Screen-Printing Shop Employing Homeless Community Opens In OKC

A new screen-printing shop in Oklahoma City is providing employment opportunities for people transitioning out of homelessness.

Curbside Apparel, operated by The Homeless Alliance, opened its shop at 1011 NW 6th St. last month. 

Its staff, comprised of members of the homeless community, prints graphics on hundreds of shirts per week, Whitley O'Connor, co-director of social enterprise at The Homeless Alliance, said.

Clients so far include the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Downtown OKC, Allegiance Credit Union, and Juneteenth on the East. 

"Anything from 25 shirts for a family reunion to 2,000 shirts for a company gala or something like that," O'Connor said.

Curbside Apparel joins other programs of The Homeless Alliance, including Curbside Chronicle (a program that allows people in the homeless community to sell magazines), Curbside Flowers (a full-service floral shop that employs people transitioning out of homelessness), and Sasquatch Shaved Ice (a snow cone stand that employs teens and young adults). Those programs served more than 250 people, providing them with nearly 70,000 employment hours and more than $975,000 in wages last year, according to The Homeless Alliance.

O'Connor said participants in those programs have moved up.

"We've had people who started with the magazine, started making flowers, and have actually moved into assistant manager roles," O'Connor said.

The Homeless Alliance hopes Curbside Apparel can further prepare the homeless community for traditional long-term jobs.

"You have a set schedule, a set location every day. Everyone goes through a Metro Tech training program to get certified in screen printing," O'Connor said.

"They work three, four days a week, so come in at 9, work until 4:30," Jacob Danley, assistant manager at Curbside Apparel, added.

O'Connor said prior to the opening of Curbside Apparel's shop, The Homeless Alliance piloted the screen-printing program for about two years, printing 10,000 shirts in that span. The program initially used a press that could only print a single shirt at a time with four colors. Curbside Apparel has since upgraded to a press that can print four shirts at a time using six colors.

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