Okay.

But it is definitely here.

All right, everybody.

We'll go ahead and get the meeting started.

Um, welcome to the city council study session for Tuesday, January 6th, 2026.

Um, we do have four items on the agenda.

And uh just want to welcome everybody back from the holidays, and I hope you all had a really good one and uh thought about what we're thankful for and thought about what we might be able to do better for Norman in the coming year.

So um we'll get hit the ground running and start with the first item on the agenda, which is a presentation and discussion regarding the results of the homeless shelter survey.

And we have uh Amber in a international integrated integrated.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate you all having me uh today.

Uh my name's Jackson Lyle.

I'm with Amber Integrated.

We uh performed a survey for you all last month, and uh excited to go over the results with you today.

Um at any point, feel free to stop me if you have questions or comments or things like that.

So I'll just kind of go through this with you.

Uh, you also have the same presentation in your packet that I handed out, as well as uh the top line uh document, which kind of is the same data but just structured a little bit differently, so it might be more easy to comprehend, or the questions might be a little bit worded a little bit.

Larger formats, so it might be easier to read.

Um, so just you know you've got those things in your packet there.

Uh so this survey was 339 voters, registered voters in the city of Norman.

We conducted this December 1st to the third.

Uh it's got a margin of error of just over 5%.

Um, and I'm gonna kind of briefly go through these insights and analysis.

I'm not gonna uh do everything word to work word for word because you've got this also in front of you, and you can reference it as well.

Um generally in Norman homelessness's view is a serious issue.

81% of voters say it's uh very or somewhat serious.

Um, and it's that that concern is uh cross party lines in the city of Norman.

Um voters overwhelmingly believe that the shelter is important to the community.

Um 86% agree that it is uh at least uh strongly or somewhat important.

Um just 13% disagree that uh that a homeless shelter is important.

Uh that support is uh broadly uh spans demographics, uh including age groups and your city council districts as well.

The current awareness of the existing shelter and its costs is quite limited.

Uh only 35% of voters were aware of the current city owned contractor operated shelter.

Um 24% were not aware at all, and 40% were aware that it existed, but did not know how it was uh the how it was funded.

Another thing that uh lacks awareness is uh most voters are unaware of the pressures of the current city's general revenue fund.

Um just 44% were aware that uh that the fund relies on sales tax and franchise fees, and that that revenue growth has stagnated.

Um 29% were not aware of the funding structure, and 27% were aware of how the city's funded, but we're not aware that the uh the revenue has stagnated.

Uh we'll see a majority of voters support moving the current shelter.

64% say that the overnight shelter at West Gray Street and James should be moved.

Um, and that is a kind of a range of intensity of agreement.

35% or 30% disagree, and six percent are unsure.

Uh agreement is strongest among voters under 55, and in several of the council districts.

Again, those crosstabs of the specific city council districts are in your presentations, and you can look at those individually if you like.

So the uh we asked about the bond proposal, the 20-year bond proposal.

Uh currently that sits at 50% support uh to build a permanent uh hunter bed shelter.

32 percent uh oppose, 18% are unsure.

Um let's see, the support is strongest amongst Democrat voters, 82% support, independent voters, uh 47% support, and uh voters with at least some level of college education.

Um supporters, so we asked them also like why they support this, and and these were free response questions.

We didn't probe them to say, hey, here's the here's why you might support it.

Uh and so we categorize those, and 46% of those voters said that who did support uh this bond and issue said that they cited a moral and ethical obligation to help, followed by uh need for increased resources and capacity.

And again, that further breakdown is in your packet as well.

Uh the objections, those who are opposed, um, the strongest objection was cost and taxes.

Um, safety concerns followed that, uh, and then location and shell uh of the shelter was another one.

So bottom line, uh, homelessness is widely recognized as a serious issue.

Shelters uh have broad conceptual support, uh, awareness of existing funds and fiscal pressures is low, uh, and the bond bond begins with a majority of support but faces cost sensitivity.

Opposition is driven primarily by taxes, not rejection of shelters in general.

Uh education and kind of fiscal framing around the issue, the 18% undecided block uh could potentially be swayed towards support of the homeless shelter.

So now I'll kind of go through these questions one by one.

Again, you'll see here I've broken this down into pretty standard um uh cross-tab breakdowns here.

The X of generals, uh, that always gets a question, those are voters who have voted in X number of the last general elections in the state of Oklahoma.