With a relative who suffered from mental illness, Deneisha Johnson used a similar crisis center while growing up in Texas. But it was, in her words, “much scarier” than the one she walked into on Wednesday as an adult in Tulsa.
“It’s nice; it’s soothing,” said Johnson, now chair of the Board of Counseling and Recovery Services of Oklahoma, or CRSOK. “What if there had been a YES Fort Worth How would my adult years have been transformed?
Until recently, Tulsa also had no youth assessment services. CRSOK launched the city’s first YES crisis center last June at Saint Francis Laureate Psychiatric Hospital. But the program quickly outgrew the space and has now moved to a larger facility at 9912 E. 21st St.
However, the current location will likely only remain open for 18 months, while CRSOK plans to build an even larger facility.
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The group announced on Wednesday a campaign to raise up to $10 million to open a permanent YES center near 31st Street and Sheridan Road.
“This is just the beginning,” said Johnson, who will lead the fundraising effort. “This is the first step in what we want to do for the Tulsa community.”
A YES centre, for people aged 5 to 17, offers a place to turn to when a young patient seems to need more than routine mental health care but may not need be hospitalized, officials said.
“It fills a gap,” said Andre Campbell, clinical director of CRSOK. “Let’s evaluate. Let’s stabilize. Let’s just see what needs to happen next.
The YES center, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, can provide immediate help and, if necessary, refer for further treatment, officials said.
“What the YES program brings to the community,” Campbell said, “is that ability for us to make sure there’s the best placement. And the best placement offers the possibility of faster recovery.
Last month, in his annual State of the City Address, Mayor GT Bynum described the YES Center as “a one-stop triage center for families in immediate mental health crisis.” And he announced $1 million in funding to open the new facility.
“It is now estimated that 4,000 children in Tulsa County attempt suicide each year,” Bynum said at the time, “and last year a record 1,300 mentally distressed children flooded the emergency room of the Tulsa County”.
Operating costs for the YES Center will be funded by the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, allowing it to provide care at little or no cost to patients.
Featured video: Learn about 988, the new mental health crisis hotline
988. This is the new number anyone in America can call or text for help if they are feeling suicidal or in mental distress. It is hoped the shorter number will help people remember the free service and know who to contact.
Writer Michael Overall’s Most Memorable Stories of 2022
Claremore Adopts Cutting-Edge Plan to ‘Save the Suburbs’ – Should Other Communities in Tulsa Do the Same?
With the ongoing revitalization of downtown Tulsa, even the suburbs are looking more urban.
This year, Claremore has become only the second community in the United States to adopt some version of “ground zoning”, an innovative approach to urban planning.
In model zoning, officials pre-approve a set of architectural designs for a given neighborhood. Developers simply choose the patterns they want to use from a pattern book, much like shopping from a catalog. This way, officials know that new housing projects will meet the aesthetic standards they want for a certain part of the city.
Meanwhile, Jenks passed new zoning regulations for its downtown historic district, where officials wanted to promote development “à la Norman Rockwell”. With the continued success of the Rose District in Broken Arrow, suburban development in Tulsa appears to be becoming less suburban.
Courtesy rendering
Reintroducing Tulsa to a ‘forgotten’ Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece
Westhope remained one of the city’s most famous homes for decadesalthough many Tulsans have never seen it.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed the house at 3700 S. Birmingham Ave. for his cousin, Tulsa newspaper publisher Richard Lloyd Jones at the start of the Great Depression. And the masterpiece still attracts architecture lovers from all over the world. But locals had little reason to go there, until recently.
Tulsa real estate developer Stuart Price bought the house and embarked on an extensive restoration project before allowing the Tulsa Ballet and a few other lucky bands to hold events there.
Price had not announced any long-term plans for Westhope, but suggested he could play a more visible role in years to come.
“It would be amazing if this house could serve as a cultural and community asset for Tulsa,” he told Tulsa World.
Photo by STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World
Attack in broad daylight leaves ‘strange feeling’ in downtown Tulsa, hotel manager says still on sick leave
Stéphanie Pomeroy, manager of the downtown hotel had the courage to return to work after a brutal assault in broad daylightt, and brave enough to share her story with the rest of Tulsa.
Pomeroy suffered a concussion, a broken nose and multiple broken bones March 23 in an assault outside the Hampton Inn & Suites, where she worked. The attack highlighted the downtown core’s growing problem with homelessness and mental health.
“It’s a very strange feeling to be there,” Pomeroy said of coming to work downtown after the attack. “It’s not that I feel in danger or that I’m scared. I just feel uncomfortable.
Photo by MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World
When Bruce Goff designed a home for Adah Robinson, they made Tulsa history
The property put up for sale this year gave Tulsa the rare chance to see inside the Adah Robinson House, an early masterpiece by world-renowned architect Bruce Goff. He designed the Art Deco home in the 1920s for his mentor and art teacher, who encouraged Goff’s talent at Tulsa Central High School.
Robinson made the house famous by hosting “salons”, where Tulsa artists and intellectuals gathered to discuss issues of the day.
The new owner, attorney Rod Yancy, planned a delicate restoration it would repair broken plaster, restore stained glass, and replace a 1970s addition with a new verandah that would blend better with Goff’s original design.
Perhaps more importantly, Yancy suggested he could bring an old tradition home, 1119 S. Owasso Ave.
“My dream,” Yancy told Tulsa World, “would be to bring together other kinds of creatives, other entrepreneurs, also visual artists, and use this space as it originally was — as a” living room “from time to time.”
Tulsa World File Photo
Mall owner discovers hidden potential and the ‘West Tulsa Renaissance’
As the revitalization of downtown Tulsa continued to make headlines in 2022, a nearby neighborhood was quietly launching its own comeback.
“Not many people really know what I call the Renaissance of West Tulsa,” said real estate agent Larry Kelley.
The once dilapidated neighborhood of Eugene Field, just west of the 21st Street Bridge over the Arkansas River, now had hundreds of new homes, as well as newly renovated storefronts and a brand new public park.
“Honestly, it wasn’t a great place to invest,” said Simon Khatib, co-owner of the neighborhood’s new Apple Barrel Café. “But now it’s growing. The region is changing enormously, and I think it has big, big potential.
Photo by DANIEL SHULAR/Tulsa World
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