locked out of your dwelling by the ninth. She also called for changes in how the court handles the eviction docket.

“I frequently see people get evicted the same month they miss rent,” Wilson said. “It happens a lot in under 30 days.”

Wilson, who has worked with more than 1,000 clients on rental issues, said some eviction dockets have more than 300 cases set and the docket is only two hours long.

“That creates a lot of due process issues,” she said. “How are you supposed to get due process if you’re just running through the system and there really isn’t time for your case to be heard?”

Tenants need more time, she said, to understand everything that is happening.

Sabine Brown, a senior policy analyst with the Oklahoma Policy Institute, said in addition to higher wages and more affordable housing, state lawmakers need to modernize the Landlord-Tenant Act with provisions such as anti-retaliation.

“… Oklahoma is one of only six states that doesn’t have anti-retaliation protection.”

Sabine Brown, Oklahoma Policy Institute

“The first thing I’d point out is that Oklahoma is one of only six states that doesn’t have anti-retaliation protection,” she said. “This means that if a tenant requests repairs for a health or safety issue, instead of making that repair, the landlord could just end their lease, evict them, increase their lease and all that is perfectly legal in Oklahoma.”

Brown said the state should also make investments in affordable housing, including housing that targets the lowest-income families. She said the state is approximately 85,000 units short for low-income renters.

“We don’t have nearly enough housing stock,” she said. “Right now, it’s really hard for developers to build housing for low-income renters. The state could help bridge that gap by investing in affordable housing and making it possible for developers to build housing and keep their rent lower.”

Brown pointed to the Oklahoma Housing Stability Program as an example. That program invested $250 million in workforce housing using low-interest and zero-interest loans. She also called on public officials, both state and local, to update zoning laws to allow for more housing options, including multi-family housing.

“That’s typically been an issue that’s been left up to cities,” she said. “But we’ve seen other states across the country dive into zoning reform and look at ways they can open up more land for more affordable housing options.”

States such as California, Oregon, and Washington have banned single-family-only zoning in many areas, while other states, including Maryland, New Jersey, and New York, have passed housing legislation with zoning reforms.

With just days left before the 60^th Session of the Oklahoma Legislature adjourns, it’s unlikely that any legislation addressing affordable housing or the changes to the Landlord Tenant Act will make it to the governor’s desk.

But for Pae, Kirt, Brown and Wilson, the end of the session opens a new platform for continuing their work and the push to modernize the law.

“There’s a lot more out there to do,” Kirt said. “Lots of people to talk to and issues to discuss. We’re going to keep at it. This is important.”

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