Indy homelessness keeps rising in 2025 — but not for veterans. 4 takeaways from new data

Yahoo

5 days ago

Homelessness in Indianapolis continues to climb closer to the highest levels recorded in the past 15 years, new data shows.
The newly released 2025 point-in-time count — a nationwide census held each January to provide a single-night snapshot of homelessness — found that 1,815 people were experiencing homelessness in Marion County at the beginning of this year.
This is only the third year since 2010 in which the countywide total exceeded 1,800 people. The 2025 figure is a 7% increase from last year and the highest tally since 2021, when Indianapolis reported a 15-year high of 1,928 people experiencing homelessness.
Indy's rising homeless population coincides with record-high homelessness across the United States. Despite the overall increase, significant reductions in veteran homelessness in Indianapolis and the U.S. at large hold lessons for how to help other groups, advocates say.
Here are four key takeaways from the 2025 homelessness count:
Most vulnerable groups drive Indy's homelessness increase
This year's increases were driven by rising homelessness among some of Indianapolis' most vulnerable groups.
The number of residents facing chronic homelessness, a subgroup including people with health issues who have been homeless for more than a year, increased 24% from last year to roughly 400 people.
More families with children are homeless, too, making up more than a quarter of the total homeless population. In 2025, 316 children under 18 years old were experiencing homelessness, a 14% increase from last year.
"We're seeing more families sleeping in vehicles," Andrew Neal, leader of the youth social services organization Outreach Indiana, told IndyStar. "We're seeing more families who are homeless and trying to get access to shelters."
The data also shows that Black residents are increasingly likely to end up homeless in Marion County, marking the failure of a 2023 citywide goal to effectively eliminate racial disparities in homelessness by this year.
Of the total homeless population, more than 1,000 people identified as Black. This means that while nearly 30% of Marion County residents are Black, roughly 56% of the county's homeless residents are Black.
Veteran homelessness falling dramatically in Indy, across the U.S.
While homelessness increased overall, one vulnerable group continues to make progress: veterans.
The number of veterans experiencing homelessness fell to 125 people — a 26% decrease from last year. Just 10 years ago that figure was more than three times higher, when nearly 400 veterans were experiencing homelessness in 2015.
The local decline in veteran homelessness is part of a record-breaking drop across the U.S. since 2010, when the federal government began a focused effort to end homelessness among veterans. Organizations like Helping Veterans and Families in downtown Indianapolis have benefited from more funding and an influx of specialized housing vouchers that help veterans pay rent.
"In its simplest form, the solution to homelessness is housing with supportive services," HVAF CEO Emmy Hildebrand said. "That's what we do here at HVAF every day."
HVAF fire: How Indianapolis veteran homeless housing damaged in fires last year is being rebuilt
The organization provides more than 100 temporary beds where veterans typically stay for six to nine months, Hildebrand said. Because more than 80% of HVAF's clients report mental health or substance abuse issues, case managers connect veterans with health care, employment opportunities and government benefits while they're staying in those beds.
"We want to make sure we're addressing every possible barrier to self-sufficiency when they're present here so they're in the best position to be successful when they leave," Hildebrand said.
HVAF also sends rental assistance to about 500 families a year to ensure they remain stably housed, Hildebrand said. In total, their work helped more than 1,300 veterans in 2024.
What data means for citywide plan to end unsheltered, chronic homelessness
About eight in 10 people experiencing homelessness in Indianapolis were sleeping in emergency shelter beds or transitional housing units during the frigid January count. The city is taking the lead on an ambitious plan to move the remaining people who are habitually unsheltered — sleeping on the street, in vehicles or in abandoned buildings — into housing by next summer.
Through the new program Streets to Home Indy, Indianapolis aims to end unsheltered and chronic homelessness by 2028 for the quarter of homeless residents who fall into those two distinct but overlapping categories. The first phase of that plan is to offer temporary or permanent beds to roughly 350 people. Although about 330 were counted as unsheltered this January, the number typically increases during warmer months, advocates say.
"(Homelessness) is something that we have been managing, but we really want to bring these targeted investments to the table to essentially end chronic homelessness as we know it in Indianapolis today," Aryn Schounce, a senior policy adviser on homelessness for Mayor Joe Hogsett, said in June when the program was announced.
Implementing the plan will be a heavy lift. City employees will partner with street outreach teams from local nonprofits like Horizon House to visit well-known encampments and direct residents to open housing units. The city says it will clean up and shut down camps only after everyone has been housed or has left on their own.
Streets to Home Indy is a key piece of Marion County's new Community Plan to End Homelessness, along with a low-barrier shelter that will offer 150 emergency beds for families, couples and individuals experiencing homelessness starting in 2027.
Homelessness, housing costs hit record-high levels nationwide
The Department of Housing and Urban Development won't release the 2025 point-in-time count results until the end of this year, but the most recent data shows that homelessness is rising even faster across the U.S. than in Indianapolis.
The nationwide 2024 point-in-time count found that more than 770,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the U.S., the largest number on record and an 18% increase from 2023. The numbers reflect the rapid rise in housing costs, the expiration of pandemic-era rental assistance and an increasing number of migrants seeking asylum, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
Although rental costs have soared particularly in denser coastal cities, prices have jumped in Indianapolis too. One in four renting households in Indianapolis spent at least half of their income on rent in 2023, according to census data.
The price squeeze shows up in the fact that more than 2,000 evictions are filed each month in Marion County courts, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.
Email IndyStar Reporter Jordan Smith at [e-mail]. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Here's how many people are homeless in Indianapolis in 2025
Solve the daily Crossword