Waiting on Empty Issue 65 $ the Stress of Securing Suggested Unemployment Relief 2 Donation in Oklahoma | P

Oklahoma City’s street paper

Waiting on Empty Issue 65 $ The stress of securing Suggested unemployment relief 2 Donation in Oklahoma | P. 16 OKC STREETCAR REAL-TIME MAP TRACK YOUR We’re RIDE Hiring IN REAL TIME AVAILABLE AT REALTIME.OKCSTREETCAR.COM

Join our team for a career with great benefits and advancement!

To apply, visit embarkok.com/careers. TRACKED BY A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR OKC STREETCAR REAL-TIME MAP AUGUST 2020 >> Nathan Poppe discusses patience, visiting unemployment lines and a moment of empathy with Shelley Zumwalt 4 Emma Ryan shares advice on healthy eating

7 George Lang explores the impact TRACK of sprawl on OKC

14 On the Move highlights Lauren who We’re recently secured an apartment YOUR 16 How has the pandemic affected unemployment in Oklahoma

26 Jezy J. Gray goes next door to tell the Hiring stories of neighbors RIDE 31 Parting Shot illustrates the impact of IN REAL TIME summer heat AVAILABLE AT On July 1, a line formed outside the Reed Center in Midwest City for the first day of REALTIME.OKCSTREETCAR.COM an unemployment claim processing event hosted by the OESC. [Photo by Nathan Poppe]

ith a bandana wrapped around my face and a Target basket in COVER CREDITS: On June 26, Curbside hand, I stepped forward in the checkout line. Behind me, a woman made a visit to the Will Rogers Building to sighed louder than a deflating hot air balloon and said to no one document the people waiting in line for help with in particular, “COVID is really ruining my life right now.” We’d both unemployment. As COVID-19 spread in OKC W and unemployment claims grew throughout the been waiting for less than two minutes. Yes, two minutes. I’m glad country, the event represented the perfect storm my mask was on because hiding a smile wasn’t easy. We were both out of the store in of weariness 2020 continues to deliver. less than five minutes. Patience is a virtue, but I guess it’s not for everybody. Our editor Nathan Poppe made six visits to lines That line was nothing compared to what thousands of Oklahomans faced in their outside OESC events, but the cover is one of the hopes of finding relief at local unemployment offices. It was late June when I first first shots he took on his initial visit. Although it started seeing photos of people wrapped around the Will Rogers Building. Surreal, only captures a small slice of the line, the photo I thought. Then a news video emerged. A man — filled with much of the same captures dozens of visitors shortly after the doors frustration as the lady behind me at Target — started venting about the need to of the Will Rogers Building opened. afford food. My mind couldn’t help but flashback to history books and black and white photos of breadlines in the 1930s. A century later, we’re still running into similar problems. Time can truly be a flat circle.

I ended up visiting unemployment lines six times throughout June and July. On my last visit, I sat down with Shelley Zumwalt. She’s the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission’s interim director and is working overtime on the state’s unemployment crisis. We talked for nearly an hour and one moment really stuck out to me. Shelley was a single mom for eight years and at one point held two jobs — a 9 to 5 at a nonprofit and tending bar four nights a week. She said she knows what it feels like to have to put things back in a grocery store when you realize you can’t afford them. Director Ranya Forgotson Shelley sees herself in these unemployment lines because she knows she could’ve Join our team for a career been there, too. As this story continues to garner national attention — Annie Gowen’s Editor-in-Chief Nathan Poppe story in The Washington Post is a must read — I hope our country observes this Advertising Whitley O’Connor moment with empathy and compassion. Oklahoma’s unemployment rates are often Vendor Coordinator David Delgado with great benefits and low, but that doesn’t lessen the stress and pressure many people are facing as they experience unemployment for the first time. advancement! Address: 1724 NW 4th St. OKC, OK 73106 General inquiries: 405-415-8425 405-628-2367 The Curbside Chronicle is Oklahoma City’s street paper. Vendor assistance: It was created to provide both a voice and employment Email: [email protected] To apply, visit for people experiencing homelessness. Our vendors buy magazines at 75 cents per issue and sell them for Follow us on social media at @CurbsideOKC a suggested $2. They keep the profit. Thanks for your NATHAN POPPE embarkok.com/careers. support in ending homelessness in OKC. TRACKED BY A PROGRAM OF THE HOMELESS ALLIANCE GOOD TO KNOW Practical advice from passionate people

adding more greens to your plate. Can you add a salad to your lunch? Or eat a Simple steps for side of vegetables before your pizza? Maybe even a smoothie with spinach for breakfast? Focus on adding in the By Emma Ryan healthy eating good and naturally you’ll crowd out the bad.

Remember, it might sound too good > Welcome to our column, Good to Know. The idea is to explore topics — in a quick and to be true, but once you bring aware- easy way — that can be part of your everyday life. We hope it'll both entertain and educate ness to your personal health and food a broad collection of readers who are mindful about everything from food and fun to politics and public transportation. choices, you’ll slowly open your eyes to the areas where small changes can make for big differences. Do this for you because I promise you’re worth it. We’ve all been there. Feeling Don’t make promises to yourself that like our healthiest selves are you don’t plan on keeping. For exam- nowhere to be found. Or like ple, if you tell yourself you are going to drink a gallon of water tomorrow, do being healthy requires a ton it. Don’t break your promise because of resources and a long list of then every promise that comes after things that seem out of reach. won’t hold its value and neither will But what if you could actual- your word. ly be healthier, feel better and live a happier life with a few Only do the things that you deeply desire. Just because your friend tried small changes? a paleo diet once and lost 30 pounds, doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you. Simple steps forward can make a And just because someone once told dramatic difference. You know those you that you should lose five pounds, things we’ve been hearing since we doesn’t mean you have to. Take a mo- were old enough to repeat the alpha- ment to pause and ask yourself what it bet — drink water, eat veggies and is that truly appeals to you? Only that Take a moment go outside. It would be too good to be answer is worth fighting for. true if those little things worked. But to pause“ and ask the thing is, they often do. Water you waiting for yourself what is it At age 22, I had over $50,000 of med- Water, water and more water. Yes, I ical bills due to battles with cancer, know. It’s boring, but you’ll be amazed that truly appeals multiple auto-immune diseases and at what water can do for you. It sup- eating disorders. I was visiting more ports every aspect of your miraculous to you? Only that doctors than I could count. I didn’t functioning human body. Sometimes know what my life trajectory was, nor dehydration can show up in forms of answer is worth did I know how to care for my body. poor digestion, migraines or lack of Today, I know, and I’ve dedicated my energy. If you don’t start by drinking fighting for.” career to teaching and helping others plenty of water, you’ll never know if it going through similar situations. was the water or the kale salads that made you feel better. Typically, I have — Emma Ryan This required avoiding the easy way my clients start with 70 ounces per day out or quick fixes. I’m here to tell you and work their way up to 120 ounces that being healthy is possible. It doesn’t depending on their activity level. take hours in the kitchen, thousands of dollars in supplements or hours in the Replace processed foods. You know gym. It takes your dedication. that granola bar you just ate? Or the bag of chips? Get rid of it and replace Set some rules it with fresh fruits and vegetables. Remember to start small and replace Baby steps are significant. You don’t one meal at a time. Anytime you catch have to change everything overnight. yourself eating from a wrapper, swap Start small, make it habitual and then it out for a banana or carrots with hum- Editor note: Emma Ryan is an add on. You want to have small wins mus. and victories so that your confidence Integrative Nutrition Health Coach and owner of Plant, an all-day café in grows, and you build motivation to Once you’ve nailed drinking water Midtown OKC. Learn more about her keep going. and avoiding packaged foods, start work at emma-ryan.com.

