Tulsa World // News Article By Neal Franklin Joshua Morrison has lived without a home in three different cities. He is now working to help other young people experiencing homelessness so that they don’t have to be without housing. Morrison, 23, was kicked out of his parents’ home when he was 17. After living in Norman and Oklahoma City, he said he came to Tulsa, where he now serves as the chairman of the Youth Action Board that advises organizations serving people experiencing homelessness. “There’s just been so many things that have been buried on top that I haven’t really been able to get a handle on my own homelessness,” Morrison said. “So being able to be a part of that policy change and be a part of that structural integrity of the policies that are here in Tulsa, involving youth, it has been an amazing experience.” The board is a group of youth who have experienced homelessness and advise organizations in Tulsa about how they can best help young people without homes. For the past few months, the board has been working to help allocate over $5 million for projects to address youth homelessness through a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). “The Youth Action Board drove it, completely,” Morrison said. “We were involved in every step of the process.” A Way Home for Tulsa and the board last week approved a list of applicants and their projects that aim to reduce homelessness in people ages 18 to 24. The grant program is called the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project and is designed to reduce the number of youths experiencing homelessness, according to HUD. In 2022, HUD selected A Way Home for Tulsa’s application along with the applications of 16 other communities, according to Housing Solutions Tulsa. Five projects — from Youth Services of Tulsa, Tulsa Day Center, Black Queer Tulsa, Tulsa Dream Center and Tulsa Higher Education Consortium — will now go to HUD for a final review, according to A Way Home for Tulsa. In this year’s annual Point-in-Time Count, there were 1,133 people experiencing homelessness. Over 100 of those were ages 18 to 24, the age group these projects are targeting. The grant money will be divided between the organizations to fund rapid rehousing and diversion efforts. The types of programs selected focus on finding permanent housing for people instead of shelters. Jacarious Monday, 21, has experienced homelessness in Tulsa and is the undersecretary for the board. Monday said he started helping his mother and brother, who both were not able-bodied, when he was younger. In 2021, Monday’s family died in a house fire that left him without a home. Monday said he carried that spirit for helping others to the board. “When Youth Action Board started coming up and they were talking about how this could help the homeless youth, I wanted to actually put my foot in, and I wanted to help out as much as I can,” Monday said. The board discussed how to make the application easier and get more people involved, Monday said. “I feel like the entirety of Youth Action Board has really, we’ve all come a long way from the beginning, from the first couple of meetings,” Monday said. “I feel like we all had a big role and a big aspect to it.” The youth on the board were critical in deciding what programs were important, said Youth Services of Tulsa Assistant Executive Director Beth Svetlic. “They prioritized rapid rehousing, diversion and access to housing resources,” Svetlic said. “They prioritized those programs in our coordinating community plan and then created the framework for what applicants were granted funding.” The challenge will be finding enough units to house people, Svetlic said. “Apartment stock is low and tight,” Svetlic said. “So, I think that will be our next hurdle, is ensuring that we have units available to actually put people in.” People surveyed in the Point-in-Time Count said the biggest cause of homelessness was a lack of affordable housing. They also said the largest need was housing placement. Programs like Youth Services of Tulsa are buying apartment buildings, Morrison said. Additionally, diversion programs include specialists to talk to landlords so that they accept more people who have experienced homelessness. Morrison said if he had access to the kinds of programs the board is hoping will come out of these grants when he was younger, he could be in his own apartment now. “I’m not going to dwell on what could be,” Morrison said. “I’m going to look towards the future to hope and pray that it will help individuals, other individuals, that are still part of the target population.”
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AuthorI am a writer pursuing a career in Journalism who has covered topics in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the D.C. area and American University. Archives
April 2024
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