TULSA, OKLAHOMA (KTUL) — According to the city of Tulsa, these are new developments in Tulsa’s first accessible emergency shelter.
These developments were addressed this morning during a public safety forum hosted by the Downtown Tulsa Partnership and the Tulsa Police Department.
The city of Tulsa said it is targeting November or December to open the so-called Residential Care Center, which will be funded by ARPA and opioid settlement funds.
“Our goal is for someone to stay there for 120 days,” said Travis Hulse, housing policy director for the city of Tulsa.
“We set goals with the people we work with and strive to find affordable housing for them,” says Sarah Grounds, executive director of the City Lights Foundation of Oklahoma.
Grounds says the facility will provide a variety of resources from case management to medical partners to mental health partners to help residents find permanent housing by the time those 120 days are up.
Travis Hulse of the City of Tulsa provided an update on the project during a quarterly public forum and said they will go before the Board of Adjustment on September 10 to seek approval to operate the program and facility in this neighborhood.
He says the residential care center will be located near the wastewater treatment plant west of Mohawk Park Golf Course.
“There is a vacant senior living facility that has been empty for quite some time,” Hulse said.
NewsChannel 8 spoke with a Collinsville resident who is currently visiting Tulsa. She thinks opening a shelter with low barriers to entry is a good idea. However, she has questions about the eligibility requirements for these shelters. Some barriers, such as the expectation that residents be sober, should not be lowered. If residents have addiction problems, they should be required to attend classes and undergo sobriety tests.
“If there was a housing program for them that worked with an assistance program that said, ‘Hey, if you want an apartment, we can get you one with minimal restrictions, all you have to do is do this, this and this,'” said Sierra Sinni, a Collinsville resident. “And then they would have a place to stay.”
According to the city’s Residential Care Center page, residents of this facility must sign an agreement to behave in a way that keeps themselves and others safe.
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