TULSA, Okla. — The push for more affordable housing in Tulsa is coming to fruition, thanks partly to tiny home communities making their mark. Eden Village, a soon-to-be 63-home community in west Tulsa, is one of them.
The construction site is off Charles Page Blvd., on 61st West Ave.
The area has seen better days. Condemned homes and outdated infrastructure occupy it now, but a 63-tiny home community will soon take place.
Eden Village will serve the chronically homeless in Tulsa, and living in one will cost residents $350 a month.
Brad Johnson, the founder of Eden Village of Tulsa, says continued support is crucial.
He says ten homes have already been sponsored for $50,000, and four are built and placed momentarily in church parking lots throughout the community. They will later be moved to the site in West Tulsa.
Most recently, the Helmerich Trust gave Eden Village of Tulsa a $1,000,000 matching grant that will match every donation from now until the end of the year.
"A lot of that is centered in the community center," Johnson said. "We still need to raise the money, but we should be able to match their grant here by early fall."
The newly named Helmerich Community Center will be the heart of the complex with a kitchen, mental and spiritual services, a laundromat, and more.
Despite the mostly positive feedback, not everyone is on board with the tiny homes concept.
2 News reported about Jane Malone, a longtime Tulsa resident, and how some folks in her north Tulsa neighborhood are skeptical about another tiny homes community underway near them.
"We know that homelessness is a problem all over Tulsa," Malone told 2 News. But our reason - why East 46th Street North and North Peoria?"
Johnson says they're waiting on engineers to give the okay for the drainage situation on the property. He says if that goes as planned, crews should begin to dig lines in the next few weeks.
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