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Tulsa Area Housing Task Force

State: OK Type: Promising Practice Year: 2019

Environmental Health Services (EHS) at the Tulsa City-County Health Department (THD) is responsible for housing inspections in the City of Tulsa.  THD shares the responsibility of enforcing housing and nuisance complaints with the City of Tulsa. Tulsa has numerous aging neighborhoods and an eleven-year discrepancy in life expectancy, specifically in North Tulsa.

THD has two goals for the Housing program, increase communication with the City of Tulsa Working in Neighborhoods Department and decrease poor housing stock while providing affordable housing. THD is working within a subcommittee to address poor communication between the two agencies that enforce housing and nuisance code.

The objective is to create a coalition of community partners to identify what gaps exist, and how to best utilize resources to improve housing conditions in Tulsa, Oklahoma. EHS will collect accurate data to be shared by all partners, create effective strategies, deploy resources, and then follow-up and assess the program. In order to measure the effectiveness of the partnership, data was collected at the beginning and again in the future to capture the impact on a communities' overall health.

This project started in July of 2017. THD created a Housing Initiative Task Force. In order to achieve our first goal, the agencies mapped out our individual complaint and abatement process in order to compare and improve our response time to the community. The process mapping has created a more efficient inspection process. Next, we created two new inspection forms for both agencies to use when working both housing and nuisance complaints. The new forms helped improve our referral process and decrease abatement response time. This group collaborated to update the Housing Code to a more current standard that fits our community's needs.

Decreasing poor housing stock is a long-term goal that THD is currently working toward. EHS focuses on public education, reaching out to community partners, and applying the housing code to improve housing conditions. EHS selected 19 square miles from the north Tulsa area. EHS conducted exterior assessments of housing conditions such as high grass, trash, roof, windows, and paint.  Then pulled complaint data over a three year period for these same square miles. A class at OSU-Tulsa created a door to door survey will be complete by the end of 2018 in 2 of these square miles. Many questions on this survey document public health issues. This data will be used as a baseline and after our community partners concentrate resources in these areas, other surveys will be conducted to measure effectiveness.

One of our community partners received an extra Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) dedicated to a specific area in north Tulsa. The City of Tulsa is using the funds to concentrate in the Crutchfield neighborhood to increase impact on that community. The City is constructing a new bus terminal for a fast transit route through this major housing and employment district.

Since the start of this project, THD and the City of Tulsa have decreased the response time for referral nuisance complaints by two weeks in most cases. The new procedure for responding to emergency housing conditions was recently tested. Two apartment complexes were without electricity, and we had the potential for 40 families to be displaced.  THD and City Code Enforcement were in contact with each other to post an Order to Repair, connect families with community partners, and contact the delinquent owner. Ultimately, many families were moved to safer housing with minimal expense and the apartment complexes will not be occupied until violations are fixed. The baseline survey will help the Housing Task Force measure our progress in the future.

The success of our program is linked to good communication and support from community partners. These groups have encouraged and helped our agencies think of new ways to communicate with each other and the public. The community partners are eager to be a part of the process of improving our community.

We have not reached a point in this program to be able to measure the impact on the community. EHS expects that there will be a reduction in complaint backlogs and more properties abated with similar funding amounts. We are using a combination of neighborhood surveys, both exterior assessments and a door to door questionnaire focusing on public health. The surveys will be complete at the end of 2018 and again in the future to measure direct results on the community.

https://www.tulsa-health.org/environmental-health


Inadequate and unsafe housing conditions contribute to health problems including injuries, poor childhood development, and spread of infectious and chronic diseases. Safe, healthy, and adequate housing is a basic public health need. Housing that protects individuals from harmful exposures provides them the stability, security, and control needed to thrive and experience more positive health outcomes. Neighborhoods with maintained houses reflect a positive impression of a healthy community and personal health.

Tulsa has several agencies currently addressing blight and poor housing conditions in their own departments. These agencies were working separately without much information on what the other agencies are responsible for in the community. Tulsa has a growing problem of abandoned properties, some due to clouded titles, and predator landlords that create unsafe neighborhoods. The rise in crime in these areas adds to the cycle of lack of affordable housing for our citizens. This program will bring the City of Tulsa, TCCHD, Law enforcement, and numerous other neighborhood outreach programs together to improve our community.

This grant proposal will have a broad reach and include cities that are entirely or partially within Tulsa County including Bixby, Broken Arrow, Collinsville, Owasso, Sand Springs, Skiatook, and Tulsa. Some of these communities have not adopted a housing code. TCCHD hopes to build a relationship with their towns and show the benefits of adopting the code and improving their built environment.

The most densely populated county in the state of Oklahoma, Tulsa County has a population of 629,598 residents and continues rapid development in Tulsa's surrounding suburbs. Tulsa leaders have joined forces to strategize for sustainable health improvement plans. Cross-sector collaborations and partnerships have developed into strong human and financial resources for health improvement.

