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GOP-Run Indiana City Considers Democrat-Run, California-Style Homeless Center

Hundreds of billions spent nationwide on homeless services have only resulted in more homelessness. Councilman Russ Jehl says Fort Wayne should try a third option besides doing nothing or enabling addicts.

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The Republican-run council in Indiana’s second-largest city votes Tuesday on its Democrat mayor’s proposal to install a homeless center that would serve drunk, high, and otherwise criminal residents without any expectations or ID checks. Research and experience show similar “low-barrier” centers in Democrat-run states such as Illinois and California increase homelessness and addiction, as well as crime, vagrancy, and public spending.

Fort Wayne has worked for the last 20 years and spent billions in taxpayer dollars and incentives to transform “from a Rust Belt downtown to vibrant and … flourishing,” Councilman Russ Jehl, a Republican, told The Federalist via phone. But he’s heard from his apolitical wife and many constituents they’re avoiding their revitalized downtown because of the increase in addicts and vagrants. That’s a nationwide problem affecting this Midwestern city of 280,000 with small-town vibes and bigger-city amenities.

“The city’s sole economic development strategy for the last 20 years has been to make downtown Fort Wayne great again,” he noted. “After that success, we’d be ceding a large portion of downtown to the blast radius by picking this particular location.”

The proposed location for the Anchor Resource Center is within a few hundred feet of the city’s most popular farmer’s market, a park, a YMCA, one of the city’s historic churches, and Indiana’s longest-running Christian K-8 school. That combined with the city’s insistence that the center will not require any background checks or even identification for clients could violate a state law banning sex offenders from residing near youth centers, schools, and parks.

According to three sources, the city responded to that concern by saying Anchor will only house self-declared offenders for two days instead of three, employing a legal loophole to prioritize criminals above innocent kids rather than seeking a location that serves homeless people without endangering other vulnerable populations.

In addition, the city told local media it will allow people to live in their cars in the center’s parking lot, creating the potential for a permanent homeless encampment right in the center of the revived downtown, feet away from a popular farmer’s market teeming with elderly, mothers with babies, and children, as well as a local history museum popular with families. Jehl said business owners near the current proposed location have told him they are likely to close up shop if it goes through, blighting several blocks in the center of........

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