Tulsa Selects City Lights Foundation To Run New Low-Barrier Homeless Shelter

Tulsans have noticed more people living on the streets. Part of the mayor's initiative to fight homelessness was to start a new type of shelter to offer more help to those who couldn't find it in the existing shelter system.

City Lights Foundation was chosen to run a low-barrier shelter to help individuals that other shelters turned away.

The low-barrier shelter would offer personalized areas, rather than one big area where everyone is together.

Dozens of homeless Tulsans find themselves on the street each night, with nowhere to go.

"They won't let me stay," Paul Humphreys said.

Humphreys said since he got kicked out of a shelter, they won't let him back in, but he'd rather sit outside than in a shelter anyway.

"I'd rather not now that I've been out here on the streets for so long, I don't need the service," he said.

But a new type of shelter could help.

"Where people that aren't able to get access in other shelters are able to come and then we will work with them to find them permanent housing," Sarah Grounds, the executive director and co-founder of the City Lights Foundation of Oklahoma said.

City Lights Foundation was chosen by the city to run the low-barrier shelter.

"Our mission is loving individuals, giving hope and touching souls through relational service and dignified housing," Grounds said.

Lowering the barriers other shelters had in place so more people could get off the streets.

"If they have higher medical and mental health needs than what could be taken care of in a congregate shelter, this will be a place for people like that.," Grounds said.

The low-barrier shelter will accept pets and people like Paul who have previously been kicked out of other shelters.

"I think we have to really recognize that the people that we're serving are all human and they have needs, and being able to provide a dignified, compassionate place to really address those needs is something that is needed across Tulsa," Grounds said.

The shelter is expected to open in 2024, but the city has not announced where it will be.