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CELEBRATING THE SHARED VALUES OF MEANINGFUL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

“Painting of Robert and Curbside Flowers” by Christian Heritage Academy Senior, Elise Wall Contract • Contract-to-Hire • Direct Hire www.accelfinancial.com P 405-232-3100 S W R L A

Oklahoma City is big.

Real big.

But it’s rarely for the best. Let’s dig into how OKC got this way, our unique challenges and what’s to be done with all that sprawl.

STORY BY GEORGE LANG

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHRIS CROCKETT

Whenever he tries to explain the problems associat- Holt likes to bring the shock with those statistics, and when ed with governing a 621 square-mile city and the people he talks to groups about the effect of sprawl on how a city spread throughout it, Oklahoma City mayor David Holt operates, it is clear that this is not 10-gallon hat bragging goes for shock value. about size. It is a problem, and like many mayors before him, Holt deals with the effects of Oklahoma City’s mid-20th “In my two years as mayor, I have made a small hobby out century land grabs every day. of introducing people to some of these realities, thinking that the first thing is just confronting it,” Holt said. “In both The most obvious visible problem associated with sprawl of my State of the City addresses, I have listed six American comes from long traffic commutes, which will become longer cities that you could simultaneously fit inside of Oklahoma as development continues inside and outside the city’s pe- City.” riphery. Holt, who commutes from a neighborhood in northwest Oklahoma City to downtown on most days, said that CELEBRATING THE Yes, it would be theoretically possible to squeeze the major such times are still manageable, but that is not likely to last. American cities of Chicago, Miami, Boston, Washington, D.C., the Manhattan borough of New York City and Phila- “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this story from SHARED VALUES OF delphia into the city limits of Oklahoma City. residents,” Holt said. “ ‘Well, I bought a house at 150th and May, and then I drove to work for the first time and real- All at once. ized how bad the streets were, how long the commute was.’ MEANINGFUL Sometimes, people should probably do more research into “I’ve said that in a hundred speeches and the crowd always what they’re getting themselves into, but the tone is set by does the same thing. They gasp — I mean, audibly gasp,” he the developers. Developers gravitate to where there are city EMPLOYMENT said. “No one’s ever told them that. That’s how ignorant we services, and there are city services anywhere we exist, and are about our own sprawl; we don’t know it is that unique. because we chose back in the 1950s to exist across 620 We kind of knew we were big, but … we are an extreme square miles, there’s a lot of territory for you to choose OPPORTUNITIES outlier in sprawl.” from.”

“Painting of Robert and Curbside Flowers” by Christian Heritage Academy Senior,

Elise Wall 7 Give me land, lots of land

When Oklahoma City first incorporated 130 years ago, it consisted of a two square mile grid, and the first impetus for the city to start annexing came when developers began buying the land around it. An immediate fiscal concern took hold in Oklahoma City’s civic offices and the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce: what happens if Oklahoma City is the place for people to do business but not the place they call home?

Anton Classen was one of the first major developers to acquire farmland outside the city limit that could be built into housing. He and fellow developer John Shartel built a streetcar system called the Oklahoma Railway Company to take people into the more far-flung neighborhoods, extending as far west as NW 23rd Street and Portland Avenue, east to Lincoln Park, south to Commerce Street and north to Classen Circle, where the Belle Isle Power Plant was built to keep the network of streetcars running. It also ran its Interurban line that served as far west as El Reno and a north-south axis from Guthrie to Norman.

Oklahoma City was seemingly in a constant state of annexation, as were many cities around the Oklahoma City is now the country. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 51.2 percent of Americans lived in cities in 1920, the 25th largest city in the first time the urban population exceeded the rural population in the country, and there were many United States, according reasons for the shift. The nation’s movement toward an industrial work force over an agrarian one to recent annual was a major factor, with large numbers of people moving to cities to work in factories instead of population estimates farms. The rise of the automobile industry accounted for much of it, as a diaspora of rural workers released by the U.S. from the South moved to industrial Midwest metropolises like Detroit. Census Bureau. A few years later, demographers first saw evidence of what became known as “urban sprawl.” The new figures show Radburn, New Jersey, a community 10 miles from New York City designed by its city planners as a Oklahoma City has “town for the motor age,” was one of the first areas to use cul-de-sacs in America. Until that point, moved up six spots in most cities were laid out on a “gridiron” pattern that maximized the use of land in a compact area, the population rankings but building neighborhoods using cul-de-sacs meant stretching out. from the 31st spot it occupied in 2010, when According to Robert Bruegmann’s “Sprawl: A Compact History,” sprawl is “most often described as the last 10-year census was done. unplanned, scattered, low-density, automobile-dependent development at the urban periphery.” In Oklahoma City’s case, it was scattered development that rattled the chamber of commerce and their VIA THE OKLAHOMAN allies in civic government. Oddly enough, they chose to conquer that problem by sprawling over those scattered developments, taking over their tax bases.

In Oklahoma City during the 1920s, central neighborhoods like Heritage Hills and Mesta Park were the suburbs, and the Edgemere Park neighborhood was just being surveyed for building. Oklahoma City was still a young town, and according to Geoffrey Butler, Oklahoma City’s current planning director, the city accelerated into sprawl mode fairly quickly.

