LAWTON – A dormitory-style shelter for homeless youths will be developed in south Lawton.
The location is 714 SW 45th St., on the east side of Southwest 45th Street south of the Stillwater Central Railroad, in the Country Club Heights subdivision. The property is owned by Quest Ministries of Oklahoma and is used by MIGHT Community Development and Resource Center, which is housed in Saint James Baptist Church.
A gymnasium currently used for a community center is to be converted into a dormitory for homeless youths, said Bernita Taylor, owner of the nonprofit MIGHT CDRC. Her husband is the pastor at the church.
“We have been in the neighborhood since 2011 and have done many activities,” she told the City Planning Commission. “We have a daycare there and a community garden.”
They also operate a teen program, she said. “We pick up teens from every high school in Lawton and bring them there; we feed them dinner and we take them home. We also have an adult program there, where we help the entire family in that one location.”
Taylor proposes to convert the gymnasium into a dormitory-style shelter to accommodate 10 to 12 homeless boys ages 13-17. She said the McMahon Foundation has pledged $550,000 toward the project.
The youths would “come from Lawton public schools,” she told the City Council. “We hire these kids in the summer. We feed them. Never have the police been called out to our facility. These are not troubled kids; their parents are in prison or they are otherwise separated from their families.”
“Just because a child is homeless doesn’t mean they are criminal,” Taylor said.
The Taylors said they have a van they will use to transport the boys to the shelter. The boys will be supervised, and the site is equipped with cameras inside and outside the building.
“These boys are not vagrants. They are boys who need a place to stay and be safe and secure and provide them with a pathway into adulthood,” Taylor said. The youths “will be in our teen program where they will learn life skills,” she said.
Lawton has 800 to 1,000 homeless minors, several speakers told the council.
Taylor said this facility will be exclusively for males because, “We have Parker Point that serves girls, and we have Next Step that serves just girls. We have nothing at all that services teen boys.”
No one with a record of violence or drug addiction “or anything like that” will be in the home, she said.
The church and daycare center have adequate parking, city employees reported. Some fencing has already been erected, and Planning Commissioner Deborah Jones told her colleagues that fencing will be constructed to enclose the dormitory area, the playground, and any outdoor area the children are utilizing. Also, an ADA-compliant sidewalk will be constructed with funds from Councilwoman Linda Chapman’s Ward 3 funds.
The City Council approved the proposal on a 7-1 vote. Ward 7 Councilwoman Sherene L. Williams cast the lone “no” vote.