TULSA, Okla. — According to the City of Tulsa, about 3,000 people become unhoused in Tulsa each year. City leaders created Safe Move Tulsa in 2025 to help those in need.
It's a comprehensive plan to eliminate street homelessness in Tulsa.
Since its creation, Safe Move Tulsa has housed 360 people. Their goal is to reach 1,000 people by the end of 2026.
Safe Move Tulsa uses the rapid exit approach, which helps people exit homelessness safely and quickly. Usually, these methods provide unhoused people with resources to find short-term residency, reconnection with family members, or security deposits.
In addition to Safe Move Tulsa, several local shelters, including the Tulsa Day Center and the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma, use this method to help the unhoused. Rapid exits can help people leave homelessness in 90 days.
“Shelter providers in Tulsa have been working for years to find ways to quickly move people out of shelter and into stable housing,” said Mark Smith, CEO of Housing Solutions. “Thanks to this unified vision and new resources dedicated to this effort, we’re now seeing real progress - people are moving through the system and into housing faster than before. Access to shelter remains critical but helping people resolve their homelessness is just as important. These early results, combined with ongoing encampment decommissioning efforts, show that Tulsa is making meaningful progress toward eliminating street sleeping in our community.”
Safe Move Tulsa's rapid exit plan received an initial investment of $6 million from the City of Tulsa. The Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation donated $1 million, and the Tulsa Leadership Council donated $4 million to the cause.
"Safe Move Tulsa is showing what it can look like when we see investments that live up to the strategies we know work," Mayor Monroe Nichols said. "From the beginning, our goal has been to help people end their homelessness while addressing the concerns from residents that we hear about every single day. We've made significant progress rehousing individuals from encampments while keeping those encampments closed, and now we're seeing that work travel upstream by helping people resolve their homelessness quickly before they end up on the streets or in long-term encampments."
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