Almost everything about Oklahoma City’s potential future changed in 1947. That spring, the city elected a funeral director named Allen Street as mayor. Street was a member of the chamber of commerce, and that body became responsible for much of the city’s development trajectory. Street lived up to his name: according to Richard Bernard and Bradley Rice’s “Sunbelt Cities: Politics and Growth Since World War II,” the city commissioned the St. Louis, Missouri firm Harland Bartholomew and Associates to create a street plan that would coordinate with the highway system. The same month Street took office, the Classen streetcars ceased operation.

“Because our city was so new, we didn’t really have a ‘non-auto’ history,” Butler said. “What we did have was very brief, so there wasn’t a strong sense of urbanism or traditional development pattern already established. You know, we did have a traditional block pattern early in the city’s history and it’s obvious when you drive around the urban core.

“But as we all know, the automobile came onto the scene pretty quickly, so we started developing in that mode.”

“Walkable” is one of those odd terms that probably would be rarely used if not for urban sprawl. For people living in Oklahoma City (or any other American city) before 1947, almost everything was walkable — any person with average health could get almost anything they needed by walking, and if not, buses and streetcars were relatively close. Cities were designed so that most goods and services could be reached by foot from anyone’s home or business, and cities worked that way for literally thousands of years.

When the Classen streetcars and Interurban ceased operation in 1947, automobile-based city planning, coupled with Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce’s stated desire to raise the city’s population to 600,000 resulted in a series of land grabs. These annexations raised the city’s tax base consid- erably, providing more operating capital for city services. In 1950, Oklahoma City annexed the town of Britton, and four years later extended its reach along Northwest Expressway to the edge of Warr Acres. Cities like The Village, Warr Acres and Nichols Hills had to fight annexation efforts by the city,

which was keen to absorb tax bases and limit land development around urban centers, life in suburbia is quiet and comfortable, and true to the Lake Hefner. The final major annexations took place in the early 1960s, idea of sprawl itself, there is plenty of room to stretch out. But sprawl in with Oklahoma City reaching its 621 square mile status by 1962. Oklahoma City and migration to the suburbs was not driven by a wholly innocent desire for space and tranquility. In 1963, just after Oklahoma Sweeping changes took place after World War II that affected how City completed its string of annexations, U.S. District Judge Luther Boha- people lived and, just as importantly, where they lived. Returning ser- non ruled that Oklahoma City Public Schools were segregated by race. vicemen were offered inexpensive loans from the Veterans Administra- It took nearly a decade, but in 1972 and under court oversight, the tion to buy homes, and when they did, they often moved from the urban school system began busing students miles from their neighborhoods in core into planned communities or suburbs on the edges of town. Presi- an effort to integrate and end that segregation. dent Dwight Eisenhower’s creation of the Interstate Highway System in 1956 also established a kind of crossroads at the center of Oklahoma The result was the phenomenon of “white flight,” the racism-driven City where Interstate 35 and Interstate 40 connected, which improved trend of white homeowners selling their homes in the center of the city commerce and also provided a kind of skeleton of infrastructure on and decamping to periphery “bedroom communities” like Edmond, which to hang future land development. Norman, Yukon and Mustang — places with near-homogeneous white populations at the time. Because cars became so essential to getting around a massive city, the accelerated housing development in Oklahoma City’s suburban This was the promise of the Levittowns, the planned suburbs created areas in the 1960s and ’70s often did not include sidewalks as part in New York and Pennsylvania by land developer William Levitt in the of the plans. And that happened all over the country, but because of 1950s. Back then, the post-World War II suburbs were touted as re- Oklahoma City’s extreme degree of sprawl, driving became the only treats from the “chaos” of the city, and the whispered subtext for those perceivable option to get to any destination. Cars had the upper hand. claims was race-based demographic shift, or “white flight.” Advertise- ments for the Levittown communities that ran in East Coast newspapers Through the Better Streets, Safer City sales tax initiative passed in 2017, usually came with artist renderings of model homes, white families and Oklahoma City is now retroactively installing sidewalks in districts and the engine that got them out of the city, the family car.

Imagine taking a medium-sized cable-knit sweater and giving it to a medium-sized person to wear. Now take that same sweater and try to stretch it over a car. The sweater still has the same number of holes, but now you can see through all of them. This is the continuing problem facing Oklahoma City when it comes to serving its residents.

neighborhoods where pedestrian transportation was seen as a thing of Levittowns were systematically kept white by the sales and banking ap- the past. The differences can be stark: in Warwick Estates, a neighbor- paratus surrounding Levitt’s operation. hood northwest of Lake Hefner that was built starting in the mid-1970s, there are no sidewalks. Across MacArthur Boulevard in the Greenbriar While it has been documented many times, the story of downtown Okla- neighborhood, which is still under construction, sidewalks are perva- homa City’s demise in the 1960s and ’70s is a key chapter of the sprawl sive. saga. As more people moved out of the urban core and settled in the new suburban developments being built on the edges of town and in “We have maps where we’ve mapped out the sidewalk network, and it metro communities like Edmond, Moore and Norman, businesses be- looks like a doughnut,” Butler said. “You can see where the sidewalks gan their own diaspora. Department stores decamped to Penn Square were built in the old days, when they were doing a more traditional Mall, Shepherd Mall and then to newer centers to the north and south grid-style development, and then for many decades, we built no side- like Quail Springs Mall and Crossroads Mall. Many of the non-retail walks.” businesses pulled up stakes as well to move into new suburban office parks. Living in the sprawl All of this culminated in the “Pei Plan” for urban renewal. Created by For something like urban sprawl to take place over the course of several architect I.M. Pei as a master redevelopment concept for downtown decades, more people need to buy into the idea than just the chamber Oklahoma City, the plan involved demolition of older buildings like the of commerce and a few land developers, and they do. Compared to Biltmore Hotel and the construction of newer ones like the Century Cen-

10 ter hotel and mall complex, which was built in hopes of drawing shop- pers back to downtown with a familiar-looking retail facility.

Unfortunately, the Pei Plan’s execution dovetailed with the oil industry recession and the failure of Penn Square Bank, resulting in an effec- tively abandoned downtown. It has taken nearly three decades of public-private partnership under the Metropolitan Area Projects Plan (MAPS) to fill in the doughnut hole, restore downtown and then start to knit bike lanes and sidewalks into the places where Butler’s prede- cessors from generations ago decided they were not needed.

