Carl DeLine

A group of Oklahoma City volunteers is organizing a program to help homeless adults find their way off the streets. The Open Door is modeled after The Back Door, a highly successful, fifteen-year old program started by Carl DeLine in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

DeLine gave the university’s fall 2002 Willson Lecture. “He talked Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Willson about the program he created and directed in Canada and said it provided a means by which scores of homeless young adults went from being homeless to becoming productive citizens,” said Dr. Mark Y.A. Davies, dean of the Wimberly School of Religion and Graduate Theological Center.

In his Willson Lecture, DeLine said, “The miraculous result is that over seventy percent of the youth who walked in the door found a place of their own, got a job, and became taxpayers by the end of their second year of the program.”

The Oklahoma City program will be staffed by volunteers and paid workers.

“The Open Door is completely nonsectarian and will not allow religious pressures of any kind to be applied to participants in the program,” noted one of the organizers, the Rev. Dr. Dale Tremper. For more information, contact Tremper at [redacted] or [redacted]. The Willson Lectures are made possible through the generous endowment established by Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Willson Sr. of Floydada, TX. Their gift has brought to campus speakers of international stature from the arts, government, business, religion, and science.

Originally published in the Spring 2003 edition of the University of Oklahoma’s Focus Magazine (Oklahoma City, OK), credited to Focus Magazine staff. (full pdf)