Homelessness
No matter our political ideology, left, right, or center, we all can acknowledge Indianapolis has an affordable housing and homelessness crisis. A crisis, whose existence contributes to the loss of business and morality in Indianapolis. Sadly once again the downtown business community is being betrayed by the Mayor’s office and Indy Chamber of Commerce on addressing homelessness. While Mayor Hogsett’s administration failed repeatedly for 8 years to meet the goals it determined was critical for eliminating homelessness, the Indy Chamber provides them cover, manipulating its membership with false hope and half measures like Senate Bill 285.
In 2018 with community stakeholders at its side to address homelessness, the Hogsett administration committed to providing 1100 permanent supportive housing units by 2023, yet by late 2024 only 328 of these units existed. Homelessness continued to rise. In the meantime the Mayor’s office’s lack of oversight and support for our public housing agency has seen hundreds of Indianapolis Housing Agency units boarded up all over the city and the agency actively contributing to evictions and homelessness by not paying its Section 8 landlords. The Indy Office of Public Health and Safety’s botched reorganization of its eviction prevention program and delayed roll out of emergency shelters this winter show a dangerous pattern of incompetence in preventing and addressing homelessness. This department’s reckless approach for homeless camp closures in general and initial failure to use the Streets to Home initiative to house individuals in Fountain Square have further pushed homelessness downtown.
Yet the Indy Chamber refuses to hold the Mayor’s office accountable for undeniable failures driving homelessness in Indianapolis. They’ve thrown up their hands after having tried nothing and said we’re all out of ideas, send in the police. Maybe start telling the truth?
Lawsuits and Overcrowding
Support for Senate Bill 285’s homeless camping ban is just a disingenuous attempt by the Indy Chamber to make downtown business owners believe homelessness is being addressed, when clearly, it’s not. Assessing $500 fines, misdemeanors and 60 day jail sentences on impoverished people with nowhere to go is inhumane and criminalization makes it less likely they’ll be accepted as a tenant afterwards, keeping the homeless, homeless. It’s also so impractical that the Indiana Sheriffs’ Association oppose the bill because it would lead to jail overcrowding across Indiana. In fact our jail is already so overcrowded in 2026 the Marion county sheriff says “We cannot continue to operate like this’.
The addition of 175 ICE detainees caused overcrowding the Marion County couldn’t handle physically or fiscally and the sheriff’s department said it would be forced to ask for an additional $3 million for its budget if it continues. Senate Bill 285 specifically allows residents, business owners, and the attorney general to sue if it’s not enforced. If it survives expected legal challenges from the ACLU it will either lead to costly jail overcrowding or costly lawsuits against the city of Indianapolis, or both.
Real Solutions
Senate Bill 285 is an ineffective bill criminalizing homelessness that will be too costly to enforce and too costly to ignore. It will waste resources that should have been used to solve this crisis. The Mayor’s complicit silence in this, is deafening. Criminalization of homelessness just pushes vulnerable individuals struggling with mental illness, intellectual disabilities, and addiction to our criminal justice system. Jail doesn’t make them “better”, it makes them more scarred, more likely to be homeless for longer and more desperate. The Mayor actually completing his tasks and fully funding a Housing First strategy is the real solution to homelessness. Downtown business owners must demand real representation, real leadership and real solutions.