Tulsa Mayor-elect Monroe Nichols has set an assertive course for his first 100 days in office, focusing on what he sees as the city’s most pressing issues: homelessness, crime, and infrastructure.

Nichols, who will assume office on Dec. 2, told The Frontier in an interview that eliminating homeless camps is a top priority. Homelessness in Tulsa County rose by 33% from 2021 to 2024, according to an annual count that identified 1,389 people without stable housing.

“My focus early is on getting bed space from an emergency and transitional standpoint, getting that up quick, making sure we have services online, and then working on decommissioning encampments,” Nichols said. 

He cited evidence from Houston and Denver indicating that around 90% of homeless individuals will accept services if provided with suitable housing options after police have announced their encampments are being cleared. In Tulsa, 44% of people experiencing homelessness said a lack of affordable housing was a key factor in their situation. Outreach workers in other cities like San Francisco report that a majority of individuals decline alternative housing, often due to substance abuse challenges.

Nichols said he has already begun conversations with housing officials to explore the use of properties, including hotels, to temporarily house those living on Tulsa’s streets. He says he is targeting an initial $4 million per-year investment of city dollars to house 300 people currently sleeping outdoors in the city, with a broader $10-million plan to scale up services and support. 

“I want to make sure people aren’t sleeping outside,” Nichols said. “And I will say, for all the compassionate reasons why, there are some public safety reasons too.”

In addition to reducing homelessness, Nichols says he intends to lower crime by using data-driven policing to target repeat offenders and crime hotspots. 

“A small minority of folks are connected to a large body of crime. You see that with auto theft rings [and] violent crime,” Nichols said. “We need to do a really good job of deploying our resources to hotspots, places where we know we get calls at the times we know we get them.”

He also highlighted Tulsa’s rising sexual assault rate and said he will leverage the city’s existing labs to address a rape kit backlog. FBI data shows reports of rape in Tulsa surged after the pandemic and have remained elevated, while homicides, robberies and property crimes have declined over the past decade.

Roads and infrastructure are another priority. Nichols said he is already working on plans with city budget officials and will announce the details of projects that will begin “right out of the gate” in the coming weeks. 

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On the issue of reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Nichols said his approach will depend on the findings of a recently opened U.S. Justice Department investigation as well as the initial recommendations from Tulsa’s Beyond Apology Commission, which are expected on Nov. 30. This local commission, established by Mayor G.T. Bynum in 2022, has been tasked with developing a “housing equity program” to build intergenerational wealth for massacre descendants and North Tulsa residents.

Nichols said he has taken inspiration from Evanston, Illinois’ 2021 reparations program, which provides Black residents $25,000 grants to buy, finance, or renovate homes through a 3% tax on recreational marijuana. According to a Northwestern University poll, 70% of white residents and 64% of black residents in the Chicago suburb approved of the policy two years after it was introduced.

“This is a polarizing issue…The way you take some of the hostility out of the air is to put it in the hands of citizens, many of whom are descendants,” Nichols said. He stressed that while he is Tulsa’s first Black mayor, he is not a descendant of massacre survivors.

In the longer term, Nichols said he hopes to improve student outcomes in Tulsa. Although education falls under state jurisdiction, he says he intends to create a fund to attract top teachers to Tulsa and expand after school care with city money. But he says these programs could take years to realize.

“That is going to be somewhat driven by the next time we can go to the ballot and what we can do both on the public and private side,” he said. “Just as we have a goal to end homelessness by 2030, you’re going to see a 2030 goal associated with outcomes for students as well.” 

Nichols, an outgoing state legislator, said education and tribal relations — where he aims to collaborate and “co-govern” with tribal governments in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 McGirt decision — are issues where he will diverge most from the current administration.

Bynum praised Nichols at a press conference on the mayoral transition last week. 

“Candidly, as Mayor, I believe he has a better understanding of the state legislative process than I did and a better understanding of the educational system than I did, I believe he has an opportunity for a reboot with tribal governments that I don’t at this point,” Bynum said. “I did not seek reelection because I’m a big believer there ought to be new energy and new ideas in this job.”