Veteran Homelessness

A group working to end veteran homelessness in South Central Indiana gathered on Sept. 24 for a workshop with Built for Zero coaches. They set an ambitious goal: Reaching functional zero for veteran homelessness by Aug. 31, 2025.

Built for Zero is a national initiative supporting over 100 communities to end homelessness. The 6-county region of South Central Indiana, led by Heading Home, joined Built for Zero in 2022. The region includes Monroe, Morgan, Owen, Lawrence, Greene and Martin counties.

This summer, our region achieved Built for Zero’s quality data milestone 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 — a key step toward solving homelessness and reaching the community’s next goal of functional zero for veteran homelessness.

Functional zero, which must be sustained, indicates a community has measurably solved homelessness for a specific population. When it’s achieved, homelessness is rare and brief for that population.

Built for Zero coaches Tia Lurie, April McKie and Marney Thomas traveled to Bloomington on Sept. 23-24 to mark the region’s quality data achievement and work with Heading Home and our partners on next steps needed to move veterans more quickly into housing.

This regional coalition has been holding bi-weekly case conferencing sessions since January 2023 focused on veteran homelessness. Veteran case conferencing is an inter-agency, client-focused meeting that targets next steps to find housing for veterans.

The case conferencing group includes staff from Beacon Inc, Wheeler Mission, New Hope for Families, Volunteers of America, Monroe County Veterans Affairs, Indy HealthNet Homeless Initiative Program (HIP), HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH), Bedford Men’s Warming Shelter, and WellSpring in Martinsville. The sessions are led by Tatiana Wheeler of Heading Home of South Central Indiana.

Since veteran case conferencing started in 2023, 40 veterans have been housed thanks to these partners!

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

We’re grateful to Built for Zero and our regional partners who work every day to improve our system so that all residents have a safe, stable place to live!