Tulsa County Receives $5.3 Million Grant To Fight Youth Homelessness

Tulsa County is getting awarded a $5 million federal grant to end youth homelessness. Housing Solutions said about a fourth of all the homeless in Tulsa County are young people.

"We have on any given night, maybe three or four hundred youth who are experiencing homelessness in our community and this grant will be able to address that," said Becky Gligo, Tulsa Housing Solutions.

Gligo said living on the streets can be dangerous and lonely.

"When you think about how hard it is to maybe be a teenager or young adult already, and then you add not knowing where you're going to sleep that night, then that can be a very scary experience," said Gligo.

But help is on its way. The $5 million grant from Housing Urban Development will provide permanent housing.

"We definitely want this to produce units. So that could be paying rent in units that already exist, it could be acquiring new housing, and that's what we want to meet with the community to really plan for," said Gligo.

It's a six-month planning process and they want a lot of input from people in the community.

"Parents, school districts, youth, youth who have experienced homelessness, youth serving organizations, DHS, all of them will be kind of pulled into this conversation," said Gligo.

She said they also want to hear from young people who have lived on the streets so they can be part of the solution.

"We will bring local youth who have experienced homelessness to the table to tell us what do they need and what do they wish they had in their experience previously," said Gligo.

Housing Solutions said other cities that received this grant have had success getting young people into homes.