Annual Homeless Count Highlights Lack Of Affordable Housing In Oklahoma City

New data from the City of Oklahoma City shows the amount of people experiencing homelessness in the city may have decreased.

Organizers last counted two years ago; but they believe Wednesday's number doesn't tell the whole story.

The latest report shows 1,349 people have struggled to find stable housing across Oklahoma City, with a third of that population considered "unsheltered homeless" living outside including at night. 

Advocates said the rising rent costs and a stagnant minimum wage only exacerbate the issue.

“If you're making $40,000 to $60,000, we've got a pretty good housing market, but in Oklahoma County, we have 135,000 people that live at or below the poverty line,” Homeless Alliance executive director Dan Straughan said. “That's not $40,000. That's $12,000.”

The annual count was skipped in 2021 due to COVID-19 and pushed back twice this year. The numbers are down from the previous count in 2020, which saw 1,573 unhoused people. 

Advocates believe the dip is more from when the count happened, which was March 3, and not so much that the population has decreased.

"Certain government benefits, notably social security pay, on the first or the third, so people will often use that money to stay in a motel or pay a friend to put them up for a week or two (un)’til the money runs out and they're back in the shelter," Straughan said.

The report uncovered more than just how many people in the city are struggling with housing.

One of the main causes of it: Oklahoma City is short about 4,500 units of truly affordable housing.

"The market is super tight right now and the costs are increasing,” Straughan said. “If I had $10,000 two years ago, I could house ten families. Now, I can maybe only house seven families.”

Oklahoma City metro landlords also have begun to opt out of renting to people with emergency housing vouchers.

"Twenty to 30 of them [people with vouchers] had one in hand and could not find a unit. That's never been the case before," Oklahoma City Program Planner for Oklahoma Services Jerod Shadid said. "They don't have to serve our clients anymore who are on assistance, so people who were doing that before now are saying we don't have to do this anymore. We can take somebody and charge them more rent.” 

According to the report, market rent for a one-bedroom unit in Oklahoma City costs about $670. At $7.25/hour, it would take 70+ hours a week at minimum wage job to afford that. A two-bedroom unit would take approximately 90 hours a week at minimum wage to afford.

"In Oklahoma, our minimum wage is still at $7.25 an hour and has been for decades. Meanwhile, in the last six to seven years, rent in Oklahoma City has skyrocketed," Straughan said. “The kinds of jobs that pay minimum wage are the kinds that are typically part-time, and they come with zero in the way of benefits for leave or vacation or health insurance.”

Oklahoma City is also consistently in the top 20 cities for evictions per capita, according to the Princeton University Eviction Lab. Right now, OKC ranks 20th while Tulsa checks in at No. 11.

"We as a community have become pretty good about moving people out of homelessness, but until we can slow the inflow, we're not going to make a lot of progress," Straughan said.  

The longer a person is unhoused, the harder it is to get them stable housing.  

"The first week, you're just out on the street and that's awful, but if you can't get access and you're out there for over a year (and then) suddenly, you're chronically homeless," Shadid said.   

A third of the overall population is unsheltered, and 61% of that group is considered chronically homeless. Of the unsheltered, 83% became homeless while they lived in Oklahoma. The vast majority of the 83% in Oklahoma City.

About half of the unsheltered population has never been homeless before.

“I've been a person without a home, a person without a country twice,” Bruce Wolfsburg, a man experiencing homelessness in OKC, said. “That's when you have no I.D., nothing to show for who you are. People don't know you, and they can't vouch for you."

Wolfsburg is one person waiting to first get his I.D., then a place to live.

"That feeling of elation, that feeling of success. That feeling that I've arrived,” Wolfsburg said. “That's what it's going to feel like.”

MAPS 4 has set aside about $50 million to go towards affordable housing.