Mayor Nichols Reflects on First 100 Days in Office

3/12/2025

Substantial work underway to move needle on core issues surrounding homelessness, housing, public safety, student outcomes, and more

• Hired Gene Bulmash as the City’s first Senior Advisor of Housing.
• Issued a Housing Executive Order on Feb. 24 making housing a priority for the City, establishing several new initiatives:
• Housing Acceleration Team to pilot permitting, inspection, and zoning improvements to more efficiently review and approve building permits, inspection requests, and zoning applications. The team has already begun meeting and is working to identify its first housing project to fast-track.
• Housing Permitting Tracker to serve as a publicly available source where the issuance of building permits and Certificates of Occupancy will be tracked to help identify the progress the City is making on increasing affordable housing stock.
• Community Builder Program to formalize a program that partners and rewards developers for their efforts to increase housing stock, ultimately assisting in turning vacant, abandoned, and blighted properties back into usable housing by eliminating some of the challenges involved in the process.
• IOT3 $75 million Housing Funds Plan to leverage the monies as quickly and expeditiously as possible through a request for information, that is being released today.
• Kicked off pre-approved plans program, known as T-Town Home Catalog, that will release a set of permit-ready housing construction plans to make the housing development process in Tulsa faster. The plans are expected to be ready by the end of this year.

• Hired Emily Hall as the City’s first Senior Advisor of Homelessness.
• Issued a Homelessness Executive Order yesterday that makes homelessness a priority for the City, establishing the following initiatives:
• Encampment Decommissioning Team to connect people to resources and housing while decommissioning encampments in a way that mitigates their possibility to return.  
• Winter Weather Shelter Plan to help the City open a dedicated shelter in Tulsa during the winter months of November-March to keep people safe and out of the bitter cold.
• Strategic Plan to Increase Shelter Capacity across the city year-round, including focusing on opening a true low barrier shelter in Tulsa.
• Mayor’s Coalition on Eviction Mitigation to lower Tulsa’s eviction rate by reviewing strategies and implementing changes based on real-time data. City of Tulsa staff will work directly with the Landlord Tenant Resource Center, the Eviction Strategy Group, and the Eviction Data Working Group to identify opportunities to strengthen the City’s involvement in eviction prevention and develop additional strategies where the City can mitigate the impact of eviction on individuals and families.
• Responded to two extreme cold events, sheltering hundreds of people during each event and highlighting the need for a Winter Weather Shelter, which is now in development. During the latest winter weather event, 1,457 individuals were sheltered at numerous locations throughout Tulsa at shelters organized by community partners.

• Hired Krystal Reyes as the City’s first Latina Deputy Mayor.
• Launched the City’s first Office of Children, Youth, and Families to serve as a collaborative hub for improving outcomes among Tulsa’s children and families.
• Hired Dr. Jabraan Pasha as the City’s first Senior Advisor of Community Health to improve the lives of children, youth, and families by focusing on fostering cross-sector relations with community health partners and ensuring long-term success of City strategies and focuses on health equity.
• Hired Tulsa’s newest Chief Resilience Officer, Dion'trae Hayes, who will oversee the Department of Resilience and Equity and lead our citywide resilience strategies that ultimately provide individuals and families with the resources they need to thrive.

• Hired Laurel Roberts as the City’s first Commissioner of Public Safety.
• Announced new fines for unaltered pets, along with a new spay/neuter voucher program to strengthen neighborhood safety and improve live release rates at Tulsa Animal Services.
• Signed an executive order to establish the Neighborhood Conditions Index (NCI) Pilot Program and cross-departmental task force on Feb. 13 to strengthen Tulsa’s neighborhoods.
• Expanded the Tulsa Fire Department’s Alternative Response Team 2, a dedicated unit designed to decrease high utilizers of the 911 system that provides advanced life support medical care while connecting individuals in need to crucial community services.
• Accepted $2.5M in DOJ Grant funding to allow the Tulsa Police Department to work on the continued prosecution of unsolved sexual assault cases, which is critical to enhancing the response to sexual assaults and ensuring justice for victims.

• Signed an Executive Order that created a new Sustainability Task Force tasked with developing actionable recommendations that Tulsa can implement to create a more sustainable, resilient and economically efficient city. The task force will identify successful sustainability initiatives of other cities and leverage existing recommendations in the planitulsa comprehensive plan.
• Put forth several new Tax Increment Finance districts in Tulsa that are paving the way for more economic opportunities, while at the same time helping Tulsa meet its need for 6,000 affordable units by 2028.
• Solidified our Commitment to develop a Convention Center Hotel to further economic opportunities in Downtown Tulsa.
• Developing a plan to create stronger economic opportunities surrounding the wounds left by the Tulsa Race Massacre nearly 104 years ago.

• Hired Amanda Swope as the City’s first Director of Tribal Policy & Partnerships.
• Met with the leaders of Tulsa’s three largest tribal nations to establish a renewed partnership for co-governing moving forward.