While the City of Fort Wayne faces delays in getting approval for its proposed homeless resource center in downtown, the homelessness problem isn’t going away.
Before the city had a Manager of Homeless Services and before Mayor Sharon Tucker took office, Fort Wayne was already searching for ways to address and serve the homeless population.
In 2023, the city created the Everybody Home plan. Alongside service providers and national non-profit consultants, the plan looked to better understand the crisis to prevent and end homelessness.
Speaking to city council last September, Fort Wayne’s Manager of Homeless Services, Amanda Fall, credited this program with paving the way for her.
“The work being done from the plan the last two years laid a solid foundation for my position," she said.
In an executive summary released as part of that plan, it found that less than eight percent of rental housing is affordable to households at risk of homelessness and only 31 units of Permanent Supportive Housing were available in Allen County in 2021.
From 2018 to 2021, the organization found just over 1,000 individuals in Fort Wayne were “literally homeless,” a Housing and Urban Development term to mean lacking a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.
And the problem has only gotten worse since then.
A study released by the National Alliance to End Homelessness in 2025 found homeless counts at a record high nationally. In 2024, nine out of every 10,000 residents of Indiana experienced homelessness and more than 6,000 people didn’t have a permanent place to live, a five percent increase from 2023.
When Fall spoke in front of City Council last September, it was following a small back-and-forth between council members and city administration about whether the city was doing enough to address homelessness.
In July of last year, Fall said she partnered with 20 agencies over a two-week period to get a more accurate count of the unhoused in Fort Wayne.
“Don’t get lost in the numbers," Fall said. "Each number represents a human – somebody's daughter, somebody’s son – and it’s real easy to forget about that when we’re looking at numbers.”
What they found; 253 individuals living unsheltered, 40 households living in hotels and 47 households living in vehicles. At the same time, Fall said there were 462 individuals living in shelters.
“We also know that about 50% of the people asked would not give data," Fall said. "So, we know that these numbers are low and can easily be doubled.”
In May of 2025, Fort Wayne Community Schools reported having more than 1,000 households living doubled up.
"Those families you’re never gonna see in any Point In Time count. HUD doesn’t consider those families to be homeless," Fall said. "But if I’m living with my sister and I have two school-aged children, those children deserve their own home and so they deserve to be counted in this count.”
Councilman Thomas Freistroffer complimented Fall’s presentation in September.
"I haven’t seen this type of discussion on homelessness in the last 12 to 15 years on council," he said.
He was also concerned about the number of individuals being dropped off in Fort Wayne, which Fall said was common in larger cities in the state where services were offered, such as Bloomington and South Bend, but that moratoriums on serving those from other communities have failed.
Still, earlier this year, the mayor’s office and city council came together on an ordinance prohibiting transient homeless individuals from being relocated to Fort Wayne, unless a local service provider has agreed to accept them.
Andrew Downs, Tucker’s Chief of Staff, addressed city council before the ordinance was passed, explaining this was a small step in the city’s ongoing effort to address homelessness.
“It’s really not compassionate to drop somebody off in a city of 260,000 people with no one they know and no idea how to navigate the system," he said.
Those caught transporting individuals into Fort Wayne without a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence could face a fine of $2,500 per individual.
Recently, WANE 15 also reported that cease-and-desist letters were sent from the Fort Wayne city attorneys dated May and June to a mental health facility in Indianapolis that had dropped three individuals off at the Rescue Mission.
In June, the City of Fort Wayne presented a proposal for a 24-7 homeless services center in downtown to City Council.
