About Us
Over the last few decades, the treatment for homelessness in this country has shifted from the temporary to the permanent; from sustaining day-to-day life to encouraging permanent recovery. Supportive housing—a concept that combines safe, affordable housing with access to beneficial services—swept both coasts of the United States, and is now a staple in the fight against homelessness.
Indianapolis has the fourth largest percentage of chronically homeless people—larger than Washington, D.C., Detroit, and Baltimore. On any given day, there are well over 2,000 homeless people in Indianapolis, 27 percent of which are families.
Affordable housing + Social services = Supportive housing
But Partners In Housing hopes to change all that. Over the past 15 years, Partners has renovated or adapted ten rental properties, creating more than 400 units of supportive housing and serving 500+ families and individuals. Our mission is to create safe, affordable housing to sustain life for special needs populations, then to network with social services and address the root causes of homelessness.
At Partners we're interested in permanent recovery from homelessness.
Community Development
Our properties are all near the heart of downtown Indianapolis, a bus ride or a short walk away from groceries and other amenities. By taking old, dilapidated properties and reinventing them, we turn neighborhood blights into purposeful property through community investment. To date, Partners has invested more than 36 million in Indianapolis communities.
History
In 1990, Frank Hagaman came to Indiana to consult on a housing project. He’d worked on homelessness and affordable housing for years back east in Connecticut. After 20 years in the banking industry (now a “reformed banker,” as he says), Frank discovered he had a talent for bringing together the elements necessary for supportive housing—and then making the whole package attractive to investors.
By leveraging both historic and low-income housing tax credits, Frank turned historic and neglected properties in Indianapolis into supportive housing projects, and helped to pioneer the concept in the Midwest. Partners In Housing has grown by about one property every year and four months, and through our properties’ income, investor’s equity, and a bit of philanthropy we’re able to continue our pattern of growth while keeping our properties financially solvent each month.
The Strategy to End Homelessness
Partners In Housing has always employed the “housing first” and “housing plus” strategies—break down barriers to affordable housing and then add beneficial social services. In 2003 the City of Indianapolis, working with a local homeless advocacy group, authored The Blueprint to End Homelessness. In ten years, the city hopes to have seriously alleviated its homeless problem, and among other goals, calls for the creation of 1,700 new supportive housing units. Partners In Housing is by far the largest and oldest developer of this kind of housing in Indianapolis, and the most practical vehicle to develop a large number of housing units in a limited amount of time.
Partners In Housing Board of Directors
Wendy D. Brewer, Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP (Chair)
Charles Heintzelman, Milestone Ventures (Vice Chair)
Eric Hursh, City Securities (Treasurer)
Melanie Reusze, Midwest Management and Compliance LLC (Secretary)
Korlon Kilpatrick, Passport Technologies (Past Chair)
Bruce H. Frank, Consultant
Jim Holland, Attorney at Law
Chris Moore, Aspire, CPAs
Glenn Livers, Indianapolis Power & Light
Phil Smith, DuPage Federation on Human Services Reform
Barbara Elliot, Fairbanks Hospital
Angela Cecil, Fifth Third Bank
