Experiencing homelessness as a Native youth

(TULSA, Okla.) Recent data from Tulsa’s 2025 Equality Indicators Report showed that Native youth in Tulsa are more than four times as likely to experience homelessness as white youth. 

For every 1,000 Native Tulsans between the ages of 13 and 24, 38.5 were homeless in 2025. Among white youth, that number was 8.9.

Felix Clary, a member of the Chickasaw Nation who is also Cherokee and Choctaw, recently spoke with Crosswinds about his experience with homelessness at 22 and what he’s learned from meeting other Native youth who are homeless. 

“It was a nightmare of a start to my 20s,” said Clary, who became homeless in 2020 after graduating from college. “But this is not uncommon.” 

Clary had been living with his parents in Austin, Texas, but when issues with family led him to move out, he had nowhere to go. Finding a job was challenging because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Clary says he was homeless for six months. 

“It was about three months of couch-surfing, and then a place I was staying at I ended up getting assaulted at, and then I was homeless in my car for three months,” Clary said.

After finding a remote job through a temp agency, Clary says he briefly moved back in with his parents. When he found a job with the Chickasaw Nation, he saved up to move to the Chickasaw reservation in Ada, Oklahoma.

Clary told Crosswinds that he has connected with other Native youth experiencing homelessness through TikTok. He has noticed that homelessness seems especially common among LGBTQ+ Native youth.

“Usually the common theme was they were queer,” Clary said. “I’m transgender. Nine times out of ten, Native youth that I’ve met, they’re homeless because of how they identify, like their gender or their sexuality.”

Clary’s observation is supported by data from the Trevor Project’s National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health 2021, which found that 44% of Native LGBTQ+ youth report experiencing homelessness or housing instability sometime in their lives, compared to 27% of white LGBTQ+ youth.

Clary says family and economic issues also contribute to the crisis of Native youth homelessness. 

“It’s really just genuinely family abuse,” Clary said. “No support from your family, no resources from your family, your family not having money to send you to internships.”

Clary now lives in an apartment in Tulsa with two roommates, but says he still meets many Native people between 19 and 22 who are experiencing homelessness in northeast Oklahoma. He tries to help when he can.

“I was in Tahlequah, and I saw this kid asking for rides at the Cherokee Outpost,” Clary said. “I talked to him, and he said that he had just gotten his tribal card from the complex and that he needs to hitch a ride back to Tulsa; he’s homeless. So it’s another Cherokee kid. He’s 19. And I just was like looking at myself; I’m 28 now. It's like looking at me from a decade ago. And so, I’ve been trying to help him.”

Clary says breaking the cycle of being homeless can be challenging, even after finding a job. Youth who are homeless sometimes need to live with friends or in a motel because of moving costs and housing deposits. 

“You have to have first and last months’ rent and then the deposit,” Clary said. “This is thousands of dollars. How can you just randomly get thousands of dollars?”

Tulsa’s Job Corps Center offers career training for youth ages 16 to 24. The program is residential, with participating youth living at the center.

Clary knows Native youth who are in the program but says it’s not always the best situation.

“It’s hard to get in because the waitlist is so long, and then it’s hard to stay in because it’s so unbearable, and then you’re back to square one,” Clary said. “What I hear, it’s very unsafe, so that’s probably the thing that keeps it from being helpful because then they just want to leave and be homeless again.”

Clary believes one solution to the crisis of Native youth homelessness could come from local tribes. 

Clary recommends that tribes develop programs to provide housing support for 18- to 22-year-olds as a preventive measure. 

“I think that would save hundreds of lives,” Clary said. 

Crosswinds News will continue to report on Native youth homelessness in northeast Oklahoma as well as potential solutions to this ongoing challenge.