About 12,000 people – our neighbors – experience homeless here in Indianapolis each year. Forty percent are families; 30 percent are children. Many agencies work earnestly to help local homeless people, utilizing an estimated $22 million annually in public and private funds.

Despite these investments of time, energy, and millions of dollars, many Indianapolis residents have repeated spells of homelessness. And there are signs that homelessness is increasing.

Local homeless shelters remain full, with many people – especially homeless families – turned away due to lack of room. This increased demand is not unique to Indianapolis. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, requests for emergency food and shelter have risen dramatically in many cities during the past decade.

These trends suggest that agencies and officials in Indianapolis must work together more effectively to end homelessness. Our city cannot afford to keep investing millions of dollars a year in the current approach toward aiding homeless people – an approach that focuses mostly on helping people once they have become homeless.

Instead, Indianapolis must adopt a new approach, successfully used in other communities, that emphasizes making many more housing units affordable to those with the lowest income – the group most likely to become homeless.

The strategies in the Blueprint to End Homelessness are aimed at addressing the pressing need for more affordable housing units. But the Blueprint's strategies focus on more than expanding the supply of affordable housing. Many services for homeless people need to be strengthened, and the Blueprint contains recommendations to enhance and better coordinate these services and to ensure that they work together more effectively.

Without more affordable housing, services such as mental health treatment and case management lack a component essential for moving people out of homelessness and toward self-sufficiency.

Homelessness can be ended in Indianapolis, but only through a much greater effort to help homeless people find and maintain safe, decent housing they can afford.

Ending homelessness is cost effective, feasible and humane. It is time for a change. We cannot afford to continue to watch more families and individuals lose their homes when we know how to help them.