City of Fort Wayne announces plan to address homelessness

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) – Mayor Tom Henry and city leaders gathered Thursday morning to announce the “Everyone Home: Fort Wayne’s Community Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.”

Leaders say the plan was developed by the City of Fort Wayne, United Way of Allen County, the Fort Wayne Area Planning Council on Homelessness, and Homebase, a national consulting firm, to help evaluate the state of homelessness in the Summit City.

The “Everyone Home” plan is meant to serve as a guide by providing goals, strategies, and action steps to address the community’s challenges in helping those experiencing homelessness and prevention needs, leaders say. They laid out the four following strategic goals for the plan:

• Increase safe & affordable housing for Fort Wayne residents
• Expand access to homeless emergency response services
• Partner across Fort Wayne to build collective solutions
• Prevent homelessness before it begins

Back in January of 2022, a survey was created by city leaders for the public to give feedback on how the city should use $4 million in federal funding to address homelessness. The funding was given to the City of Fort Wayne’s Office of Housing & Neighborhood Services through The HOME Investment Partnerships American Rescue Plan Program.

Those who developed the plan say it was created by combining local data, gap analyses, input from focus groups, and survey responses from individuals with lived experiences of homelessness. They say they wish to prevent homelessness by offering more support services and “swiftly” housing everyone experiencing homelessness.

Leaders say a public meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 8, at the Allen County Public Library Theater downtown to create spread word of the plan and to begin to implement it.

You can view the news conference at the link below.