Tulsa has sophisticated and generous donors such as the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the Tulsa Community Foundation, two of the largest foundations in the nation. We have created a collective impact by fostering quality partnerships and investing in and developing relationships in communities that were historically unjust in order to provide an equal opportunity for health.

Poverty is a major driver of disease. Estimated poverty rates for Tulsa County is 15.9% (American Community Survey, 2016). As in many communities, poverty is racially disparate: approximately 32% of the African American population and 27% of the Hispanic population lived below the poverty line, which was almost three times higher than the percentage of the White population living in poverty (11.4%) (American Community Survey, 2016).

Tulsa has not seen a citywide collaboration over multiple agencies to address public health issues before. This new collaboration creates an open dialog between departments and combines our limited resources. Tulsa is creating healthier more equitable communities and strengthening the integration of health systems. Improved population health, well-being, and equity are a direct result of implementing programs and policies, which increase healthy behaviors, improve clinical care, expand social and economic opportunity, and restore the built environment.


THD has two goals for the Housing program, increase communication with the City of Tulsa Working in Neighborhoods Department and decrease poor housing stock while providing affordable housing. THD is working within a subcommittee to address blighted properties through code enforcement, improve communication with other community partners, increase affordable housing, and decrease poor housing stock.

The objective is to create a coalition of community partners so that EHS can identify what gaps exist and how to best utilize resources to improve housing conditions in the community. We will collect accurate data to be shared by all partners, create effective strategies, deploy resources, and then follow-up and assess the program.

Our first goal was to improve communication between the Tulsa Health Department and the City of Tulsa. Both agencies are able to respond to housing and nuisance complaints from our citizens. In the past, we operated as separate agencies with little communication. This created a system that wasted our resources and frustrated our community. Today, we communicate often and share the workload. After we improved our referral process and created new inspection forms, our abatement response time improved. The agencies can now focus on working together to improve housing stock.

EHS collaborates with Legal Aid of Oklahoma to provide a class to the public called Housing 101. This class discusses the housing code, Fair Housing Act, and the Landlord Tenant Act. Landlords, property managers, tenants, and non-profit agencies attend the class to become more familiar with their rights and responsibilities under Oklahoma law. We prepared an online version of the class to post on our website so that people, generally renters, can access the information without having to take off work.

Two task force groups were created to address different issues related to our built environment. The first group is an internal agency collaboration that is focused on improving processes and brainstorming ways to improve the program and outreach. The second group was formed to bring in community partners involved in housing outreach and local governments. This group is focused on combining resources to address issues in our community.

THD invited several local government officials and community stakeholders to participate in the task force. Non-profit agencies on the task force are familiar with vulnerable populations in the community. Their experience and contact with the public will help EHS inform citizens about the services offered throughout THD. Tulsa Housing Authority aids in advertising our Housing 101. Since EHS enforces the same code as the City of Tulsa, this partnership will improve efficiency in abatement of noncompliant properties. Habitat for Humanity, OU-Tulsa Health Clinic, and Community Service Council are other organizations that have helped our department compile data and locate where resources are most needed.

The objective is to create a coalition of community partners to identify what gaps exist, and how to best utilize resources to improve housing conditions in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Since this is a new project, only baseline data has been collected. THD is monitoring data relating to heat and plumbing for housing in Tulsa. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012-2016 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates).

The Housing Task Force is evaluating progress based on both quantitative and qualitative evidence.  The short-term goal of improving the communication between agencies and educating the public is a qualitative approach. The long-term goal of improving housing stock will be evaluated by quantitative means.

Since the start of this project, EHS and Working in Neighborhoods have decreased the response time for referral nuisance complaints by two weeks in most cases. The new procedure for responding to emergency housing conditions was recently tested. Two apartment complexes were without electricity and had the potential for 40 families to be displaced.  THD and City Code Enforcement were in contact with each other to post an Order to Repair, connect families with community partners, and contact delinquent owner. Ultimately, many families were moved to safer housing with minimal expense and the apartment complexes will not be occupied until violations are fixed.

The long-term goal of improving housing stock will be evaluated after THD, Working in Neighborhoods, and other community partners finish their projects in the selected neighborhoods. A baseline neighborhood survey, both exterior assessments and a door to door questionnaire focusing on public health, were conducted in 2018. In the future, another survey in the same area will show our effectiveness.



The Housing Task Force has learned that there is a need to find innovative ways to educate tenants on healthy homes and their rights in Oklahoma. EHS also needs to continue to use technology to communicate with the public. The success of our program is linked to good communication and support from community partners. These groups have encouraged and helped our agencies think of new ways to communicate with each other and the public. The community partners are eager to be a part of the process, and their commitment will help us achieve our goals. Our success so far was achieved by more effectively using available resources, so our ability to sustain our momentum should not change in the future.


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