Fountain Square neighbor asks judge to close homeless encampment

INDIANAPOLIS -- The first thing Matt Hanna wants you to know is that he has sympathy for the people without shelter living in tents alongside Leonard Street in Fountain Square.




"I mean, it's heartbreaking. I hate it for them," he said. "We're not trying to be the bad guys or the NIMBYs or anything like that. We want the best for everyone that lives in our community."

What would be best for everyone in the community, neighbors and homeless persons alike, said Hanna, would be for a judge to force the city to live up to its commitment to close the Leonard Street encampment like it promised more than a month ago.




On July 25, the City issued an order that the two dozen tents along Leonard Street would be gone by Aug. 11 and the campers would be moved into apartments under its "Streets to Home Indy" program.




Today, a dozen tents remain.




"Just execute the order. Help those individuals find other housing," said Hanna. "The city needs to abide by their word and an order from a judge will kind of help them along in that process."




Hanna has filed a Verified Petition for Judicial Review, asking the court to force the city's hand.




Half the campers along Leonard Street have moved on, some into traditional housing, while the city announced a delay in fulfilling its order.




"By not executing the Order they kind of took one problem and made it two problems," said Hanna. "Some of the individuals that did abide by the Order have thus moved over to Shelby and Georgia street which is a dead-end street of Georgia and created another camp."




Shelby and Georgia are where the city may finally break ground next month on its long-delayed housing services hub.




Hanna lives midway between Leonard Street and the new campsite at Georgia and Shelby streets.




" It's basically created a corridor where individuals during the day are roaming the streets, going through trash, those that are not medicated and should be on some sort of medication are actually having mental breakdowns on sidewalks and streets and have just kind of created an atmosphere of uncertainty for the neighborhood in general," said Hanna.




Hanna's neighborhood features new construction from homeowners who want to live near downtown and are willing to invest in a community that is growing in value, yet don't want to second-guess their decisions to buy.




"It's a tough question because I don't want to say it makes you rethink your decision to live downtown because downtown is awesome," said Hanna. "I don't think there is any better place to live in Indiana, but it really makes you question the leadership."




Hanna said he has received no response to his emails from almost every city-county councilor or Mayor Joe Hogsett's office.




"And you want to feel safe, you want it to be clean, you just want the city to work, right?" Said Hanna.








Hogsett has $10 million set aside in his next budget for homeless services.




City crews this summer cleared away campers in tents along East Washington Street below an I-65 overpass just in time for the WNBA All-Star Game.




Changes to Lugar Plaza outside the City County Building left the site virtually deserted today as the city prepares to designate the area as a park to enforce stricter rules against smoking and overnight sleeping.




One camper along Leonard Street told FOX59/CBS4 that he has been approved to move into an apartment in the Brookside neighborhood and has even seen photos of the unit, but is at a loss to understand why he still doesn't have keys to his new home.



via: https://fox59.com/news/fountain-square-neighbor-asks-judge-to-close-homeless-encampment/