In Oklahoma, almost 4,000 people were officially counted as experiencing homelessness last year.
Service providers ranging from shelters and mental health groups to the Department of Education and Department of Veterans Affairs each have a specific need they are trying to meet for that population, whether it be housing, substance abuse treatment or children’s programming.
And to bring these providers and many others together to tackle homelessness holistically, Oklahoma has the Governor’s Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Greg Shinn, council chair and associate director and chief housing officer for Mental Health Association Oklahoma, said the council helps overcome the siloed nature of social service providers by connecting power players, ideas and resources all over the state.
“It’s really great to get all that brain power in the same room and have some strong advocacy voices at the table representing veterans and tribes and job programs and schools,” Shinn told The Oklahoman.
“We hold ourselves to the ideology that homelessness is preventable, and we can end homelessness in the state of Oklahoma. We just need to rally our resources and work together on a unified plan to do it.”
The council, created in 2004 by Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry’s administration, is part of a larger network of councils in every state, headed by a federal program.
The mission is for the council to meet regularly with service providers, share information, identify problem areas and come up with potential solutions to end homelessness. These solutions are then presented to the governor’s office to help craft policy and provide expertise.
In the 15 years since the Oklahoma council began, its impact and effectiveness has improved, said Kay Floyd, a longtime member of the council and state director of Head Start Collaboration for the Oklahoma Association of Community Action Agencies.
“I think we’ve come a long way since the beginning,” Floyd said. “We all do have a particular perspective from where we come from, and that’s really the point.”
There are 25 members appointed to the council through the governor’s office. Gov. Kevin Stitt recently signed an executive order to continue the council’s operations during his tenure.
The council hosts its meetings at various locations around the state to introduce members to different service providers and groups they may not have known about, Shinn said. For the April meeting, the council went to Henryetta to visit a reintegration center run by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.