Holt grew up in Oklahoma City and experienced it during a time of limited prosperity and maximized sprawl, but he said he never really thought about how far it took to get just about anywhere, and how little was between those points. It was just the way things were for years, and Holt only fully appreciated the severity of the sprawl later, when he was an adult and working his way through the levels of government.

“As a policy maker now, as an adult, I see that there are some obvious costs to that,” he said.

Street life Urban planning consultant I.M. Pei is shown pointing to a scale model Imagine taking a medium-sized cable-knit sweater and giving it to a of downtown OKC. | Photo provided by Oklahoma Publishing medium-sized person to wear. Now take that same sweater and try to Company Photography Collection and Oklahoma Historical Society stretch it over a car. The sweater still has the same number of holes, but now you can see through all of them.

This is the continuing problem facing Oklahoma City when it comes to serving its residents. It is now called home by more than 600,000 people, thereby achieving the dreams of those chamber of commerce members from 60 years ago, but it must serve an area that could comfortably house about 15 million people.

“Let’s just look at it from the most practical standpoint possible,” Holt said. “If a bus has to drive a mile farther, that’s more gasoline, and if you build a road a mile farther, that’s more road. If only 50 people live alongside a road, they are essentially dividing the cost of that road and its maintenance by 50 people instead of a million people in a place like New York City.

“We each bear more of the cost of infrastructure than if we lived in a more dense community, and it’s all on our shoulders, because there is not — to any great extent — any state or federal funding to subsidize our lifestyle. We choose to live this way, and we bear the cost.”

Many people from multiple generations chose to “live this way,” be- ginning in 1947 and stretching to the present day, when neighborhoods are still being built along the edges of Oklahoma City. When someone buys such a property, she or he is tacitly agreeing to long commutes, lack of walkability to essential services and, more frequently than not, infrastructural updates like widened roads that do not come soon enough to serve the new population. The results can be seen when traffic bottlenecks above NW 178th Street and commuters creep toward the Kilpatrick Turnpike to their south every morning.

While the central part of the city continues to attract new residents and development, Holt points out that there are still houses going up at the northernmost point of the city. It might have evened out, but sprawl has not ended in Oklahoma City.

Find myself a city to live in

Prior to the first MAPS plan’s ratification in 1993, it was hard to give away property in the city’s core. The destruction in the wake of the Pei Plan and devaluation of property in central districts like the Paseo Arts District, Plaza District and Midtown, not to mention the cratered oil industry, resulted in empty storefronts in the 1980s. The neighborhoods surrounding those districts lost property value, hit from both sides by Twisted steel juts out of the basement of the demolished Biltmore Hotel in OKC on Feb. 3, 1978. A workman carried off a load of debris which would soon be part of new construction. | Photo provided by Oklahoma Publishing Company Photography Collection and Oklahoma Historical Society LEFT: Oklahoma City Mayor Ron Norick celebrates on Dec. 14, 1993 after voters approved the first Metropolitan Area Projects Plan. | Photo provided by Oklahoma Publishing Company Photography Collection and Oklahoma Historical Society

BOTTOM: Home values in OKC have continued to grow steadily since 2012. | Data provided by Zillow

white flight and the retreat of essential retail like grocery stores. But as City Streetcar, the city will eventually need to lighten the load of its new development began in Oklahoma City’s core in the 1990s, housing car-based infrastructure by instituting further changes. This could take prices started to recover and developers began to “infill” in empty lots the form of a light-rail system similar to what is now found in the north or in spaces where homes were too dilapidated to rehabilitate. Dallas bedroom communities, funneling residents of Lewisville and Pla- no into downtown Dallas. Neighborhoods like Mesta Park initiated events like Mesta Festa to bankroll new streetlights as new families began to revive the neigh- Holt said it would take billions of dollars and come at the expense borhood, eager to walk to restaurants, bars and entertainment in the of “just about everything else, and the political will to make needed revitalized Uptown 23 district. changes is only likely to summon itself when residents’ commutes become unbearable.” Until that time comes, and it will, Holt said the most Property values in some sections of central Oklahoma City have dou- responsible thing for him to do is keep pushing. bled or even tripled in some sectors. For example, a 100-year-old home in the Gatewood District, located just south of Oklahoma City Universi- “All of those efforts are so time-intensive and labor-intensive that they ty, recently was listed for $525,000, or $207 per square foot. Six years can take decades,” he said. ago, that same property was more than $200,000 cheaper than it is now. This is in sharp contrast to a 15-year-old similarly sized home west Holt envisions a kind of nightmare scenario for people living on the of Lake Hefner that goes for exactly $100 per square foot less than the edge of the sprawl. Eventually, they face the kind of traffic experienced Gatewood home. in places like Austin, Texas, where infrastructure was unable to keep up with massive population growth. Commute times soar, and finally This signals a change in values, and not just home sales. As young- they pull out of their autocentric mindsets and call for light-rail transit. er homebuyers seek out the central neighborhoods, gentrification runs Unfortunately, those kinds of massive infrastructural changes take time rampant, pushing residents out of formerly working-class neighborhoods and money. like the Plaza District so that expensive renovations or new builds can command astronomic prices. As a result, people will be displaced, much “If you did nothing on regional transit and finally woke up one day and like they were in places like New York City, when formerly low-priced everyone had 45-minute commutes and they were sick of it, you’d be properties on Manhattan’s depressed Lower East Side were bought by 25 years away from riding on a train,” Holt said. “So, we keep working developers, renovated and then rented for five times their previous rate on this so we’re ready.” (405) 526-2321 in the 1990s and 2000s. Residents were forced to leave, relocating to less-expensive neighborhoods across the river in New Jersey.

“Some decisions were made 50 to 100 years ago in this community that are nearly impossible to undo without significant financial investment,” Holt said.

The city cannot de-annex many of the areas it pulled into its orbit in the mid-20th century without leaving residents bereft of essential services. It is a city with big bones, and that will not change. For Holt and the mayors who preceded him since MAPS began in the early 1990s, the key challenge has been to work with what they have to improve how the city moves.

“I believe strongly in continuing to work on it,” he said. “For example, every time the voters have approved any initiative starting in 2007 — with one exception, Big League City — every other voter-approved initiative has had sidewalks in it.”

