The fight continues for disabled veteran Mike Simmons.

Simmons, a four-year resident of the Norman Veterans Center, has twice been notified by officials there that he was being evicted because the facility claimed it could not meet his medical needs. On both occasions, Simmons has appealed his eviction and now, for the second time, the executive director of the State Department of Veterans Affairs has refused Simmons' appeal.

Simmons has been at the center of a firestorm involving the Norman Veterans Center since he and other residents at the center complained publicly about their treatment at the facility last summer. On two separate occasions since then, NVC officials -- working in conjunction with the state Department of Veterans Affairs -- have tried to evict Simmons from the center.

Last fall, Simmons was notified he would be evicted on Thanksgiving Day, but that deadline passed after Simmons was granted an extension.

Then, in November of 2008 -- less than a week before he was scheduled to be removed from the center -- Martha Spear, the executive director of the State Department of Veterans Affairs, confirmed Simmons would be allowed to remain at the center, though she denied Simmons' appeal. Spear said there was "no written documentation" noting that Simmons would be allowed to stay or outlining the length of his extension, but confirmed Simmons' stay had been extended.

"I have not seen anything in writing," she said last November. "But there is a verbal agreement and this agency is going to keep its word."

Later that same month, Simmons said he was pressured by state Senator Jim Reynolds -- an Oklahoma City Republican -- who urged him to stop complaining about the facility. "He (Reynolds) just showed up here unannounced. Then he ground on me for an hour and a half.."

Earlier this spring, NVC officials notified Simmons he would be sent to Courtyard Gardens -- a long-term nursing facility in Wichita Falls, Texas. However, when contact by The American the director of nursing at the facility said she had informed OVA officials and a counselor with the Oklahoma City Veterans Hospital that her facility would not accept Simmons.

Sherry Long, the director of nursing at Courtyard Gardens, said she told Matt Fox, a counselor with the Oklahoma City Veterans Hospital, her facility would not be able to accept Simmons as a resident in mid-May -- less than two weeks after Simmons was notified he was being evicted from the NVC.

"I told Mr. Fox that we would not be able to accept Mr. Simmons a while back," Long said earlier this year. "But he wouldn't listen."

Then, in a May 27 letter to Simmons, Spear said there had been "no change" in Simmons' case. In that letter, like her previous letter, Spears denied Simmons' appeal. "A review of your medical record does not indicate there has been any change in the fact that we cannot meet your medical needs and demands at the Oklahoma Veterans Affairs Center in Norman," she wrote.

Simmons has been a resident at the center for more than four years.

Simmons pays for room and board at the facility with disability funds and a military pension. He said center officials had no problem with him and had always been able to met his medical needs.

"I went public about some problems they didn't solve and that's when the trouble started. They want me defanged. They want me where I have no base. They want me away from all the people that have helped keep me here."

In her second letter, Spear claimed Simmons violated several facility rules, adding the veteran had made "false and slanderous allegations against the staff" and claiming that Simmons been "verbally abusive" to other residents.