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Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry has passed away after a brief battle with cancer.

Fort Wayne Begins First Phase Of Federal COVID-19 Relief Disbursements

Rebecca Green/WBOI News

The City of Fort Wayne is receiving approximately $1.7 million in emergency funding from the Department of Housing & Urban Development as part of the federal CARES Act, the coronavirus relief act.

In what the City describes as the “first phase” of investment, it will use those dollars to address immediate need for shelter for people experiencing homelessness, or those who need to quarantine but cannot safely do so in their own home.

Fort Wayne’s Office of Housing and Neighborhood Services has coordinated with local non-profits and Allen County’s Department of Health to identify five areas of immediate need without duplicating services. As a result, roughly $370,000 will be disbursed toward:

  • Temporary shelter for homeless women. The Fort Wayne area has long had a need for a shelter for single women without addictions and this need is now more prevalent. The City will provide approximately $60,000 to assist Just Neighbors Interfaith Homeless Network in offering immediate shelter, meals and case management for single women experiencing homelessness. The Lutheran Foundation is the fiscal agent for these services.
     
  • Emergency housing. The City is granting $60,000 to Brightpoint to provide hotel vouchers, case management and meals for individuals and families experiencing homelessness that have no other option for shelter.
     
  • Quarantine Shelter. Approximately $200,000 will help fund northeast Indiana’s regional quarantine shelter set up by a coalition of local non-profits as a place for people who do not have safe, stable or secure housing to quarantine or isolate. The lead agency for this effort is United Way of Allen County and The Lutheran Foundation is the fiscal agent.
     
  • Cleaning Program. Approximately $50,000 is helping Blue Jacket provide deep cleaning and sanitizing services for area homeless shelters and non-profits.
     
  • PPE and supplies. The City has already purchased and delivered 24 cases (288 bottles) of hand sanitizer to area shelters and will also be providing additional hand sanitizer and masks to local non-profits.

The largest chunk of the pie is $200,000 set aside for Northeast Indiana’s “regional quarantine shelter,” an effort by local nonprofits to provide “a place for people who do not have safe, stable or secure housing to quarantine or isolate.”
United Way will lead that project. President and CEO Matthew Purkey says the process is “dignified” -- beyond merely placing individuals in, say, a convention center.

“Each person that is referred to us through either a nonprofit organization working with us, an emergency room, physician’s office, whatever that is," Purkey said. "When that referral comes in, they are then shipped to an anonymous location.”

He adds that despite the funding disbursement taking place today, United Way and its partners have already been assisting with shelter.

“Everything from vendor contracts to trash disposal to bedbug burners to security system, I mean… negotiating these contracts on the fly was what we had to do. This initiative needed to happen, not when was it going to happen," he said.

"So United Way and the Lutheran Foundation… we stood this operation up knowing that the community would rally around it because of the population we were trying to serve.”

As mentioned, this is the “first phase” of investment, so not all of the spending in this disbursement will amount to the full $1.7 million.

The Office of Housing and Neighborhood Services notes that relief efforts are ongoing and the department will continue to “focus on meeting un-met needs in the community” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Zach joined 89.1 WBOI as a reporter and local host for All Things Considered, and hosted Morning Edition for the past few years. In 2022, he was promoted to Content Director.