Monday afternoon before the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s Board of Directors, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum revealed an unsettling statistic about the city’s unsheltered homeless.

The number of people experiencing homelessness – estimated to be 1,100 – has jumped 30% over the past five years, he said.

“That’s the population that we are mostly focused on right now…” Bynum said. “For a lot of folks, if they are going to get the help that they need, either get counseling or get a job, they are going to have a far higher success rate if they are in some sort of housing with a roof over their head rather than living on the street.”

A special guest at the Chamber’s August Board of Directors meeting, Bynum discussed nine immediate recommendations from the Housing, Homelessness and Mental Health (3H) Task Force.

Bynum and Chamber Board Chairman Tom Biolchini are among the dozen members of the task force, which was established late last year. The group met every week for six months.

In his State of the City address in 2022, the mayor issued a challenge to build $500 million in housing in the city over the next two years.

A study commissioned by the Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation also found that the city has a 10-year need of 12,000 housing units. Bynum said 80% of that will be addressed by the private sector.

Over the next six months, the city will partner with the Chamber on a housing strategy, the mayor said.

“We have been focused like a laser beam for the last seven years on bringing as many jobs to Tulsa as possible and growing our economy as fast as possible,” Bynum said. “We have not been focused on building housing at the same pace that will support that growth.”

Other 3H Task Force recommendations include adding kennel services in shelters, establishing a low-barrier shelter, and providing emergency temporary housing for 100 unsheltered people at a time.

The task force discovered that hospitals typically hold homeless patients longer than is medically necessary because they have no place to send them, exposing a gap in services between hospitalization and when a person returns to a shelter, Bynum said.

“…If you or I have a home to go to, we would be discharged and we would go home and get our wound care or our oxygen or IV medication,” he said. “But homeless Tulsans don’t have that option.”

The task force also urged giving the parks director the authority to regulate open containers and the consumption of alcohol in city parks, and havingBynum give a directive to Tulsa police to apply laws consistently, regardless of housing status.

“What we’re telling our Tulsa police officers is you’re not the judge here anymore,” he said. “You don’t have to be in that position. Just enforce the ordinances, get people into the system, and if they want to get help, there are a lot of opportunities to get what they need. If they refuse to get help, then there are consequences.”