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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis is dedicating $686,000 in federal funds to employ an outreach team in downtown’s Mile Square that will connect homeless individuals with housing and provide wraparound services, program partners announced Monday.
The allocation of federal funds by Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration to Downtown Indy Inc. is expected to fund the 18-month-long “Downtown Collaborative Outreach Initiative.” Six full-time homeless-outreach specialists have been hired and will be led by a community-outreach coordinator.
At the launch announcement on Monument Circle, City-County Council President Vop Osili said the initiative is intended to provide a better future for downtown and streamline services for homeless individuals.
“No area of Indianapolis is impacted more by the needs of our unhoused neighbors than our downtown,” Osili said.
The six outreach specialists will be staffed by homeless-outreach organizations Horizon House and Adult & Child Health. The funding will also expand the hours of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department’s Homeless Unit, which is headquartered at the downtown district.
While the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention maintains a citywide, blended street-outreach team, the new effort is expected to provide a “much more intense, dedicated perspective” on Mile Square, said Horizon House Executive Director Teresa Wessel.
“When you have two people on the streets versus when you have six dedicated [outreach specialists] seven days a week and evenings, it’s going to make a difference,” Wessel said.
Niki Wattson, street outreach manager at Horizon House, has been appointed to lead the effort. She said she hopes that the temporary programming provides a model for future efforts.
“This particular initiative will allow us to really hone in on the downtown Mile Square,” Wattson said. “My hope is that we’ll really get to the nitty gritty in the heart of the city, and then, hopefully, this type of initiative will really spill out to the rest of the city.”
The program is part of a larger initiative to improve cleanliness and safety in downtown that was announced in November. It is funded by a piece of the $3.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding that the Hogsett administration gave to Downtown Indy Inc. at that time.
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My son does this for Mel Trotter Ministries in Grand Rapids
A great model for our city to follow
What’s the latest on the low barrier shelter?
Not usually easy to find contracting service providers willing to tolerate the liability risk.
I recognize that “low barrier” can include a variety of standards, not all of them a doomsday scenario. But they usually operate in tandem with “housing first” approaches, which are all but completely blind to why these people lost their housing to begin with: primarily criminality and drug use. Even unmedicated schizophrenia is an outlier. If most of these people cannot effectively keep a tent from turning into a fire-prone cesspool of garbage and filth, why should they do better with four walls and a roof?
Some low barrier shelters openly welcome people who are intoxicated and/or under the influence of drugs, but it usually ends in disaster–too much theft or violent behavior that puts the shelter workers or its other guests at high risk. The vast majority of the addicts need, as a condition to keep them out of prison, to be coerced into an institutionalized rehab program…but one that does not treat it as a disease but instead treats it as a moral failing. (Mel Trotter Ministries is probably a good example.)
Addiction is not “a disease for which the sufferer has no blame”. It can COMPLETELY be helped, the addict is to blame 99% of the time, and the best person to do pursue meaningful treatment is the addict him/herself, with counseling resources provided by the institution. The “addiction as a disease” treatment centers have horrible success rates and far too often just trade out an opioid for a less addictive depressant. Additionally, they are mostly for-profit, which understandably leads one to question how strong their incentive is for truly and fully treating the addicts.
Lauren,
Some great points.
I’ve thought for a long time that it should be treated also to a much higher degree
as a moral failing along with the addiction or disease part of it.
This is why religious affiliatiafed treatment centers can be very effective.
It’s puts responsibility back on to the addicted person to want to change their ways. Too believe in themselves by believing in a higher power that does
love them, but also has moral expectations. Free will.
@Lauren and @Keith Wow! I’ve never heard so much ignorance out of either of you, which says a lot. Clearly, neither of you have ever bothered to converse with homeless people, and know nothing about addiction. Stable housing, when combined with mental health services, actually are proven to help people get and stay off the streets. Does it work 100% of the time? Absolutely not, but that doesn’t mean you treat people like animals.
I hope both of you pray to your God and ask why Ronald Reagan put us in this position. Who could have predicted that decimating the mental healthcare system without a valid replacement would end in disaster? Just like with the gun issue, America isn’t the only country with people who have mental health/addiction issues. Our society just chooses to ignore those people and leave them on the street vs getting them help and housing. Your comments always read as people who haven’t traveled outside of North America or beach resorts.
Wesley,
Who said treat people like animals?????
But to not have expectations and accountability is treating someone like
a pet.
You don’t have expectations, you don’t get results.
Too many times there’s too much emphasis on being a victim.
I do agreee that mental and chemical dependency experts are absolutely needed
in this quest to help the mentally ill and addicted. But using the faith based
sector is needed also. To give people that spiritual inspiration that God is
always with them, and that they themselves are ultimately responsible.