Tulsa to try to "eliminate" homelessness

[cannon_fodder]

I am not funding the churches that chose to encourage bums to live downtown, so I have very little say in that matter.  Of course, there is a big sign at the zoo that tells you not to feed nuisance birds - seems similar to me.

Furthermore, there is a difference between enabling and compassion.  I feel sorry for many of those people , but at the same time I am appalled by the thought of rewarding their behavior with exactly what they want:  a free place to sit and get drunk.  As Daddy said, many are mentally ill and need treatment - not a place to sit and get drunk(er).

and again, it will not solve the problem.  There will still be mentally unstable people walking around looking like crap peeing on doorstops and drunkenly telling me they just got out of prison and need money for a bus ride to wherever.

I hope the plan works.  I hope it both helps the homeless people and cleans up downtown - but I (clearly) have my doubts.  Many a city better than Tulsa has tried to solve this problem and failed.  The only tried and true method is to send the problem down the road...

[tim huntzinger]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

The only tried and true method is to send the problem down the road...

Bus ticket therapy may be appropriate for non-Tulsans, but is out of line for Tulsan families who are affected by a loved one with a serious and persistent mental illness.

[cannon_fodder]

I understand Tim, it is not a compassionate thing to do to anyone that truly needs help.  Especially if they have family that can lend support.  I just get frustrated with this issue as a certain percent is 'down on their luck' because of their own failures and rewarding or enabling continued degradation of the areas they inhabit is annoying.

[tim huntzinger]

With you 100% on that CF.  Means-testing, filtering out malingerers needs to be addressed.  The issue of attracting non-Tulsans is of critical importance, we should not be in the business of providing mental health care for all of OK just because we want a more safe downtown.

[jamesrage]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

The gist is that non-profits are putting money into building what are basically no-frilles apartments for the homeless. They are estimating 559 people without home at night and are shooting for 600 housing units. A smaller scale program is already in use in tulsa and claims only 20% return to the street.

http://tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=070617_1_A1_spanc56725

Thoughts?

Is she going to put any of these houses in her neighborhood?

Are they going to provide houses for the thousands of other bums who will decided to come here in hopes of being provided housing with no strings attached?

[Conan71]

^^All good thoughts on the issue CF & TH.

It sounds a little too much like a social experiment to me, and I too have serious concern about this attracting more people for no-strings housing.  How do you decide who winds up there and who doesn't?  For every person who gets off the street there is at least one more to take his/her place.  I mean do we just keep building more units?

These numbers at the bottom of the article were somewhat odd:

"Chronic homeless: 559 a night, 4,100 a year Residents in subsidized housing: 20,000 People with income insufficient for a 2-bedroom apartment: 130,000 Substandard housing units: 8,241, with about 1,795 of those too dilapidated for rehabilitation."

I'm trying to figure out how they arrived at one third of Tulsa's population cannot afford a two bedroom apartment?  Are they counting kids earning minimum wage sacking groceries and living w/ their parents?  That number sounds pretty skewed.

[cannon_fodder]

Section 8 will pay for a 3 bedroom house in Tulsa up to $850.  I would surmise that a 2 bedroom apartment is something less, lets pretend $725 (we all know you can spend more, or less than that in Tulsa).

Most people spend about 30% of their income on housing.  So to afford a 2 bedroom apartment with 30% of your income you need to make $29,000 a year.  Ignoring the fact that section 8 pay for the housing for them if they could not truly afford it, that tax rebates for that income bracket actually ADD to income, and pretending that there is only one working member of the family - that person would have to earn $14.50 an hour working a full time job to afford the apartment at 30%.  

I can understand that would be a challenge for an uneducated single mother trying to take care of two children (thus needing a 2 bedroom). But I have trouble believing that one third of all people in Tulsa are single uneducated mothers earning less than $14.50 an hour.  In fact, I call BS.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder
In fact, I call BS.

Good call

[MichaelC]

From Tulsa World

quote:As part of a plan to provide housing to Tulsa's chronically homeless, the YMCA is working with a city task force to transition its downtown residents into permanent housing.

The YMCA has not announced a closing date for its downtown residency program, but it will occur before 2010, said Laura Hailey-Butler, the director of development.

YMCA officials have been participating on a mayor's Task Force to End Chronic Homelessness, which has endorsed the Building Tulsa, Building Lives program.

The Zarrow Families Foundation initiated the program last year out of concern for downtown's homeless population with the 2008 BOK Center opening and other improvements to the area.

The program would provide a basic housing unit to each chronically homeless person and then surround that person with support services to work on personal issues. Housing would be provided with no strings attached.

"Until the task force plan is in place, we will continue to provide services to the men who need it," Hailey-Butler said. "Our biggest
concern is that there not be a knee-jerk reaction and fear that we are closing soon. If someone needs housing, they can still come to us.

"We are making sure each person will be transitioned into other housing. We will not leave anyone without a home. We will not add to the homeless population."

The 52-year-old downtown YMCA, 515 S. Denver Ave., has 168 housing units. About 140 men, many of whom have been homeless or trapped in a cycle of chronic homeless- ness, now live there.

Fire regulations that go into effect in 2010 would require the YMCA to invest heavily in renovations if it were to continue housing people.