By Holt’s measure, there is not the political will among residents to do all that is needed to fix Oklahoma City’s urban sprawl. While MAPS 3 provided for new public transportation initiatives like the Oklahoma

12 (405) 526-2321 CURBSIDE CHRONICLE VENDOR LAUREN

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HOW HOME MAKES ON THE MOVE ALL THE DIFFERENCE “Now, we’re able to really work on ourselves again. What can I say? We’ve been through hell and back together, but I guess that’s what makes a family.” — Lauren

All together, Lauren’s normally surrounded by > ON THE MOVE is our way about 20 other legs. of illustrating the impact of your support and the ultimate goal of this street paper, which is helping They belong to her husband, daughter and four dogs. They’re her life. people end their homelessness. Lauren wanted space for all of them, but for a year she struggled to This feature introduces readers keep a roof over her head. Luckily, her daughter could stay with to recently-housed vendors and family, but Lauren was worn down. She wound up in a motel room welcomes you to see the difference that charged $70 a night. That added up fast. By the end of the month, a home can make. it could cost her nearly $2,000 for a “glorified closet.”

Now, she has space. So does her family. Her new apartment — stretching just shy of 1,100 square feet — makes it so everyone isn’t stacked on top of one another. Having the ability to simply go upstairs, shut a door and be alone used to be so out of reach. Now, there’s room to grow. There’s even a garage she’s transformed into an art studio. Lauren said she feels like she’s at a base camp, facing a mountain. It’s only gonna get better and go upward from here.

14 STORY AND PHOTO BY NATHAN POPPE SHEPHERD SELF STORAGE 602-5300

HOW HOME MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE

EVERY CHILD NEEDS A CHILDHOOD.

Broken families. Mental illness. Addiction. Parents struggling to hold down jobs and hold homes together. When life throws people tough challenges, one of the first things to be sacrificed is everything that makes for a happy childhood.

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United Way GIVE. ADVOCATE. VOLUNTEER. of Central Oklahoma 16 WAITING ON EMPTY How did Oklahomans find relief when they ran into hurdles collecting unemployment? They got in line. PHOTO ESSAY AND STORY BY WAITING ON EMPTY NATHAN POPPE LOCATION

WILL ROGERS BUILDING

2401 N Lincoln Blvd. OKC, OK

Opening pages: On June 28, a line stands in wait outside of the Will Rogers Building around 10 p.m. It would be 10 hours before the doors of the makeshift OESC headquarters would open and start helping visitors with unemployment claims.

nemployment is normally so quiet. It’s a personal issue, practically invisible unless U you’re the one facing it. That was the most jarring thing about the scene near the Okla- homa State Capitol in mid-June. Lines began forming outside of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission’s makeshift headquarters located inside the Will Rogers Building. The lines were full of people — at least 200 daily — unable to collect unemployment during the pandemic or complete the claim process due to fraud, technical hiccups or a myriad of issues that could only be solved with an in-person visit. Nurses. Fast food cashiers. Airplane mechanics. Construction workers. The self-employed. These were everyday people, and many had gone months without a paycheck. It’s no secret why. The impact of COVID-19 has either paused or upended millions of jobs in the U.S. One couple lined up on a Sunday afternoon, an en- tire 19 hours before the doors of the WRB re-opened on a Monday. There were enough tents and lawn chairs that you’d think it was a line for a concert or a blockbuster movie premiere. Before July, only 170 visitors were allowed to speak face-to-face with an OESC representative per weekday. The rest were sent home and asked to try again another day. It’s hard to tell who was more overwhelmed, the unemployed or the OESC who estimated processing more than 500,000 Unemployment Insurance claims between March 1 and June 21. Statewide, there are only 100 OESC employees currently processing these claims.

18 QUONTRAE GABRIEL Quontrae considered himself a Losing that job has been a source Landscaping lucky man. On June 29, he’d been of stress, and he’s been trying his handed a sheet of paper marked luck again through temp agencies. with the number 170. It meant he Quontrae’s wife had been working would be the last person that day up until May, but she had to be put to set up an in-person meeting on bed rest before giving birth to with the OESC. This was bitter- their second child on June 1. sweet. “We haven’t been able to pay bills The people behind him weren’t so anymore,” he said. “We had small lucky. Quontrae was in their shoes savings but most went to diapers, just a few days earlier. After be- food and things for the house. ing turned away himself, he knew Now, it’s all gone. We’ve gotten to arrive extra early, hours before some help from family to keep go- sunrise, at 4 a.m. ing during this time but having a family during this crisis is stressful. “It will legit drive you nuts,” he said. “It’s really hard, man. I just “I worry about getting food on the want to get this handled as fast as table and keeping a roof over their possible.” head. It ain’t easy when three people are depending on you for their Quontrae lost his job in April. He needs.” helped maintain the grounds at Mathis Brothers Furniture. He held Quontrae made a third visit with the job for about two months, and the OESC on July 7 in Midwest said he lost it because of slump- City. He left confident that his- is ing sales — his former employer sue was fixed. But as of mid-July, “needed to let a certain amount of he was still waiting for his first un- workers go.” employment payment.

Top left: Roughly 200 people stand outside the Will Rogers Building on June 29.

Top right: Quontrae Gabriel poses for a portrait shortly after he was selected to be the last person able to be seen by the OESC on June 29.

Bottom left: An OESC employee hands Quontrae a sheet of paper confirming his chance to meet face-to-face with an OESC employee for unemployment assistance.

Bottom right: The line outside the Will Rogers Building on June 26.

In June, around 116,000 Oklahomans were unemployed. That’s nearly double the number from June 2019.

VIA OESC

Oklahoma had approved 235,000 of about 590,000 filed claims by June 21 — a total $2.4 billion payout, far more than in previous years. About 6,000 state claims are pending.

VIA WASHINGTON POST

BLAKE BURT McDonald’s crew member

Blake performed a quick headcount while waiting in line. He figured he was number 130. But as the sun rose, more people started joining friends and family who were holding spots in line.

Although he’d been waiting for hours behind the Will Rogers Building, he thought he was well within the line’s daily cutoff. He was wrong.

“There’s no sense in staying,” he said on the morning of June 29.

It had been four weeks since Blake had lost his job at McDonald’s. He’d often cook in the kitchen or take orders at the drive-thru. But lately, he’d been on hold with the OESC.

“I’m just at their mercy,” he said. “My job for the past four weeks has been being on the phone for hours at a time and waiting. I’d hear, ‘Oh, we’ll have somebody call you back.’ Well, they never did.”

Blake had held his restaurant job for several months and left to circumstances unrelated to COVID-19. However, the pandemic’s massive amount of claims blocked Blake’s path to recieve weekly Unemployment Insurance payments.

