Last Updated on March 14, 2024, 2:21 PM | Published: March 14, 2024
OKLAHOMA CITY — Dan Straughan is retiring from the homeless outreach organization that he helped found 20 years ago.
The Oklahoma City Homeless Alliance has become a constant, go-to organization for outreach to the city’s homeless population, knitting together what would be a patchwork of services into a unified effort.
And, even if attendees at public meetings don’t know much about the organization or even Straughan, they walk away remembering his stock point that “the problem with homeless people is that they don’t have homes.”
It’s a statement intended to interrupt the all-too-easy talk of blaming/shaming homeless persons and refocus the listener’s mind to finding solutions.
Straughan will step down the day after his 20th anniversary with the organization, which is April 4.
The current Associate Executive Director, Meghan Mueller, has been chosen by the Homeless Alliance Board to take the helm on April 5.
“We are incredibly grateful for Dan’s visionary leadership and service as the founder and executive director of the Homeless Alliance,” Julie Porter Scott, Chair of the Board, said. “Over the last 20 years, Dan has helped bring the community together to create a more collaborative, compassionate, and rational system of care for our neighbors experiencing homelessness.”
The hub
Today, any discussion about strategies for addressing homelessness typically circulates through the nonprofit organization. That was the original design.
“When the Homeless Alliance started, we had no intention of being a service provider,” Straughan told Free Press Tuesday. “We thought our role would be facilitating collaborations among service providers, but we didn’t think that we would be providing services ourselves.”
But, they soon began to see that “in order for people to listen to you talk the talk, we had to walk the walk,” said Straughan.
They began an expansion of their original concept from a clearing house for services to adding direct services that they delivered to the city’s homeless population.
The annual homeless count has helped inform the organization with data about homeless persons that has shaped how they deliver services.
“We started with a housing program for families with children, and then we built this [Westtown] campus and a day shelter,” said Straughan.
“And then, those were successful programs. And as sometimes happens when you’re successful, people look to you to do other things. And now we have a dozen different housing programs and employment programs with Curbside Chronicle and Curbside Flowers.”
Major accomplishments
Here is a rundown of what Straughan identified as major accomplishments of the nonprofit Homeless Alliance over the last 20 years.
- In the founding year of 2004, the Homeless Alliance had a budget of $175,000 and 1 employee which was Straughan. Now the budget is $11 million and there are 165 employees.
- The biggest accomplishment is the change in public attitudes towards homelessness over the past 20 years, largely due to Curbside Chronicle which facilitates 12,000 positive interactions per month with person-to-person sales of the magazine.
- The 2010 opening of the WestTowne Homeless Services Campus which co-located 24 service providers to increase efficiency and collaboration in serving people experiencing homelessness as well as providing a day shelter.
The dedication of the Westtown campus represented a real move forward and an accomplishment of the Board and others in the organization to marshall financial resources, said Straughan.
Challenges
Every new organization has challenges, but forming and growing an organization to address homelessness has its own set of unique ones.
Straughan’s vocational background was in banking. He first came to Oklahoma City as the manager of the Federal Reserve Bank in Oklahoma City.
The social and personal trauma of so many people from the Oklahoma City Bombing just around the corner from the Federal Reserve building had shifted his views of what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.
From that internal process, he moved into the service sector first with the United Way and then to helping found the Homeless Alliance.
It was through his connections to other business people in the United Way that he and other concerned leaders conceived the OKC Homeless Alliance to mount a concerted effort to find solutions to Oklahoma City’s homeless population.
According to Straughan, one of the early challenges to overcome was his own belief that homelessness could be addressed in three or four years.
“There was a really high level of naivete on my part,” Straughan told us. “So, that 2004 Point in Time Count was really kind of the first we had done as a community. And it was about 2500. And I remember thinking, well, 2500, that’s not very many people, I should be able to knock this out in three or four years. And then, I don’t know, go back to banking or something. Turns out it was more complicated, a LOT more complicated.”
Filling the gaps
Two years after their formation the Alliance did a community needs assessment and gaps analysis.
Straughan said that what they found was that three major things were missing that needed to be addressed in a city the size of OKC:
- No day shelter.
- No central location — “a one-stop shop” — for getting services in a spread-out city with a weak public transit system.
- Lack of communication and coordination between 100 agencies that could help.
From that assessment came the development and raising of money to build what is now the Westtown campus which includes offices for multiple agencies, a day shelter, and the hub of the IT network.
Networking efforts
At the same time they were developing the idea of the Westtown campus, the Alliance was developing a new IT infrastructure that would connect the city’s service agencies in one network that would allow them to coordinate their efforts.
They also saw the need for the leaders of organizations that house homeless persons to just know each other and communicate one-on-one, which was not going on at the time.
“We have eight overnight homeless shelters in Oklahoma City, and the directors of all eight of them get together here at West town once a month for lunch,” said Straughan. “And, we have literally been doing that for 20 years. I’m the only guy that was at the first lunch, and will be at the last [before his retirement].”
Straughan also credits the service agency leaders and workers with a unique level of resiliency and flexibility that he says he has not seen in other cities.
“I really think part of that is being disaster-prone,” said Straughan. “So during the bombing, during the May 3 tornadoes during the wildfires, I mean, we learned as a community the lesson that certainly no single agency, and really even no single sector can step up to big issues like that. It takes, you know, the government, nonprofits, the faith community, the business community all working together. And, Oklahoma City has learned that lesson, we have internalized it.”
Straughan said because of those experiences, he did not have trouble getting many of the agencies to co-locate at he Westtown campus.
Permanent winter shelter
By 2023 it was obvious that there was a need for a large, low-barrier overnight shelter for anyone who needed to get in out of the weather.
And, so, the Homeless Alliance was able to raise money and build a permanent winter shelter in a converted warehouse within just a few blocks of the Westtown campus.
What’s next?
Next, Straughan plans to use his long-term connections to raise money for an endowment that will strengthen the OKC Homeless Alliance.
And, what’s next after that? For the first time in 20 years, he’s not sure. But, he doesn’t seem upset by that.
The organization will throw a retirement party for Straughan on May 16 at the Yale Theater in Historic Capitol Hill/Calle dos Cinco.
Founder, publisher, and editor of Oklahoma City Free Press. Brett continues to contribute reports and photography to this site as he runs the business.
