Assisting The Fort’s Homeless Population
The City of Fort Wayne’s Homeless Services Manager recently provided an update about ongoing efforts to address homelessness at a Fort Wayne City Council meeting.
Fort Wayne Mayor Sharon Tucker has prioritized finding solutions to address homelessness and six months ago the Office of Housing and Neighborhood Services hired the City’s first Homeless Services Manager, Amanda Fall. At the invitation of City Council, Fall provided a brief update about her work to coordinate services, collaborate with nonprofit and private partners, and develop a community strategy to address the issue.
“Addressing the issue of homelessness has been and continues to be a leading priority. Leaders within City government, as well as the nonprofit and private sectors, are actively working to address the homelessness challenge with compassion and urgency,” said Mayor Tucker. “Tonight’s presentation from our manager of homeless services sent a powerful message for how much my team and I care about people and why we’re so passionate about improving the lives of individuals and families in our community. We know there’s more work ahead, but past work, current initiatives, and future plans as part of our comprehensive and proactive strategy, will set us on a positive course for a better tomorrow.”
Information provided to City Council and the public included the following:
- Progress over the last several years has included the development of the Everyone Home community strategy to address and end homelessness, and as part of the strategy, multiple committees are working on the complex issues surrounding homelessness. Currently, 87 affordable housing units are under construction, and 94 homeless individuals have recently found housing through a partnership with InAsMuch Ministry.
- The Homeless Services Manager has three goals for the first year of work: develop strategies to reduce homelessness, improve the homelessness continuum of care and service delivery, and create a coordinated encampment strategy.
- The encampment strategy includes the creation of both an Encampment Task Force and a multi-agency encampment services team specializing in triage centered interventions, encampment tracking, and collaborating to find available shelter and housing for those living in encampments.
- Since Fall has assumed the new position, she has worked with partners to get as close to an accurate count of unhoused people as possible. The current estimate is 2,250 people living either in emergency shelters, vehicles, outside, or hotels. Included in this estimate is the 1,107 households Fort Wayne Community Schools reported in May as not having a permanent address.
- Now that a more accurate estimate of the population exists, strategies are being developed for the variety of challenges facing each individual. Next steps include: increasing the number of emergency shelter beds, creating options for low-barrier shelters, continuing work to increase affordable housing options, and securing funding for software to measure success and inform City Council and public with real time data.
“We all know that the challenges surrounding homelessness are not unique to Fort Wayne and that finding real solutions is a complex task requiring compassion, collaboration, time and money from the community,” said Fall. “The City of Fort Wayne, along with many dedicated nonprofit staff and volunteers, is working diligently to find solutions, and I know that with the support of both the public and private sectors we can make real progress toward preventing and ending homelessness.”
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