“Getting paid every two weeks is hard enough let alone a month without any income,” he said. “It’s been awful. … All I can do is just wait to get in the next line and hope that they bring in more people. Something’s gotta give. ”

On June 30, the OESC temporarily closed its offices to refocus efforts at the Reed Center in Midwest City — about 15 miles southeast of the Will Rogers Building. The goal was to accommodate more visitors and cut down on wait times. Blake and a friend claimed the front of BEN CROSS the line. They’d split the cost of a hotel room at Airplane mechanic the Sheraton that’s attached to the Reed Cen- ter. They got in line in the middle of the night. Fewer flights at the Will Rogers Airport wanted to make sure it was taken care When the doors opened at 7 a.m., Blake was means fewer mechanics. Ben said he of in person. seen immediately. His issue was remedied in lost his job mending airplanes because less than 15 minutes, he said. The hold-up with of COVID-19’s impact on travel. He’s a If it wasn’t for the $1,200 federal stimu- his unemployment claim involved a technical contract worker and his family has been lus check Ben received in June, he said glitch that froze his account. He was told it’d in Oklahoma for less than a year. his family would’ve been stuck. They’d happened with many claims. burned through nearly $2,000 in savings Since April, Ben hadn’t been able to by June. “It was a huge relief to finally have it resolved,” collect a paycheck and had endured Blake said. “I’m able to get back to a normal setbacks collecting unemployment. Al- “It helped us a lot,” he said. “Right now, life.” though he received an Unemployment we have overdue bills. There’s a possibil- Insurance benefit debit card in the mail, ity our car will be repossessed because he needed help resetting the PIN num- we can’t afford it. That’s transportation I ber. could use to get work.” Left: Blake Burt moments after missing the cutoff to be seen by the OESC on June 29. Due to the pandemic, the normal wait After eight hours of waiting and sitting time for cards — 7 to 10 days — can down with the OESC, Ben was able to Top right: Ben Cross stands with his wife, son and daughter at the Will Rogers Building on June 29. swell to as many as 18 days. Ben an- collect around $10,000 in backpay and ticipated a quick fix to his problem but fixed his benefit debit card issue.

21 LOCATION

REED CENTER

5750 Will Rogers Rd. Midwest City, OK Top: Day one of the OESC’s claim processing event on n July 1, the OESC relocated their in-person July 1. Roughly 700 people waited before the doors of claim processing to Midwest City. This would the Reed Center opened at 7 a.m. O allow for at least 500 visitors to be served on a Bottom: Once visitors made it to the front door of the given day. Originally, four days were set aside for this event. Reed Center, their temperatures were checked and On day one, several hundred people waited in a line that they were led into waiting rooms. stretched from the Reed Center entrance, wrapped around the venue’s grass courtyard and ended in a hotel parking lot. It was a five-minute walk from one end of the line to the other. The line contained many people who had waited overnight. Once visitors made it to the entrance, they were led to waiting rooms. Although temperatures were checked at the door, masks were required and posters assured “social distancing precautions will be followed as closely as possible,” the event packed hundreds of people together indoors. Still, the event was able to help more people more quickly. One change made a big impact. Once the daily limit of 500 was hit, people weren’t turned away empty handed. They were given a pass to ensure they could be seen on another day. The OESC eventually set aside a total of eight days to process claims in Midwest City before heading to Tulsa for another event. Shelley Zumwalt is the OESC’s interim director. She in- herited this massive responsibility just two months ago. “It’s been the biggest learning experience of my life aside from when my daughter was a newborn,” Zumwalt said. “I feel well equipped to navigate during a crisis. I like change and trying to fix problems. So, I really do like my job. What I don’t like is that by the time I took over, we were in such a bad spot. The stories I heard were truly heartbreaking. … This is honestly the government not being prepared for this pandemic period. “One day can really be the difference between someone having a situation that’s manageable or not. That’s what kills me. We can’t move fast enough or back in time to fix this. We go forward with the cards we were dealt.” And the deck has been stacked. Zumwalt has juggled securing extra translators so more Vietnamese Oklahomans who struggle with a language barrier could be assisted, doubling her claims staff to 200 and battling an archaic OESC mainframe computer system that’s stretched past its limits daily. All that takes time and resources in the midst of an unprecedented unemployment emergency. “In February of this year, we processed $23 million in claims,” Zumwalt said. “During one week in June, we processed $232 million in claims. That’s the kind of scale we’re looking at. It’s unfathomable. I don’t think anyone could’ve said we needed to be ready to serve 1,000 percent more people.” By the time the last scheduled claim event in OKC fin- ished on July 14, more than 4,000 people had been helped face-to-face. The line outside the Reed Center from two weeks earlier had finally subsided. The process for waiting had undoubtedly improved. But the need for relief is far from over. An office located at 7401 NE 23rd St. re-opened in mid-July to handle in-person claims in Oklahoma City after the Midwest City claim processing event ended. Zum- walt said she’s working on securing a new headquarters to accommodate more OESC staff and visitors again. “I think people come in and they have this idea that the reason why they haven’t been paid is because no one cares about them,” Zumwalt said. “The reason why is because the system let them down. We do care, and that’s why we’re doing this.”

23 Below: Marlena Butler holds her son, Petyon, inside a waiting room in the Reed Center on July 1.

Opposite page: Ahliyah Rogers rests on a bench outside the Reed Center on July 1. MARLENA BUTLER Preschool teacher

Marlena went on spring break in early March, and it never ended. The teacher was working at a local church and had filed an unemployment claim on March 23. She had a feeling she would face delays even though this was her first time filing for unemployment. She was denied, but she tried again in June. That time her Pandemic Unemployment Assistance was approved.

This is one of three new unemployment insurance programs created through the CARES Act to help lessen the financial burden of COVID-19. She’d be able collect $189 a week plus $600 per week from Federal Pandemic Un- employment Compensation. Although Marlena was approved, no funds had arrived. For nearly three months, she hadn’t collected unemployment. Her employer tried to help by offering $100 a week, but that offer dried up in May. Marlena said she felt conflicted about asking for more even though the bills were stacking up. So, she started making calls.

Marlena had only ever spoken with the OESC on the phone but that line of communication hit a snag. The volume of callers has caused delays for many Oklahomans. When she would get through and spoke to an OESC rep, she never got a call back with a proper solution. Many calls had been outsourced to a vendor who could only relay issues back to the OESC.

