$500K in grant funding will bring a community center to Will Rogers Courts

This is an excerpt from an article by Jessie Christopher Smith that originally appeared in The Oklahoman on 09/29/2024.

A neighborhood that has long struggled with poverty and crime in southwest Oklahoma City is receiving a $500,000 grant that organizers hope will transform the community.

The Oklahoma City Housing Authority, in partnership with the nonprofit Lilyfield and the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, plans to use $500,000 from the Ken and Gae Rees Family Fund to create a fully-serviced community center at Will Rogers Courts, which is located between the Stockyards City and Wheeler districts.

In what organizers call the “Westwood Community Challenge,” community partners will bring local stakeholders and Will Rogers Courts residents together to develop a plan for increased resources that could address food insecurity, high unemployment and crime, and limited health care and recreation options in the low-income neighborhood.

Holly Towers, executive director of Lilyfield, a local nonprofit serving at-risk children and families, believes the project could provide generations of residents at Will Rogers Courts, the city’s oldest and largest public housing complex, pathways to a more hopeful future.

“For people who are facing a lot of adversity, these problems seem like mountains to climb, and so I believe that by bringing an embedded family resource center onsite, we can help take that from a mountain to just a little obstacle that you have to barely lift your feet to get over,” Towers said. “That’s my goal with them — is that they will begin to see hope for the future, and they’ll begin to see a way forward where they can help their families and be successful.” 

“For people who are facing a lot of adversity, these problems seem like mountains to climb, and so I believe that by bringing an embedded family resource center onsite, we can help take that from a mountain to just a little obstacle that you have to barely lift your feet to get over…”

Holly Towers, executive director of Lilyfield

People living at Will Rogers Courts are among the poorest in the city, with many of them making no annual income and lacking reliable transportation. The complex was under scrutiny in late May this year after three fatal shootings occurred within six days at the location, but housing officials say that increasing access to social programs onsite is key to turning the tide.

Revamping the Will Rogers Courts is central to an ambitious plan by the Oklahoma City Housing Authority to completely transform a long-impoverished area southwest of downtown. 

Organizers, led by Lilyfield, will renovate an old building across from Rotary Park into a family resource center. The planning phase will begin in October, with expectations of opening the center sometime in spring 2025.

Read the rest of the article at The Oklahoman!