Key to Home Partnership houses 17 people living under I-44 and Pennsylvania Avenue bridge – NEW INFORMATION
12/13/2023
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Seventeen people who were living in an encampment under the bridge at I-44 and Pennsylvania Avenue were provided with housing over the weekend, thanks to the efforts of the nonprofit organizations that make up the City’s newly formed Key to Home Partnership.
A major goal of the Key to Home Partnership is to rehouse 500 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness by 2025.
Staff from Key to Home Partnership, Mental Health Association and Hope Community Services provided outreach and engagement to those living in the encampment. City Rescue Mission secured the apartments needed for each family, and Focus on Home furnished each apartment with necessities.
The partnership with Oklahoma City Housing Authority (OCHA) has been instrumental in engaging, securing and preparing the apartments as well as providing vouchers for participants.
Each newly housed person has a case manager provided by the Homeless Alliance, City Care, Catholic Charities and NorthCare, who will help them stabilize and recover over the next year.
Now that everyone at the encampment has been housed, the camp has been closed. The City, in partnership with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, will provide maintenance while the outreach team continues to engage people in the area.
“Key to Home Partnership is working to solve homelessness one encampment at a time through housing and case management,” Key to Home Implementation Manager Lindsay Cates said. “Charitable contributions from our community are critical to making this model work.”
People can give to the Key to Home Partnership at keytohomeokc.org.
Key to Home Partnership
To address homelessness differently in Oklahoma City, a new system of governance called the Key to Home Partnership was launched in April 2023. Key to Home is a public-private partnership of over 40 agencies whose mission is to prevent and end homelessness in OKC alongside the City of OKC and the private sector.
The Key to Home Partnership’s action plan is to reduce unsheltered homelessness through housing. The four goals for 2023-2025 include:
- Create a new governance system.
- Address homelessness differently by improving infrastructure and capacity.
- Achieve a 25% reduction in Youth Homelessness by rehousing or diverting 100 youth by 2025.
- Achieve a 75% reduction in chronic Unsheltered Homelessness by rehousing 500 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness by 2025.
About homelessness in OKC
On any given night, about 1,400 people experience homelessness in Oklahoma City. Of them, about 500 are sleeping outside. Oklahoma City’s homelessness rate is a result of a myriad of complex factors, such as low wages, the lack of affordable housing, rising eviction rates and inflation.
To get involved or learn more about Key to Home Partnership, visit keytohomeokc.org.
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Media Contact:
Kristy Yager
(405) 297-2550
kristy.yager@okc.gov
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