The YMCA has no plans for the use of the residential side of the building, and no offers to buy the property have been made, Hailey-Butler said. However, the YMCA does plan to retain a downtown presence and will continue its health, family and youth programs.

"Since the downtown YMCA was built 50 years ago, there has been a complete change in the housing market," Hailey-Butler said. "We have donors who remember staying there as young couples until they got a job to afford a house. That's not what we are seeing now."

YMCAs across the nation have been ending their hous ing programs to focus on family and youth programs.

The Tulsa YMCA is building a facility at Pine Street and Peoria Avenue that will include a child-care center, health and wellness area, swimming pool and gym.

The Zarrow Families Foundation has provided funding for a full-time caseworker at the YMCA to locate housing options for the residents.

The Mental Health Association in Tulsa has been leasing a floor at the YMCA building to provide 25 units in its Safe Haven housing program.

Executive Director Mike Brose said the association is looking for other housing options, adding that "the closing provides the community an opportunity.

"That opportunity means finding ways to replace those units with housing that is not overly congregated -- more scattered sites and that will work much better and be more appropriate for individuals who stay there," he said.

The Zarrow Foundation asked the Mental Health Association and Tulsa Housing Authority's nonprofit Housing Partners of Tulsa to be partners in the program. The foundation has provided funding to staff the initiative.

Tulsa has about 600 chronically homeless people, not counting those who will be moved out of the YMCA, Brose said.

[tim huntzinger]

So which is it? There needs to be a new place for the Safe Haven folk or we need to clean up downtown? The more I hear and see that Brose is the lead the more I distrust and dislike the initiative out of hand.

Towit, how is this going to clean up downtown anyway? Are these semi-mentally ill folk going to be under house arrest? The problem has always been for dually diagnosed folk is that they have nothing to do and will still roam around downtown.

The third problem is that besides cherry-picking clientele, the previously mentioned problem of serving non-Tulsans will continue to suck valuable resources from native T-Towners.

The so-called mental health system has been flailing about for forty years trying to deal with deinstitutionalization and still cannot get it right.

[iplaw]

Spare some change?

[inteller]

i think bums are just a part of downtown....just nothing you can do about them....there will always be career bums.  the people that are homeless because of bad luck will find a way to pick themselves up. Tulsa has good facilities for those types. The rest are just grifters that a Colt 45 could solve and I don't mean the beverage.

[TheArtist]

If people would quit directly giving them money they would then have to go to a charity organization to get food or shelter.   That food or shelter should never be free, even a small chore should be required before or after, if they don't do it after then there must be some consequence when they come back.

I would like to hear more about this program. It says "no strings attached housing" but there has to be rules, they can't tear up the place. They also mention that they will be "surrounded by services" I assume people will be checking in on the home, will they have to have psych examinations to see if they need meds or counseling?  Many mental problems can result from poor diet, lack of omega 3 oils can result in depression and cause the brain to not funcion properly in several ways etc. Will there be diet counselors to make sure they are eating properly or taking meds etc.?

What does "no strings attached" really mean?  If a person isn't getting better they will get worse. Nothing, or no one, just sits still and doesn't change.

[Renaissance]

I saw a video on the homeless problem in tulsa on YouTube- "Children having children, Down by the river". Never realized how bad crime and homeless people are in tulsa. My friend and I recently took a drive downtown and it is scary at night. When we go to OKC we can walk all around downtown, bricktown, midtown, chinatown...basically all the urbanized parts. We have major problems here in tulsa. The 2025 vision is really designed to keep companies like AAirlines and not towards tourism and exciting projects like OKC. OKC has pumped a Billion into their school system, so we are even falling behind OKC in education. I think OKC has shadowed my town. Everyone is moving to Jenks and surrounding subs. I cant believe we like to poke fun of OKC. Our population is even decreasing.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by Renaissance

I saw a video on the homeless problem in tulsa on YouTube- "Children having children, Down by the river". Never realized how bad crime and homeless people are in tulsa. My friend and I recently took a drive downtown and it is scary at night. When we go to OKC we can walk all around downtown, bricktown, midtown, chinatown...basically all the urbanized parts. We have major problems here in tulsa. The 2025 vision is really designed to keep companies like AAirlines and not towards tourism and exciting projects like OKC. OKC has pumped a Billion into their school system, so we are even falling behind OKC in education. I think OKC has shadowed my town. Everyone is moving to Jenks and surrounding subs. I cant believe we like to poke fun of OKC. Our population is even decreasing.

I will start the onslaught. What is keeping you here? What keeps all of us from moving to OKC where we can roam the streets at night and party fearlessly? You can't answer with "a job" because obviously OKC has them too. Family is no excuse, its only 1hr 45 min away. Schooling? Go to OU, OCU, or a host of others.

What then? I suspect that like most of us, you stay because there is some difference in the people, the geography, the general ambiance of the place that feels better. The same reason people stay in Boston even though the roads are bad and the Big Dig is a fiasco. Or Minneapolis in spite of the high taxes and horrid winters.

We are not on the same path as OKC. We are optimistic that the money invested in 2025, the river and downtown will yield a better city that won't forever be compared with the flat, windy state capitol. In my mind it is this choice: lead, follow or move out of the way. All three of the choices are personal and no one would blame me if I packed up and left for OKC.