I'm surprised no one is talking about this yet, but West Town is going to be breaking ground next month. I can't seem to find any renderings online, but if anyone has some, please post.

The Homeless Alliance - Oklahoma City, OK WestTown (http://www.homelessalliance.org/?page_id=14)

http://www.rezoneokc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/westtown.jpg

Virginia, being out by Penn for those who aren't sure, is good. There is a major homeless problem around there, so bringing these services to them is good. Main Street all the way from Classen to Penn is lined with nothing but great brick warehouses that come right up to the street, many still in use for light industrial, but could be great refurbs later down the road as downtown grows out that way.

I'm leery about the WestTown project, but glad that it looks like a pretty temporary facility. Overall I think that the city needs to find a way to successfully handle the homeless issue and integrate homeless shelters and stuff with gentrification.

The orthodox is that homeless shelters are harmful to gentrification..developers like those to be moved, as do potential residents, before stuff goes into an area. In a perfect world the yuppies and the hobos wouldn't mind living next to each other, and that goes for the hobos too who just see suits and start begging for change. So either we need to find a way to coexist in parts of downtown.. or the city needs to find a new area to encourage homeless services to relocate to.

Goodwill and the Jesus House and Salvation Army are all going to be getting pretty fat checks soon for when the city closes on their current buildings for Task Force Lands Park. Any new concentration of homeless services needs to be in an area where there's a large amount of homeless people that can be served, and try and put it somewhere with permanence..as the center city gentrifies we can't just keep playing musical sites with homeless services. I think a good 'permanent site' might be around Fair Park or around that flea market at NW 10th and Penn. It's close to a sea of homeless people but sort of out of the way from potential gentrification possibilities.

Spartan... you scare me.

Pray tell thee?

I would hope we can learn to co-exist. The classes need each other, believe it or not.

I agree, but nobody can deny that having homeless services nearby do generally deter gentrification..

What's it do for the other areas where the homeless services go? Make blighted areas almost unrecoverable? Rich get richer, man.

Well ideally there would be an industrial area of the city with a lot of homeless people that need services. Like around Fair Park.

Well ideally there would be an industrial area of the city with a lot of homeless people that need services. Like around Fair Park.

Like between Villa and May and Reno and Pershing? Yea, I see no problem with that.