Norman / Cleveland County is not experimenting. We are applying models that have already been proven — in communities our size, with populations like ours, facing the same challenges. Start with the closest one: Tulsa is a hundred miles up I-44, under the same Legislature and the same Governor, and it is already doing this.
Finland is a country. Boise is a different state. Medicine Hat is a different nation. It is easy to look at those and say that could never happen here. So start with the one that already did — in Oklahoma, under the same Legislature, the same Governor, the same state budget, and the same year the Governor's Interagency Council on Homelessness was dissolved.
Tulsa did not wait for the State. In August 2023 Tulsa voters approved $75 million of sales-tax revenue for housing through Improve Our Tulsa 3. The City then took $47 million of it and used it as the anchor for the Tulsa Housing Impact Fund — pulling in the Zarrow, George Kaiser, Schusterman, Ruth Nelson, Coretz and Burnstein foundations until the fund held roughly $80 million in flexible capital, managed by the national Housing Partnership Network. Mayor Monroe Nichols has committed to 6,000 affordable units by 2028.
On the street side, Safe Move Tulsa pairs $6 million from the City with $1 million from the Anne & Henry Zarrow Foundation and $4 million from the Tulsa Leadership Council. It doesn't clear camps and walk away — every person gets an individualized plan up to a year: health care, mental health, addiction treatment, rental assistance. As of June 2026 it had rehoused 360 people, with a stated goal of 1,000 by the end of the year and functional zero by 2030. Behind it sits A Way Home for Tulsa — 23 agencies at one table, a by-name list, and long-standing membership in Community Solutions' Built for Zero campaign.
Here is the part that should sting. Tulsa's Continuum of Care brings home about $9.3 million in HUD funding a year. Norman / Cleveland County's Continuum of Care — OK-504 — brought home $532,015. Same state. Same rules. Same application. About six cents on Tulsa's dollar.
And Norman has already done the hardest part. Tulsa's whole structure rests on a public vote. Norman voted too — $8 million, April 7, 2026, 54.25%. Tulsa turned its vote into $80 million. We have not yet turned ours into anything.
Sources: City of Tulsa press room, Feb. 25, 2026 & Aug. 21, 2025 · tulsahousingfund.org · KJRH, June 24, 2026 · HUD FY2025 CoC award announcements · Tulsa Housing Impact Fund →
New Path Community Housing is Idaho's first single-site Permanent Supportive Housing program — a Housing First model serving Ada County's most chronically homeless residents. Independently evaluated by Idaho Policy Institute at Boise State University, the results are clear: house people first, and everything else improves. Emergency room visits drop. Arrests fall. Quality of life rises — dramatically.
Source: New Path Community Housing Annual Evaluation 2023 — Idaho Policy Institute, Boise State University · Read the Full Report →
Finland's Housing First revolution eliminated rough sleeping almost entirely. Permanent housing — with no preconditions — paired with wraparound services. Norman / Cleveland County is applying the same principles at the local level.
Medicine Hat (population ~65,000 — nearly identical to Norman) ended chronic homelessness in 2015 using Housing First, a real-time by-name registry, and dedicated municipal funding. If they can do it, Norman / Cleveland County can do it.
Houston's coordinated system — real-time data, rapid rehousing, and unified NGO collaboration — cut homelessness by nearly two-thirds. The same coordinated entry model is at the core of Norman / Cleveland County's plan.
Hennepin County's Homeless to Housing (H2H) program serves single adults and families with personalized case management to overcome barriers and secure sustainable housing. Once housed, people stay housed — 96% retention answers the biggest skeptic question of all.
Source: Hennepin County H2H Program · Read More →
HUD's official publication Evidence Matters (Spring/Summer 2023) reviewed decades of research and concluded that Housing First works — decisively. The federal government has staked its homelessness strategy on this model. Norman / Cleveland County's $8M vote is how we bring it home.
Source: HUD Evidence Matters Spring/Summer 2023 · Read the HUD Report →
The nation's leading homelessness research nonprofit has reviewed the full body of evidence: Housing First works for everyone — families, individuals, veterans, survivors of domestic violence. Housed people stay housed, costs drop, and lives improve. This is not theory. This is the established science of ending homelessness.
Source: National Alliance to End Homelessness · Read the Research →
Humanity is measured not by how we treat those with everything, but by how we care for those with nothing.