“So, that’s why I’m here to figure it out,” she said on July 1 as she bounced her young son on her leg. “I sat on the phone again for like seven AHLIYAH ROGERS hours and never got a hold of anybody.” Wal-Mart employee Marlena’s husband sat in a chair only a couple feet away, and she felt grateful he’d been able to keep his job. Marlena said she feels for others who are in more desperate situations. Still, the family experienced financial stress. Rent This wasn’t Ahliyah’s first wait in an “It’s stressful,” she said while resting on was covered OK, but the couple deferred a car OESC line, and it wouldn’t be her last. a bench. “It’s hot, and I have to stay 6 payment and utility bills. feet away from people to protect myself On the morning of July 1, she sat pa- and the baby.” “We have a 1-year-old,” Marlena said. “Things tiently at the back of a line that had got tight, but we would rather feed him. … It’s started forming in the middle of the Ahliyah had to move in with her moth- a learning process, I think, for everyone.” night. Ahliyah was only a few weeks er to help make ends meet. Her two away from her due date, and she want- younger siblings also live at home. Ah- Marlena was seen at noon and the fix went ed to sort out her unemployment ASAP. liyah knows this has also been hard on smoothly. Others in line around her continued The cost of diapers and other necessi- her mom. The two had waited together waiting until after 5 p.m. and had been waiting ties was growing. for hours in Midwest City but weren’t since 2 a.m. seen. They received passes to return the Ahliyah filed for unemployment in mid- following day. She received 15 weeks of backpay. It was April after getting let go from a Wal- enough to catch up on bills, afford a new set Mart. She ran into an issue where her On July 2, the mother and daughter ar- of car tires and create some savings. “It was payments started and then stopped. rived at the Reed Center around 6 a.m. very helpful,” she said. Her payment holdup Her goal was to collect backpay for the The wait was so long Ahliyah had time was attributed to a computer issue. She faced weeks she missed. So, Ahliyah visited to leave, attend a doctor’s appointment more of those as she re-filed her weekly PUA the Will Rogers Building. The line was and come back to Midwest City. She claim. Luckily, she’s been able to resolve those too long. She tried again at the Reed was eventually helped at 4 p.m. Her is- problems via email. Marlena plans to return to Center. sue was solved in less than five minutes. teaching with her same employer in August. Although it was only 9 a.m., several hun- “I waited all this time for them to fix dred people were already in front of her. something so simple,” Ahliyah said.

25 Hello, Neighbor OKC residents reflect on the lives next door Story by Jezy J. Gray

Illustration by Irmgard Geul It’s no secret we’re living through a pretty rotten year. Global plague, social injustice, mass unemployment — 2020 has been, by all metrics, a rough one. But you don’t need a street paper to tell you all hope isn’t lost. There are, per usual, bright flashes in the dark. In the midst of unprecedented uncertainty and hardship, we’ve seen heartening displays of camaraderie and support across the OKC metro — from the frontline workers keeping our world turning, to masked citizens doing their part to flatten the curve and protect our most vulnerable neighbors. The experience of having and being neighbors is something we all share. No matter where you live, you’re likely not alone in your little corner of the world. Jean-

> If you have a neighbor story you’d like to share with us, Paul Sartre said, “Hell is other people,” then send an email to [email protected]. We’ll aim to do this again next year, and we know there’s plenty but today we’re realizing we need them of interesting stories out there. now more than ever. Maybe if there’s something we might dare to call an upside to these months of isolation and unrest, it’s that we’ve learned something about what it means to belong to a community, and to each other. To that end, we asked people across the city to tell us their best neighbor stories: the good, the bad, the bummers and all points in between. Most of the names have been changed to protect privacy, but these neighbor stories from Curbside vendors and the general public offer a look at the messy, heartbreaking and hilarious humanity binding us all together. As those of us privileged enough to stay home scratch the days off the quarantine calendar, experiencing our friends and colleagues as squares on a Zoom grid, now seems like a good time to reflect on the kind of experiences that only come from our haphazard collision with each other in our neighborhoods. Who are these people to us, and who are we to them? These are the stories of the lives next door...

27 CHECKING IN WITH ORLO

Amy Hall grew up across the street from an old man named Orlo. He was known for sitting out on the steps of his front porch to catch a breeze and watch the world go by. When the weather was really nice, he’d lay down flat on the porch with his knees bent and his feet on the second step, like he’d just fallen backward from his usual seated position. “We’d drive by and all we could see from the road were his knees sticking up,” Amy remembered. “More often than not, he’d fall asleep like this.” Orlo’s health slipped as he got older. Amy’s dad began to worry their neighbor’s front porch napping habit would take a grim turn: Orlo, shuffled off this mortal coil, splayed on his stoop for the whole block to see. “Eventually, he talked to Orlo about it, and they struck a deal,” she said. “Now, every time we passed by and saw Orlo laying down on the porch, we’d honk and he’d raise his hand to show he was still alive, then he’d go back to his nap. This ritual continued for years.”

BIRDS OF PREY, BIRDS OF PARADISE

Ed Heister only had one eye, but he was a hell of a game warden. Curbside vendor Mark Tribble grew up next door to him in Guthrie. Mark has fond memories of spending time outdoors with Ed and his son Peter, hunting dove with his neighbors in the cross timber prairie of central Oklahoma. The story of how Ed lost his eye loomed large in local lore, no doubt growing more gruesome and mystical with each re-telling. “He was demonstrating a wildlife call — like a wounded rabbit,” Mark said. “But he was so good at it, a Great Horned Owl came down out of the sky and took his eye out.” Ed was a big, no-nonsense sort of guy. You might think he was a cop — which he basically was. ON THE LOOKOUT As a game warden, he enforced codes surrounding wildlife management in Oklahoma without mercy. “He was a nice guy, but he was hardcore,” Mark said. Keep an eye out for the Ed was a tried-and-true rule follower, especially when it came to his slice of the 1.6 million acres vendors featured in this devoted to the state’s hunters and anglers. The one-eyed warden would sometimes appear from out story. Mark often sells of the shadows to ambush unsuspecting rule breakers. “He’d be watching you and you wouldn’t Curbside at NW 6th St. know it,” Mark said. “He’d come out of the bushes and say, ‘Hey — you got too many ducks there.’ and N Classen Blvd., “But I tell you what: with that one eye he had, he was the most uncanny, incredible game Micheal sells at NW warden,” Mark continued. “I’d be riding with him and he’d stop and say, ‘Mark, did you see that 63rd Street and Hefner deer? Up there by that fence post.’ And this sucker was a mile away.” Parkway and Anita sells along N Classen Blvd. What Mark remembers most about his neighbor is the places they’d go on those hunting trips. near downtown OKC. Hello, Neighbor Hello, “He would take me to the most incredible spots. You can’t imagine how good,” he said. Ed’s spots were so good, in fact, that he would frequently blindfold those tagging along. “Or he’d drive around and around so much you didn’t have a clue where you were.” One hunting trip in particular sticks out to Mark. He doesn’t remember the exact location, of course, but he remembers the mourning doves — thousands of them, it seemed, fanned out in a fluttering mass against the bruise of an Oklahoma evening sky. “They were coming to their roost to go to sleep for the night,” he said. “It was like that movie, ‘The Birds.’ ” Quiet nights in the prairie with his neighbor made Mark the person he is today: a self-styled animal lover known for feeding wild racoons by hand. Without a trace of irony, Mark credits his neighbor Ed — the toughest cop on the four-legged beat, no stranger to birds of prey or paradise — with giving him “an eye for wildlife.”

