The City of Fort Wayne to develop strategic plan to address homelessness

The City of Fort Wayne’s Office of Housing & Neighborhood Services will work with the non-profit Homebase to evaluate the state of homelessness in our city and develop a strategic plan to address it.

Begin with tackling homelessness in fort wayne.

Every five years, the city creates a strategic plan of action to better serve the homeless population.fox 55's nico pennisi is live in downtown fort wayne where he spoke with city officials and local shelters about how this year is different.

Nico, how has homelessness changed in our city during the covid-19 pandemic.brianna, fort wayne is facing a record number of evictions.

Residents experiencing job losses and financial strain during the pandemic are at risk of losing their homes... "homelessness is such an issue that affects so many people and even near homelessness."

Galejust neighbors interfaith homeless network executive director joshua gale says it even affects people who just a year ago were financially stable.

"we need a strategy.

I think individually we have great organizations addressing homelessness, but as a whole what is our strategy?"

Galea question kelly lundberg says the office of housing and neighborhood services is trying to answer."we've seen through the pandemic that we have some new people that are needing assistance that maybe have never needed assistance previously.

We also are seeing a pretty significant increase in the number of people who are at risk of losing their housing."

Lundbergshe says ideally their goal would be to eliminate homelessness here entirely, but..."the reality is not everybody may be able to to be quickly transitioned into permanent housing."

Lundbergthat's why the city contracted homebase to create a strategic plan of action.

The nonprofit will assess the city's current resources and homeless needs and provide a report that will outline how to move forward."is everyone collaborating really well?

Are there issues?

There are certain kinds of housing but is there a lot for veterans but not enough for families?"

Wylie homebase representative carolyn wylie says answering these questions is the basis of her research."once we can synthesize that, and say 'okay so here's what we found, and we're gonna recommend now, here are some strategies we can recommend from the best practices we know and see across the country because we work across the whole country."

Wylieboth the city and homebase hope this plan will ensure more families sleep at night with a roof over their heads.

Tag: funding for the strategic plan work comes from cares act dollars allocated to the city of fort wayne.

The work being performed by homebase is anticipated to be a nine-month process.