Critics see hypocrisy in Fountain Square camp closure as new details emerge. Why the camp closed

Indianapolis Star

30-07-2025

At a Fountain Square town hall July 28, Indianapolis leaders outlined a new program that would upend the city's status quo when shutting down homeless camps, pairing methodical closures with a year of rental assistance for all unsheltered residents.
But facing more than an hour of heated public comment at a community center, leaders had to contend with a choice that made the status quo seem firmly intact. Three days before, a half-mile away along Leonard Street, the city had ordered the first official homeless camp closure that was mainly due to public safety concerns since 2021. Displaced residents won't be housed through the new program because it's still ramping up.
Many neighbors and advocates denounced that decision as merely shifting the problem of unsheltered homelessness from one neighborhood to the next without addressing core needs for affordable housing and social services. With Streets to Home Indy — the new $8.1 million city-backed initiative to house and provide case management to more than 300 people sleeping outdoors by next June — starting in earnest next month, critics wondered why the closure couldn't wait until residents in about two dozen tents along Leonard Street could be housed.
But other Fountain Square residents and business owners believe the city waited far too long to close the Leonard Street camp, after months of complaints about human and animal waste, public intoxication and trespassing near a prime commercial district. The tension rose to a crescendo in recent weeks as neighbors, including a local business leader who rented a private dumpster to clean up the site, shared their concerns with the media.
Facing criticism Monday night, Office of Public Health and Safety Director Andrew Merkley cited an incident of apparent animal abuse at the camp in June and alleged gunfire that led to an arrest July 25 as major factors in the closure. He also feared that some tents set up right next to the road could be struck by errant drivers after a recent close call, he said.
"I and our agency have to protect the public health and safety of everyone in the city — not just the unhoused and not just the housed," Merkley said. "The decision to close the camp was not because people went to the media. It was not because of the constant emails that we received. ... Emergency services have been there multiple times, and we had serious public safety challenges."
Specifically, Merkley ordered the camp closure after learning that someone had shot a gun near Leonard Street the morning of July 25, he said. Around the prior weekend of July 19-20, he said, a driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and jumped the curb on Leonard Street.
Police arrested a man July 25 after he reportedly admitted to firing one shot into the ground near the tent of a man living at the Leonard Street encampment, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by IndyStar.
The man pulled out a black handgun and threatened to shoot the camp resident because he was jealous that a certain woman was hanging around his tent, the camp resident and the woman both told police. Then the man allegedly fired one bullet into the ground next to the tent before walking off.
Police found the man nearby carrying a gun that matched the description. They also found a spent 9mm shell casing lying near the tent. The man faces five criminal charges including unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon and criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon.
Indianapolis police confirmed that a case number existed for an incident where a vehicle reportedly drove onto the curb. The case is under investigation by Indiana State Police, who did not return IndyStar's requests for more details July 29.
Later the same day as the reported shooting, camp residents received notice that the strip of lawn between Leonard Street and a fence bordering Interstate 65 will be permanently closed to camping and storage of personal property by Aug. 11. The city will provide storage bins to residents and hold items for up to 60 days, while working with service providers to help people find temporary or permanent housing.
Merkley said residents will be offered emergency shelter beds, as required by the city ordinance governing camp closures. But he conceded that those beds aren't good options for many people. Advocates say they force people into stressful group-living settings that often impose restrictions on substance use, couples and pets.
The city couldn't afford to wait for outreach teams with Streets to Home Indy to reach the encampment, officials said. The camp was too large. Social workers have visited only one site so far, where about a dozen households are staying.
"The initiative was not ready to take on the Leonard Street camp," said Aryn Schounce, a senior policy adviser to Mayor Joe Hogsett. "The staffing capacity was not there. The availability of housing was not there. But there were escalating public safety issues at the camp."
'Nowhere else to go': How months of debate led the city to shut down Fountain Square homeless camp
Advocates for homeless people have pushed the city to move away from police-led crackdowns on encampments, documented in a 2015 film called "Under the Bridge" that follows a large camp in Indianapolis.
The city's shift toward "Housing First" practices, which aim to house residents so they can seek health services and income from a place of stability, conflict with a new federal directive that urges governments to forcibly remove homeless people from the streets and place them in treatment facilities.
Chelsea Haring-Cozzi, who leads the city's top nonprofit working to reduce homelessness, was reserved in her criticism of the camp closure after sharing the stage with city officials to present Streets to Home Indy.
She told IndyStar the outcome wasn't what she had hoped, but "there's no good answer to Leonard Street right now." She vowed that social workers will find the residents at other camps in the coming months and offer them housing.
Other community leaders around the city, including faith leaders who are expected to help raise a third of the money to pay for the first year of Streets to Home Indy, were less diplomatic.
"Instead of investing in long-term transformation, the city continues to invest in short-term optics," the Rev. David Greene, president of the Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis, said in a written statement July 28. "We must ask: Where are people expected to go tonight? Next week? This winter? Homelessness is not a nuisance to be swept away. It is a crisis to be confronted."
A short walk from the community meeting, Angela Merrell, 55, cried tears of frustration outside her tent on Leonard Street.
She said she stormed out of the meeting after hearing a man speak derisively of her and others who are homeless — "Where are these people coming from?" he had asked of the roughly 1,800 people known to be homeless in Indianapolis.
"'Those people' were born and raised here and are being kicked out of our own neighborhood," Merrell said, mentioning that she grew up in Fountain Square near Hoyt Avenue.
Now her family is left to find housing with less than $2,000 a month in disability payments, she said. She doesn't want her brother, who is gaunt from what she says is stomach cancer, to die on the streets. Her husband is hobbled after he was hit by a truck earlier this year, he told IndyStar, gesturing to a large red scar on his leg that he said was from a surgery after the crash.
Since that crash, the three of them have been homeless for nearly six months, Merrell said. Finding an apartment has felt next to impossible because of requirements to earn income that's three or more times higher than the rent, she said, a rule of thumb for landlords.
She can't blame the Fountain Square neighbors who look across their street and see an "eyesore," she said. That's why for months she has anxiously awaited the apartment that social workers were promising to offer her through Streets to Home Indy.
"Everybody kind of had their hopes up," she said, "just to be crushed."
IndyStar Public Safety Reporter Jade Jackson contributed to this story.