LOCAL
Kimberly Marsh, The Oklahoma Eagle
Police and city officials held recent meetings with residents in Tulsa’s Market District to discuss how to better handle homelessness in the area. Photo: Tim Landes/The Oklahoma Eagle
Tulsa residents’ frustrations with what they view as the city’s slow response to a growing unhoused population is starting to reach a boiling point.
Police and city senior staff met Wednesday with residents and business representatives from the Tulsa Market District, which encompasses East 11th Street from South Utica to South Lewis Avenue, to discuss their frustrations.
They spoke of fights in the street, nudity around businesses, urination on windowsills and break-ins to storage units. After a slight dip in 2021, the number of unhoused people in Tulsa has steadily risen. There were 1,449 people experiencing homelessness in January, according to Housing Solutions Tulsa’s annual Point in Time Count.
Carla, a shopkeeper in the district, asked for only her first name to be used, citing fear of social media backlash.
Repeated encounters with agitated individuals who entered her workplace make her feel unsafe, she expressed at the meeting. She also said she’s been chased while walking in her neighborhood to the point of believing she would be harmed.
“I just want to know what the plan is,” Carla said at the panel.
Gilcrease Division Major Mark Ohnesorge said police are focused first on addressing “service resistant” individuals to enforce the laws.
At a separate news briefing on Aug. 6, Mayor Monroe Nichols said the city wants to house more people using wraparound services, referring to a set of services that are tailored to individual needs. To fulfill his pledge to get Tulsa to functional zero homelessness by 2030, he has dedicated senior advisors to recommend solutions during his administration.
“Folks are really counting on us to get it right,” Nichols said, after announcing his latest plan to inject $6 million into the community by Sept. 1. Nearly $4.4 million of that will come from the Walmart Opioid Settlement SubFund.
If the budget amendment is approved by the city council in late August, Housing Solutions will work with individuals and families to identify housing and tailor their services.
“From my own moral compass, folks sleeping outside is not a good idea,” Nichols said, addressing the challenge of neighborhoods rejecting the idea of having nearby shelters and social services. “It’s not safe for the individual. It’s not good for this community. I don’t think it’s a compassionate way to be.”
He said his administration will become much more aggressive in how they are collaborating with outreach workers to get people out of encampments and off the streets into better opportunities.
“I think making the investments that provide the alternatives is a much better way to go, and that’s going to take some time,” he said. “It’s going to take the community.”
Over the next nine months, partners in Tulsa’s housing network will identify 300 housing units, plus individualized support services for up to one year. Services range from physical and mental health to financial literacy and other wraparound services.
