Tulsa City Council approves $6m housing plan for homeless

The Tulsa City Council voted on Wednesday to approve spending $6 million to pay rent for one year for 300 homeless people.

Half of them would be people currently living in shelters, and the other half would be people currently living on the streets.

Related: Tulsa mayor unveils $6M plan to move 300 homeless residents into apartments: 'Not a cookie-cutter type of program'

Safe Move Tulsa

The 300 homeless people would be moved into apartments across the city, and their rent would be paid for a year.

They would also be offered finance classes, mental health services, and addiction services.

The program will start once the city finalizes contracts, which could be as soon as next month.

Then the 300 participants will be chosen.

"We're looking at providing support services for recovery, those who are in recovery, those who are in treatment, or need treatment, or are at high risk of developing some sort of opioid use disorder and in a co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorder," said Emily Hall with the City of Tulsa.

The city is focusing on people with addictions because Safe Move Tulsa will be funded with more than $4 million from an opioid settlement, and the other $2 million will come from federal COVID dollars.

The city will also help people get jobs, so by the end of the 12 months, they can pay rent on their own.

"I truly hope that those individuals can have that personal, intrinsic value to step up and get those jobs," said Evan Taylor.

The city will get the 300 people into housing over the next nine months, and they will come up with incentives for landlords who rent to the program's participants.

Community reaction

Mallory Jordan owns a business on Riverside Drive and says the homeless problem has both a financial and safety impact on her company.

"We do deal with a lot, a lot of vagrant traffic, things like that, damage to our communities, and residents don't feel safe," said Mallory Jordan.

Now that the city council has approved Safe Move Tulsa, Jordan wants to help make it a success. 

"All of the programming that you all have mentioned, and like I said, I'd like to meet with them and maybe see if we can get some resources for them in our communities to see if can we clean it up a little," said Jordan.

Evan Taylor believes that for this program to work, employers need to be more accommodating.

"There's still a drastic need for employers to step up and start helping, getting these people employed, getting them health insurance," said Taylor.