The history of homelessness in Tulsa
A Shift in Thinking
From the 1960s through the 1990s, people living with serious mental illness were de-institutionalized, without adequate community-based services to handle their needs. This situation caused a dramatic increase in homeless populations nationally, statewide and in Tulsa. Locally, the loss of available low-cost housing added to the problem.
The community responded by providing emergency shelter, food and clothing to Tulsa’s chronically homeless. In 1990, the Tulsa City/County Homelessness Task Force was formed to study the problem, and published “Commitment to Un-homelessness,” its strategic plan, the following year.
For the next decade and a half, Tulsa made significant progress in developing housing for special populations that made up as much as 60 percent of the chronically homeless – namely people with disabilities, low-income and older adults, and those who fall into more than one of these populations.
By 2005, a new group – the Mayor’s Chronic Homelessness Strategy Task Force – was formed, staffed by members of community non-profits, faith-based organizations and representatives from city, county, state and federal government. Its “Tulsa’s Strategic Plan to End Chronic Homelessness by 2012” included goals and action plans.
The report was presented to Mayor Bill LaFortune’s office in 2005, signed by City of Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor in 2006, and submitted to HUD as the official City of Tulsa plan. It serves as the inspiration for the Building Tulsa, Building Lives initiative.