Housing

Dawn Deschler is on her second lease at the Villas at Midtown apartment complex in Tulsa, and despite consistently paying her rent, she has been without air conditioning since the beginning.

It is the start of the month, and rent is due.Most tenants in Oklahoma know who to pay, but tenants at apartments managed by, or formerly managed by, Vesta Realty aren’t so sure. That confusion stems from ongoing legal battles between Vesta Realty and YSA Investments 1.

Oklahoma Watch interviewed nine tenants at several different Vesta-owned properties, and each shared a similar experience.

As part of the "Safe Move Tulsa" initiative, the city wants the public to track the number of unhoused people moved off the streets and the number of camps that are decommissioned. The project has yet to be fully funded.

The state has one of the quickest processes in the country, churning out nearly a quarter of a million eviction filings over the past five years.

In a video posted to his Facebook page, Jordan Lee gives a tour of a Utah house he moved into in 2023, pointing out his riding mower, auto lift and 86-inch television.

For the first time, Ada is building a day center where people who are homeless have a place to hang out and to get resources, a reflection of a trend in rural Oklahoma of more people having a harder time staying in stable housing.

The state ranks high nationally for its pricey home insurance premiums. As climate change brings more extreme weather and inflation affects purchasing power, some look to policy changes to settle escalating insurance costs.

More than 66% of households on SNAP in the state have children, with more than 33% being older adults or disabled and more than 42% being working families.

The Tulsa Housing Impact Fund is a partnership between city government, local nonprofits and the national Housing Partnership Network.