Food, water, oxygen, shelter – the basics of life. Some might add light, clothing, physical activity, love and companionship. But shelter, and preferably a stable home, is inarguably a basic necessity to health, safety and overall well-being.

For far too many in our city, a stable place to live is unattainable without intervention and assistance. On any given night in Indianapolis an estimated 1,600 individuals experience homelessness. Over the course of a year, that translates to anywhere between 12-14,000 men, women and children experiencing homelessness in our community. We must do better. We can do better.

The three legs to the stool of solving homelessness are 1) a rental subsidy, 2) an apartment, and 3) wrap-around services to provide short-term or long-term supports to keep someone stably housed. We have the subsidies. We have the housing stock. What Indianapolis lacks is the capacity to provide supportive services to newly housed, chronically homeless population.  

This is where the Housing to Recovery Fund comes in. Co-created by the City of Indianapolis, CHIP, the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) and Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF), this fund is dedicated to supporting the homelessness service providers in our community by building their capacity to efficiently and effectively deliver wrap-around services to newly housed, chronically homeless individuals and families. The goals of the HTR Fund are to: 
• Expand and scale the needed case management human resources
• Create a path to more sustainable funding through existing sources like Medicaid 
• Cultivate process improvements to ensure our system effectively and equitably houses all in our community
• Share tenancy support resources 
• Design and implement an evaluation system in order to make changes and improvements as we learn.  
The organizations funded through the Housing to Recovery Fund will participate in a “performance-based contract” model. Part of the funding, as well as expanded funding, will depend on hitting benchmarks and levels of success to ensure the financial and professional development investments have a direct result on reducing homelessness and improving people’s lives.