TULSA, Okla. — People living in the community near Mohawk Park are less than thrilled about plans for a low-barrier homeless shelter in their part of town.
Tulsa leaders scoured more than 50 properties across Tulsa to find what they were looking for for the shelter.
In early July, the city announced a former vacant senior living facility north of Tulsa as their preferred site. 2 News spoke with the City of Tulsa's Travis Hulse, who oversees housing and homeless issues, he addressed some neighbors' concerns of safety issues.
"There won’t be any different rules or application of those rules," Hulse said, "People will have to abide by the same rules."
Dan Polak lives right next door.
"Nobody is happy that this is going in out here," said Polak. "This is a country setting, and they’re trying to make it an urban setting. Either that or they’re trying to get them away from downtown and get them out here where nobody can see them. There’s no services out here for anybody... It's just ruining this area."
Polak said he's spoken to a few neighbors, and the community seems unhappy as a whole.
"They’ve been saying it’s a low barrier housing facility, and according to that definition, there’s no ID checks, there’s no curfews, there’s no treatment involved if they don’t want it, there’s no curtailing any street activities of any sort," said Polak. "Basically it’s bringing drugs right next door. Traffic will be probably 100 times, if you’ve got 50-75 people living across the street there, all having case workers that need to take them back and forth to work and grocery stores and whatever else, that’s a lot of trips back and forth a day. I don’t see life out here being the same, it’s not going to be better that’s for sure.”
From the beginning, the city and the shelter operator City Lights Foundation have explained that a 'low barrier,' means there are not many restrictions for entry.
It opens the door for Tulsans who have no other housing options due to things like addictions, convictions, or owning a service animal. However, it's also a referral facility only, so people will not be able to just walk up and get a bed.
Polak is not convinced.
"Bull," he said. "It’s just gonna be whatever they were doing downtown, out here and then we’ll have to deal with that, and our families will have to deal with that, our pets will have to deal with that.”
Gary LaBass also lives nearby. He hopes the city is thorough in the process.
"I hope it’s not just something that’s ramrodded at us. You know, maybe something that we have a say in, take a different look," LaBass said.
The facility is being branded as a residential care center. The plan is to bring services directly to the homeless at the shelter, to ease the rehabilitation process.
Since it is a more rural part of Tulsa, Polak said he can't understand why this out of 50 other sites was the best fit.
“You can’t help people that don’t want help. It’s that simple. And low barrier housing is for people that don’t necessarily want help, they just want to get off the streets, want someone to feed them and take care of them.”
Neighbors just like Polak had an opportunity to share concerns at a community meeting at the Mohawk Water Treatment Plant hosted by the city.
WATCH: Neighborhood meeting about low barrier homeless shelter:
Polak has lived in his home for six years and said he intended to spend the rest of his life there. Now, he's not sure he wants to stick around long enough to meet his new neighbors.
“I’m currently in negotiations with the owner to buy the place," said Polak. "This may not do well for me, might change my mind about if I want to live here or not. I’m definitely not going to live next door to drug addicts, I’m not going to live next door to drug trade and I don’t need to.”
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