FROM $14K TO $170K: The Crisis of Profit Over People in North Tulsa
Tulsa is facing an affordable housing crisis — one that’s not just about supply, but about equity, misuse of public funds, and a deepening gap between neighborhood legacy and market greed.
In North Tulsa, a historically underresourced area that’s home to generations of Black families, I came across a home that tells a damning story. Purchased in 2023 for just $14,000, it was flipped and listed for $180,000. It’s not an anomaly. It’s a trend. Investors, many of whom don’t live anywhere near the community, are buying up homes at rock-bottom prices — often using taxpayer-funded incentive programs designed to revitalize under-resourced neighborhoods. Instead, they’re exploiting them
Let’s be clear: these programs were meant to support communities, not to extract wealth from them. What we’re seeing is the weaponization of revitalization — where tax credits and development incentives are flipped into quick profits. The results? Long-time residents are being priced out of the neighborhoods they built. Families who once owned homes are now shut out as the cost of housing balloons beyond their reach.
“This isn’t revitalization. It’s displacement.”
This kind of gentrification isn’t about creating opportunity — it’s about capitalizing on desperation. When a $14K home is flipped for $170K in a neighborhood where the median income can’t support a $1,200 mortgage, we have a systemic issue.
We are confronting that issue head-on.
Through our affordable home ownership program, we’re buying properties in North Tulsa and using our equity algorithm to identify and place families who need them most. Not who can pay the most — who need the most. We prioritize families with proximity needs — access to public schools, clinics, grocery stores, childcare, and more. We’re rebuilding access in areas where public transportation is weak, where car ownership is a barrier, and where generational roots run deep but resources have run dry. Our program is not just about placing people in homes — it’s about creating real, lasting pathways to ownership that resist gentrification and keep families rooted in their communities.
Our work is rooted in systems thinking — we’re not just putting people in homes. We’re building community capacity, preserving cultural legacy, and restoring the dignity of living near what matters most.
A Call to Action
We must do more than tell the story — we must change the system. We need protective policies at the city, county, state, and federal levels to:
Prevent public incentives from being used to price out local residents.
Mandate community reinvestment requirements for out-of-state investors.
Prioritize resident-first homeownership programs.
Regulate tax sale flipping and set standards for affordability in historically marginalized neighborhoods.
Gentrification wrapped in the language of opportunity is still displacement. And Tulsa, especially North Tulsa, deserves better.
If we want to talk equity — we need to build it, protect it, and legislate it.
Join us. Support community-first housing. Share your voice. Contact your local officials. And if you’re a funder, developer, or policymaker — partner with us.
Let’s stop the cycle of profit over people. Let’s remix the system, together.
