http://wane.com/2014/12/12/city-again-tells-downtown-homeless-people-to-move/
http://wane.com/2014/08/25/15-finds-out-down-and-out-in-downtown/
MAYOR HENRY'S "WAR ON THE HOMELESS"
TALK TALK TALK TALK.. NO ROOF FOR YOU..
https://www.facebook.com/fwapch
http://www.fwcommunitydevelopment.org/housing/homelessness-resources
"THE NUMBERS"-STATS BY FORT WAYNE UNITED WAY::
https://lintvwane.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/allen-211-homeless-data.pdf
http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/report-hoosiers-poverty-level-74491/
http://media.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2007/oct/homeless/cart200-a38259ddddd3c2772f6e87ae9929fff1689185cd-s6-c30.jpg
City tells downtown homeless people to move
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – For the second time in less than 30 days, the city has notified a group of homeless people downtown that they need to move.
Notices were pinned on several tents underneath the railroad tracks near Friemann Square, said to be from the Fort Wayne Police Department. They stated, “Please remove your belongings. If they are not removed by 7:00 a.m. on Monday December 15, 2014 they will be removed by the City of Fort Wayne.”
Previous notices in November cited city ordinance violations, saying the homeless had 24 hours to removed their belongings or they could be subject to arrest. At the time, FWPD said those notices were complaint-driven.
The city used a different tactic with Friday’s notices. It’s working through prominent homeless advocates in Fort Wayne to get the word out to men and woman living on the streets. Donovan Coley with the Rescue Mission said city leaders received several complaints about groups staying underneath railroad tracks near Friemann Square. On Friday, Coley agreed to work with the city to get the message out, and made the following announcement when many of the homeless men and women were eating dinner at the mission:
The Park Center homeless team is also teaming up with the city to get the word out. They gave homeless people a heads up to move, saying the city doesn’t want them to lose all of their belongings.
But the notices continue to frustrate homeless men and woman staying in tents downtown. Alan Walker, 28, said he received the notice Friday afternoon. He’s been staying in a tent with his wife for about a week, after moving from one friend’s home to another. They’re unsure where to go, because they say there aren’t any shelters for married couples.
“Honestly, to tell you the truth, I really don’t know because me and my wife really don’t want to be separated,” Walker said, “In my honest opinion there’s not enough shelters for everybody and there’s only so much room in the shelters. I don’t know where they expect us all to go.”
Kirt Fitzhugh, 49, also received the notice Friday. He has decided to check into the Rescue Mission, after staying near Friemann Square for a couple months. But he doesn’t know where everyone else plans to move.
“Where are we going to go when these shelters are full?” asked Fitzhugh.
Although the Rescue Mission is bursting at the seams with homeless men, leaders there try not to turn anyone away. They have extra cots and make exceptions to zero tolerance drug and alcohol policies, especially when it’s cold outside.
In August, Coley first told 15 Finds Out about his concerns for the future of the homeless in a revitalizing downtown.
MAYOR TOM HENRY'S WAR ON THE HOMELESS- MILLIONS FOR TUE RICH, ANd "SH-T" FOR THE POOR..
15 Finds Out: Down and out in downtown
Do you think downtown revitalization plans should include the expansion of services to the homeless population?
Click here to watch part two of “Down and Out In Downtown” as 15 Finds Out takes the issue to the experts on riverfront development.
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – Downtown development is the hot topic around Fort Wayne and a focal point for recent momentum. But there’s an underlying question seldom discussed in the downtown conversation: What’s the future for the hundreds of homeless living in the middle of prime downtown property?
15 Finds Out has discovered one nonprofit beginning major plans to expand outreach downtown, while others would rather see those services expand elsewhere.
No one really knows how many homeless people live in Allen County. Estimates range anywhere from 300 to almost 3,000, depending on how homelessness is defined. Many of them hang out around Friemann Square, Headwaters Park, or the Allen County Public Library downtown during the day. At night, they sleep underneath the Wells Street Bridge or shelters.
