In a recent conference, Nichols laid out his plan to abolish homelessness by 2025.
Throughout his mayoral campaign, Monroe Nichols emphasized his desire to end homelessness in Tulsa. In 2024, Tulsa saw a record high in the number of homeless individuals, reaching 1,389, according to 2 News Oklahoma. This is higher than the 2020 pandemic spike, which saw a high of 1,22,1 recorded 2 News Oklahoma. Having been elected mayor, Nichols put forth his plan to fulfill his campaign promise to end homelessness, saying “by 2030, Tulsa will achieve functional zero homelessness,” which he defined as “a state where homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring,” according to his campaign website.
At a press conference on March 11, he discussed the steps his administration and the city will take to achieve that goal, explaining the executive order he signed at the end of February regarding homelessness. For one, the City of Tulsa is working to create the Encampment Decommissioning Team, aimed at “safely and efficiently relocating unhoused individuals from their encampments to partner providers,” including A Way Home for Tulsa service providers and tribal partners. Additionally, within the next 90 days, Monroe will present a plan to implement a winter weather shelter in service of people “in need of a safe and warm place to go during the months of November – March” according to the City of Tulsa website.
Monroe further stated that within the next 90 days he will present a plan to implement low-barrier shelters, which have fewer requirements a person must meet before being granted a place to stay, detailed the City of Tulsa (website). He did so with the intention of providing access to social services and housing navigation assistance added the City of Tulsa. Implementing these low-barrier shelters would increase the availability of shelters for people who would have otherwise been turned away from a shelter because they did not meet certain requirements, according to the City of Tulsa’s press release.
In the press conference, Monroe also stated that, through executive order, he established the Mayor’s Coalition on Eviction Mitigation. Through this coalition, the city will work directly with the Landlord Tenant Resource Center, the Eviction Strategy Group, and the Eviction Data Working Group to “mitigate the impact of eviction on individuals and families,” as per the City of Tulsa website. The stated purpose of the coalition is to address the root causes of eviction by providing support to tenants before they are evicted, added the City of Tulsa website.
While Nichols has not indicated that his plans or desire to end homelessness is in response to the wider debate concerning homelessness in Oklahoma, his words and actions coincide with the proposal of Senate Bill 484. This bill seeks to restrict the number of municipalities — cities with local governments — that wish to “provide programs or services to homeless persons including, but not limited to,” by “owning or leasing land for the purpose of building or maintaining a homeless shelter” to those with a population of over 300,000, according to the Oklahoma Legislature website . Shortly before Oklahoma’s deadline to pass bills in the chamber in which they originated, which was set to be March 27, this bill passed the Senate — it’s chamber of origin. If passed by the House of Representatives and signed into law by Governor Kevin Stitt, this bill would allow only two municipalities to provide homeless shelters: Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
