INDIANAPOLIS — There’s a new apartment building going up just east of Downtown that many see as part of the solution to homelessness in the city.
“I just can't imagine getting back on your feet without somewhere stable to call home— a door that closes with a lock on it,” said Thomas Fisher, a peer support specialist at Horizon House. “Like, I think it's huge.”
Compass on Washington is a 36-unit apartment building being built right next door to Horizon House, a day center that offers services to folks who are currently homeless.
This $16.5 million project gives Horizon House a new way to provide permanent supportive housing for people who are deemed chronically homeless, have a disability and qualify for rental assistance.
“There’s a lot of folks who are unhoused in Marion County, and we're hopeful that Compass on Washington can help reduce the amount of people experiencing homelessness,” said Lillian Herbers-Kelly, Horizon House’s director of housing.
Horizon House is a day center that provides lunches, laundry, showers, mailboxes and a host of other services to people experiencing homelessness in Indianapolis.
Herbers-Kelly said the new apartments will help with their overall goal: getting people into permanent homes.
"Meeting the needs of that individual person," Herbers-Kelly said. "We find that the recovery from homelessness is long, it's not linear. People have ups and downs in their recovery."
The apartments are still under construction, but officials say they are scheduled to be completed by July. The first residents should move in by August.
The non-profit Englewood Community Development Corporation is building and will manage the new apartments for Horizon House.
“Getting people housed is one hurdle but helping them stay housed is really where the hard work comes in,” said Abigal Lane, director of Near-Eastside Initiative at the Englewood Community Development Corporation, the non-profit that’s constructing and will manage the new apartments for Horizon House.
There were more than 1,700 people in Marion County experiencing homelessness in the 2022 count, according to the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention.
As a peer support specialist at Horizon House, Fisher knows how difficult it is to face homelessness. He said he has “lived experience,” having battled alcoholism for three decades and living on the streets for two years before deciding he’s had enough.
Now he said he’s honored to work with other people like he was, folks experiencing what he called “the gift of desperation.”
“Something just clicks and it's very black and white,” he said. “It's like, do I want to die? Or do I want to do something different? And so it's really cool to see that in other people.”
Contact WRTV reporter Vic Ryckaert at victor.ryckaert@wrtv.com or on X/Twitter: @vicryc.
