Emergency shelter use by the homeless is up over 22% for the Salvation Army in Tulsa. That has prompted the call for a city ‘Homeless Summit’ this week. Salvation Army Captain Ken Chapman says in some cases other communities are shipping their homeless to Tulsa. Other shelters like ‘John 3:16’ and the ‘DayCenter for the Homeless’ are seeing similar numbers.
“The number of those seeking emergency shelter is dramatically increasing,” said Captain Ken Chapman, Tulsa Metro Area Commander. “At The Salvation Army’s Center of Hope homeless shelter alone, we are serving at 184 per cent of our capacity on a daily basis and spiking to over 200 per cent of capacity in times of extreme cold or heat. “This trend cannot continue,” said Champman.
The Salvation Army is inviting community leaders, elected officials, downtown business owners and social service agencies to come together to begin “the necessary conversations on how we as a community will address this growing concern,” Chapman said.
“We think it is important for people to understand the plight of so many in our community,” Chapman said, adding that 76% of those sheltered in the Tulsa Area at all shelters need assistance for 30 days or less.“We aren’t talking about people who are chronically homeless,” Chapman said. “We are talking about people who have had a dramatic event take place in their lives and they need a short-term stay while they regroup and figure out next steps.
“These events could be a domestic violence situation, a loss of a job or inability to pay utilities or a host of many things that quite frankly, could happen to a majority of our community,” Chapman said referring to a recent report from CareerBuilder that said 78 percent of full-time workers say they live paycheck to paycheck.