Homelessness is at a record high nationally, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, with more than 6,000 people in Indiana without a permanent place to live in 2024.
“Something needs to be done," Mayor Sharon Tucker told city council in June.
In Fort Wayne, the city estimated nearly 600 individuals were sleeping outside, in hotels or in vehicles in 2025, with shelters at or near capacity. Those numbers come from Amanda Fall, the manager of homeless services for the city.
“Our shelters that serve women and families are 100% full every single day of the year," she said.
Her position was created early last year under Tucker in response to a visible rise in homelessness in Fort Wayne.
Actually tracking the homeless comes with its own crop of problems. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, it can be difficult to track people living in cars, abandoned buildings and other deserted places. Other people may be easy to see but lack identification or don’t feel comfortable being identified.
Fall said she spent several weeks last July working with multiple organizations to visit encampments in the city, build trust and create a more accurate count of homelessness. Even still, she told City Council in September about 50% of the people they spoke to didn’t want to give data.
“Homelessness has been in our conversation so much more this past year," Fall said. "It’s because we are focused on finding solutions that work in our community.”
The biggest of those solutions is the Anchor Resource Center.
The proposed resource center would be a space for people to come inside, get shelter from the weather, use the bathroom, shower and do laundry. But, most importantly, it would be a hub to connect people without permanent housing to resources to help get them back on their feet.
The resource center would be a low-barrier entry space, which means it's not required for someone to be completely sober from drugs or alcohol in order to enter. But, Fall emphasised this doesn’t mean there are no rules at all.
“Low-barrier works with high accountability," she said. "So, there will be a code of conduct showing exactly what is expected of each and every individual that accesses services there.”
While someone won’t be turned away for having drugs or alcohol in their system, they won’t be allowed to have substances or weapons anywhere on the property. This gives them the opportunity to get people who are struggling with addiction into a conversation and offer resources not just for housing, but also for rehabilitation.
Fall said one of the biggest priorities for them was for the center to have expansive hours.
"We didn’t think a day shelter was enough," she said. "Because homelessness is 24-7. It’s not just Monday through Friday, nine to five.”
She said being a 24-7 facility also cuts down on people needing to linger outside the building, waiting to get in or sleeping on the sidewalk, because they can come in at any hour to escape the weather or find respite.
While the resource center plan has been designed with the option to expand to offer permanent beds down the line, initially it would only include emergency beds.
It also would offer another thing nowhere else in Fort Wayne is currently offering; Safe parking, where people can come and park their cars over night for a specific number of hours, and also come in and have access to the other things the resource center provides.
In September, Fall told City Council they had identified 47 households living in cars.
“You’re able to lock the doors, be in a safe space by yourself and you’re able to have your possessions in there with you," she said.
Tucker outlined the work that went into creating this proposal in front of City Council. She said it included hiring Fall, but also seeking out conversations with other communities – such as Hawaii and Arkansas – that have implemented similar programs to see what worked and what didn’t.
Notably, Tucker also said they visited the Lafayette LTHC, formerly Lafayette Transitional Housing Center, which caused a stir about some of the problems that facility is facing.
“There are some challenges there," Tucker said. "And those are not the challenges that we brought forward with us, we brought the best of the program.”
Presenting on the financing structure of the proposal, Tucker also said she asked at each place how they were funding their programs and each one said it was coming from general funds.
Here, the administration is only asking City Council for funds to purchase and renovate a building downtown, with operational funding coming from grants to cover the first three years.
Find the first part in this series here and the next part here.
