Achievements

Collaboration: Over the past two years, the Homeless Alliance has met and worked with approximately 100 agencies, organizations, and businesses in central Oklahoma. Our goal is to facilitate communication and community problem solving on issues of homelessness and poverty.

Real Change Vouchers: The Homeless Alliance has partnered with Downtown OKC to address increased panhandling in the downtown and Bricktown areas. This program involves the education of downtown employees and visitors by offering Real Change vouchers. These vouchers—each good for food and shelter, along with a bus ticket to one of the downtown homeless shelters—are sold at cost to people who wish to give something to panhandlers but are concerned about donated cash being used to buy drugs or alcohol. Although panhandlers and the homeless are two distinct populations, this project helps those who are truly needy while discouraging aggressive panhandling by those seeking money for unhealthy purposes. Click here for more information.

Community Standards: One of the chief goals of the Homeless Alliance has been the development of rigorous, community-wide standards for the operation of congregate homeless shelters. We believe that these standards will help our community improve the quality of services as well as attract new funding. The directors of Oklahoma City’s eight homeless shelters meet monthly at the Homeless Alliance offices to discuss standards and their implementation. The standards have been written and adopted by the executives of all seven homeless shelters in Oklahoma City, and we are currently engaged in a capacity-building exercise based on the standards.