Experts agree most of Allen County’s homeless population lives downtown, and their numbers are growing.
Matt, who didn’t want to give his last name, is one of the faces behind the statistics. He said his home was condemned because of a lack of utilities and has been living on the streets for three years. He’s one of the many who depend on social services which exist near downtown Fort Wayne.
“It can be rough at times, but I make the most out of it,” Matt said. “They get on people about coming out here and feeding us and handing us cheeseburgers and stuff like that. The cops run us out and everything like that. It just seems like they don’t really care. They care more about developing downtown and not helping the homeless.”
Expanding help downtown
Like most, Donovan Coley has been watching downtown redevelopment with excitement. But for Coley, it also generates concern. He’s the CEO of the Rescue Mission, a nonprofit organization that serves as, among other things, a men’s homeless shelter on Superior Street downtown.
“I believe the elephant in the room is the number of homeless persons who will walk the corridors of beautiful, revitalized downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana,” Coley said. “We do believe that the infrastructure and all the beauty that we see downtown will demand a new approach to taking care of the needs.”
As part of its “Real Change, Not Spare Change” initiative, the Rescue Mission has launched a capital campaign to raise over $85,000 for emergency shelter renovations. But Coley broke the news on the organization’s future downtown plans exclusively to 15 Finds Out. Leaders with the Rescue Mission hope to eventually team up with social service agencies and build a new day center downtown.
“A day center would literally provide a facility where individuals who are in need could come and receive resources. They could receive referrals. They would…become part of a pool where we could bring social service agencies to try to connect the needs to the social service agents in our community,” Coley said. “We would literally try to reverse some of the issues that have caused them to be homeless or chronically poor.”
The plans are still very preliminary. Coley said it’s currently unclear if that expansion would be solely a day center or an all-in-one building with the Rescue Mission’s shelter included.
Homeless services should be “spread out”
But not everyone’s cheering on the plans. Bill Brown, president of the Downtown Improvement District, thinks the Rescue Mission should avoid creating a high concentration of homeless downtown and instead expand in other areas of the community.
“The whole concept of more and more density of homeless people really isn’t that good of an idea,” Brown said. He thinks it’s alright to have some element of the Rescue Mission downtown. But when it comes to any expansion, Brown said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for the Rescue Mission to expand downtown. I think it’s a good idea to have something on the edge of downtown.”
Coley is worried leaders will become so focused on economic development that they will begin to consider homeless people as blight to the community and find ways to move the people and shelter away from downtown.
Neither the city nor Brown said they consider the homeless to be a “blight.” Brown said all people are welcome downtown, but thinks those who are down and out and causing trouble downtown should be delivered to a center outside of the revitalized area.
“It would have to be basically on their own free will seeking help or if they bring back some of the vagrancy laws to where you just can’t be out there causing trouble and infringing on other peoples’ lives,” Brown said. “We don’t want people that are going to soil and spoil the environment for others.”
Leaders with the Rescue Mission said they’re willing to be good neighbors and move their facility to make way for economic development. In the end though, they plan on staying downtown because that’s where the majority of Fort Wayne’s homeless are found.
“That’s where most of the homeless come because they want access to social services in the community,” Coley said. “What I would encourage business men and women to do is not only to build their businesses but do something to develop some sort of social responsibility.”
The Rescue Mission’s plans for a new downtown day center are still very preliminary. Leaders don’t know how much it will cost and will be looking for community partners, since the organization doesn’t accept any government funding.
Indiana Public Media News
Report: More Than A Third Of Hoosiers Below Poverty Level
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Brandon Smith has previously worked as a reporter and anchor for KBIA Radio in Columbia, MO, and at WSPY Radio in Plano, IL as a show host, reporter, producer and anchor. Brandon graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Bachelor of Journalism in 2010, with minors in political science and history. He was born and raised in Chicago.
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