SOUTH OF FREEDOM

Growing up during the Jim Crow era in Jackson, Mississippi, Curbside vendor Michael Ross knew violence at a young age. Brutality was baked into everyday life for those on the wrong side of freedom. From shootings to police abuse, the pre-civil rights Deep South flashed its bloody fangs at Black kids like Michael and their families in his tight-knit Hinds County community. Michael was five years old when his neighbor, Medgar Evers, was shot to death while walking to his front door. Students of American history will recognize Michael’s slain neighbor as the famed Civil Rights activist and NAACP field secretary for the State of Mississippi, who was assassinated at the age of 37 by a member of the Ku Klux Klan. “You can kill a man,” Evers once famously said. “But you can’t kill an idea.” For five-year-old Michael, the dark enormity of what happened that day on June 12, 1963, would take years to sink in. His dad shut down his business and took the family to show their respects at

28 Evers’ home, but it didn’t feel much different from other violent aftermaths Michael had already seen in the savage gauntlet of the segregated south. “All I knew was a great man had died,” Michael said. “As I grew up and learned who he was, it made me want to be more of an engaged citizen: to show my support, and show our strength.”

A SALTY SALUTE

Across the street from Caitlin Clifford’s parents lived sworn enemies, Monty Montgomery and Augie Oggenstein. No aspect of daily life was outside the gravitational pull of their relentless competition ― including patriotic displays. “They had a Cold War-style ‘who has the higher flagpole’ standoff right after 9/11,” she said. “One day Monty has a big U.S. flag hanging from the eaves of his house near the front door. Couple days later, Augie somehow has a nice mounted flagpole by his garage. A week later, Monty has a full-on school yard flagpole in his front garden. And then, Augie got one that was taller than Monty’s.” Both flagpoles stand to this day.

ON THE LOOKOUT YOU’VE GOT MAIL

Keep an eye out for the Krystal Yoseph’s 75-year-old mom is breaking in her new vendors featured in this mailman. He’s a three-year-old boy with blonde spiky hair and story. Mark often sells a heart-melting smile. Per routine, her young neighbor proudly Curbside at NW 6th St. marches the mail up to her door every day. and N Classen Blvd., “She yells, ‘Who is it? I bet it’s my mailman!’ each time she Micheal sells at NW opens the door,” Yoseph said. “She felt like she needed to ‘pay’ 63rd Street and Hefner him, so she bought those little ice pops, but he said they are too Parkway and Anita sells along N Classen Blvd. cold. She bought green apples, but he likes red.” near downtown OKC. Yoseph’s mom looks forward to her daily visit from the mailman and has upgraded his delivery payment to spare change.

GROW BABY GROW

When Curbside vendor Anita Flynn talks about her new neighbor, she talks about security. It’s not something she’s had a whole lot of in her life. But after multiple bouts of being without a home, she moved into an apartment on OKC’s south side last March with her newborn baby, right as COVID-19 began to bear down on the community. “I was a little in shock that I actually had a place,” Anita said. But beyond the life-changing security of having shelter, the new mom soon found a different level of belonging when her nextdoor neighbor, Gustavo, showed up on her porch with DRIVING ARTS + a welcome offering of fresh basil. When Anita decided to plant a garden out front, Gustavo CULTURE + COMMUNITY wasted no time lending a hand ― even though he couldn’t Proud supporter of The Curbside Chronicle speak English, and she couldn’t speak Spanish. He planted cilantro and loaned gardening tools, helping his neighbor es- and Norman Arts Council tablish her new life, the pile of dirt in her front yard blooming to life in the spring of a pandemic. “It was all without language. It was so cool,” Flynn said. “I’m just very thankful. His kindness made me feel safe, you know? It makes me want to be the best neighbor I can be in return.” WE EMPLOY WE EMPLOY THE HOMELESS THE HOMELESS

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PHOTO + WORDS BY NATHAN POPPE | “SUMMER HEAT” For Allen, water makes all the difference. Having a bottle handy is what keeps him alive, he said. He downed 16 ounces shortly after this portrait was taken in July. On a scorching summer afternoon, Allen wiped his brow and reflected on the heat. He lives out of a camping tent in OKC, and temperatures don’t usually cool off enough for proper sleep until 2 a.m. Coming across a working spicket or free sources of water has been difficult this month. Even his mask makes things hotter. He joked it’ll leave a tan line on his face. But rising temperatures are no joke, and people experiencing homelessness are at risk for overexposure to the sun leading to heat stroke and dehydration. The Homeless Alliance is currently in need of bottled water, sunscreen, insect repellent and deodorant to help people handle the heat. Consider dropping of a donation at 1724 NW 4th Street on a weekday between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.

1724 NW 4TH STREET OKC, OK 73106

OUR 55 EMPLOYEES HEARD ON HURD REACHED OVER VOLUNTEER AND AVERAGE OF 200,000 ATTENDEES 20 HOURS PER YEAR WITH AN ECONOMIC IMPACT OF $6 MILLION IN 2018

COLLECTIVELY THAT IS

WE SUPPORTED THE REVITALIZATION IN UPTOWN 23RD THROUGH THE TOWER 1,100 HOURS REDEVELOPMENT OF THE HISTORIC OF DONATED TIME THEATRE EVERY YEAR

WE SPONSOR OVER 60 LOCAL BUSINESSES & NON-PROFITS AND DONATE OVER $114,000 ANNUALLY

31 It’s never felt so good to be home. Our team is redefining best practices in the real estate industry with unmatched service to support our community. We know the urban core and we’re here to help.

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