OKLAHOMA CITY — Just a few days shy of Thanksgiving, Oklahoma City’s indefatigable Homeless Alliance finally saw the realization of a long-needed and desperately important plan when they opened the doors of their brand new permanent winter night shelter, the first in the organization’s history.
The 25,000-square-foot facility is big enough for a utilitarian lounge area, an overnight kennel room for pets, a large storage room for bags and carts, a security processing area, fully equipped restrooms, and most importantly above all else, more than 300 beds.
Best of all, its location at 501 N. Indiana is right down the street from the Homeless Alliance headquarters in their Westtown Homeless Resource Campus on NW 4th Street.
“We knew that we needed to do a winter shelter, and we know that lots of communities across the country have these permanent shelters,” said Homeless Alliance Executive Director Dan Straughan. “So we worked with the Arnall Family Foundation and of course the City of OKC and our other partners to acquire this warehouse that just happened to be a half block away.”
Clear Need
With temperatures plummeting and forecasts predicting a potentially tough, wet winter, the need for a warm, dry overnight shelter for the city’s sadly still increasing homeless population seemed clear.
Pre-pandemic years saw a combined effort from across the city’s various outreach centers to each go into what they call “overflow,” essentially operating their day shelters as night shelters, often with guests sleeping on floors and crowding into packed cafeteria rooms.
“That can be problematic,” said Straughan. “When you’re operating a day shelter essentially as a 24-hour shelter, there’s no way to do a deep cleaning.”
But an even bigger problem was the lingering confusion among both staff and guests as to exactly when that “overflow” would begin, only being triggered and scheduled for nights that fell below the 32-degree freezing threshold.
“You can’t staff something if you can’t tell people when they’re going to work,” Straughan explained. “I can’t hire people and say ‘Hey, I may need you 30 nights this winter or 70 nights. I don’t know, and I won’t know until 48 hours out.’ Nobody’s going to take that job.”
The solution, then, is a permanent night shelter that’s set up to operate every night from November through March, regardless of outside temperatures or weather conditions.
Guests can be assured that the shelter will be open each and every night, and staff can know that they’ll be needed and stably employed with none of the confusion or last-minute notice.
But of course, that meant the Homeless Alliance would need a building and the finances and ability to turn it into a shelter.
‘Location, Location, Location’
With the drive to attempt a permanent winter shelter, and a clear need for one with the impending winter bearing down on OKC as early as mid-November, Straughan and the Homeless Alliance set about searching the city for a useable building they could buy and remodel into a large-scale shelter.
“And then one day we’re outside and notice a ‘for sale’ sign on a big warehouse down the street,” he said. “I mean, in real estate, they always say the three most important things are location, location, location. Well, it was right there!”
The cost of buying the building and constructing walls, interior windows, lighting, full plumbing, and of course, rows and rows of bunk beds eventually totaled roughly $3 million.
But even with a clear plan and an altogether simplistic, bare-bones design, construction setbacks can crop up unexpectedly.
“You know, construction projects don’t always finish on time,” Straughan said laughing. “But our goal was to open on November 1st, and we missed that by just a week and a half.”
Along the way, the project weathered some major plumbing issues (all fixed now) and even some pushback from surrounding businesses during the planning and permitting phase, but in the end, it all amounted to minor setbacks on the path to this badly needed addition to the city.
“We had some issues along the way, yes,” Straughan said, “but things seem to be working out well.”
Easy Access
Even just a few weeks into operation, the new shelter is already seeing some surprisingly high nightly numbers.
“We’re actually seeing a lot more people than we anticipated,” Straughan said. “Even on nights when it’s not that cold, people are still coming in, and that’s a good thing.”
Those higher-than-expected numbers could potentially be a sign of rapidly increasing homelessness numbers in OKC, beyond even what this year’s Point-In-Time count showed, but could also be attributed to a better-than-expected response to the Homeless Alliance’s own messaging and outreach.
This is our report from the Point-in-Time Count in winter of 2023:
“I think it’s a combination of things, really, and one is just that it’s so close to the day shelter,” said Straughan. “The day shelter runs until 4 pm, and the night shelter opens at 4 pm, so people can just walk this short distance back and forth real easily.”
It makes for reliable and easy access to services for anyone experiencing homelessness in OKC right now.
The day shelter at the Westtown Homeless Resource Campus offers a wealth of services, from housing assistance, medical and insurance assistance, and even help with bus passes, pets, haircuts, and legal issues, not to mention the daily hot meals.
When the day shelter shuts down for the evening and the night shelter opens up, guests can walk down to the new, heated overnight facility and find bathrooms, a simple bagged meal with water, and plenty of beds, many reserved for guests with disabilities or mobility issues.
As the new shelter is extremely low-barrier, offering a space for anyone regardless of mental health or substance abuse, families might find it to be non-suitable for kids, so the Homeless Alliance will help divert any families with children to shelters at City Rescue or Salvation Army.
‘Grateful’
It’s clearly been no easy feat for the Homeless Alliance and their partners to convert a 25,000-square-foot warehouse into a functioning 300+ bed shelter in just a matter of months, and it’s clear from talking with Straughan that it’s been quite a challenge.
But it’s just as clear that, even in just a few short weeks, it’s already been rewarding and heartening even beyond expectations.
“I’ve had several of our clients tell me how grateful they are just to have a bed to sleep on instead of just a mat on concrete,” Straughan said. “So it’s been great to be able to offer that.”
If you or anyone you know is experiencing or is at risk of homelessness, visit the Homeless Alliance at their Westtown Homeless Resource Campus headquarters at 1724 NW 4th St. in OKC or visit homelessalliance.org.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
