Heading Home: 2024 Year In Review

As we look back on the past year, we are reminded of the strength, compassion, and unwavering commitment that define our region in the work to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-repeating. 2024 has been a year of growth, challenges, and — most importantly — progress.

While there is still much work ahead, we are proud to celebrate the milestones we’ve achieved and the resilience of our region’s service providers and community members.

In this year-in-review, we highlight the efforts, successes, and lessons learned that bring us one step closer to a future where homelessness is a thing of the past. Thank you for being part of this vital movement.

Built For Zero

In 2022, Heading Home created the regional team to join Built for Zero, a national organization working to equitably end homelessness in over 100 communities. So far, we are the only region in Indiana to be part of the Built for Zero movement. In 2024, the team made huge strides to improve our region’s homeless response system.

• Implemented Coordinated Entry Blitzes to make sure all people experiencing homelessness were being assessed across the region.

• Deepened connections in rural counties and onboarded Heather Flynn, Executive Director of the Bedford Men’s Warming Shelter, to the local BFZ team.

• Created a new strategy to end veteran homelessness by August 31, 2025.

• Joined 100+ communities at the Built for Zero Learning Session in Minneapolis, Minnesota to share innovative solutions to end homelessness.

Read more about the South Central Indiana team’s Built for Zero work here.

Ending Veteran Homelessness

Built for Zero encourages communities to focus on ending homelessness one population at a time. In 2022 our regional Built for Zero team decided to focus on ending veteran homelessness.

Since January 2023, Heading Home has been leading an initiative to end veteran homelessness. In partnership with regional service providers, Heading Home has been hosting bi-weekly veteran case conferencing meetings, which are inter-agency, client-focused sessions that focus on reducing barriers to help find housing for veterans. Since veteran case conferencing started in 2023, 40 veterans have been housed thanks to these partners!

In 2024, Heading Home worked with regional partners to write theVeteran Homeless Prevention and Diversion Strategy, a collaborative effort to address housing emergencies and prevent homelessness for veterans and their families who are at the highest risk of becoming homeless. 

To reach our goal of achieving functional zero for veterans, our case conferencing initiative developed specific strategies aimed at reducing inflow (instances of veterans becoming unhoused) and shortening the time it takes to move veterans into housing.

Quality Data

Heading Home hosted a community gathering on Sept. 24 to celebrate reaching Built for Zero’s quality data milestone for South Central Indiana.

The event, held at the FAR Center, featured three Built for Zero coaches who have been helping this region with data quality, veteran homelessness and other initiatives.

The quality data milestone is for all single adults, including veterans and those experiencing chronic homelessness. This milestone signifies a comprehensive, real-time data source that tracks homelessness across the region.

As part of this effort, Heading Home created a public data dashboard that provides monthly updates on housing placements, the number of people experiencing homelessness, the length of time it takes for someone to find housing, and other metrics about homelessness in this region.

Housing Action Plan

Heading Home and our partners have created a plan to address Bloomington’s dramatic increase in street homelessness. This work was informed in part by a May 2024 survey of unhoused people in Bloomington and Monroe County that was conducted by the South Central Housing Network. The survey found that 117 people were unsheltered at that time, staying in places not fit for human habitation, including cars, encampments, abandoned buildings and on the streets. This was likely an undercount and did not include people who refused to participate in the survey or who could not be reached. Click here for details of the survey results

Our Housing Action Plan identified 8 immediate priority needs and 2 longer-term priorities, all aimed at moving people more quickly into housing with the support services they need to keep them stably housed. In August, Heading Home hosted a community workshop to get feedback on the plan. Thanks to all the community members who participated!

We view the Housing Action Plan as a living document, responding to emerging needs and information. Stayed tuned for updates to this work in 2025.

Cross-Agency Training

Heading Home partnered with the South Central Housing Network to create quarterly in-person training sessions for front-line staff who address homelessness and low-income housing. We lead a committee that identifies professional development needs across multiple agencies.

Topics in 2024 included winter weather trauma, Housing Problem Solving, a workshop for the new Collaborative Housing Assessment Tool, and Veteran Affairs S.A.V.E. training. These free sessions also provide networking opportunities to build connections among organizations with similar goals.

Landlord Engagement

In 2023, Heading Home created a landlord engagement task force to build partnerships with landlords and property managers to empower them to be a part of the solution to strengthening housing security in South Central Indiana.

In 2024, Heading Home hosted two landlord engagement events: Tenant Education and an Inspection Palooza. We also started contributing to the City of Bloomington’s monthly newsletter sent to landlords and property managers.

Heading HOme Guide

When looking for available and affordable housing in South Central Indiana, tenants struggle to find up-to-date listings. To address this issue we partnered with Myerson Consulting to build an online resource: the Heading Home Guide. This website, launched in early 2023, provides accurate, up-to-date information for people searching for low-income housing and other resources. Thanks to Deborah Myerson and Toohill Consulting for their work on this project! Heading Home has committed to updating the site regularly to make sure the information stays relevant.

Regional Outreach

At the start of 2024, Heading Home convened a group of service providers, government leaders and others in Lawrence County to review a report on housing insecurity there. This research, commissioned by Heading Home, took a deep look at current housing needs and made recommendations on how to address them. Click here to read the full report.

To start implementing recommendations in this report, Heading Home created a Lawrence County housing task force. The task force has been working to engage landlords in Lawrence County and in June hosted an appreciation luncheon.

Throughout the year, Heading Home staff met with individuals and groups, and hosted events that educated and built support for our region’s housing crisis response system. In 2024 we met with faith-based leaders and congregations, business leaders, and elected officials.

Our outreach also includes two monthly newsletters to help inform and engage the public on important housing security issues.