“Is this the rock bottom people talk about? Is there more to this? Do we go farther?” Mandy Hummer says.
In 2017, Mandy fell asleep on the front porch of the home from which she had just been evicted. After nine years of living in the house, she and her then-boyfriend found themselves without a place to sleep at night.
This experience is a reality for many Muncie residents.
According to the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, there were 4,854 people experiencing homelessness on Jan. 25, 2024, in every county in the state besides Marion. This number is a 19% increase from the 2023 report. Of the 4,854 individuals experiencing homelessness on Jan. 25, 3,346 were sheltered, meaning that they were staying in emergency shelters or transitional housing.
Nearly 25% of the 4,854 people experiencing homelessness were unsheltered. In Muncie, unsheltered populations have several nonprofit resource options including Muncie Mission, A Better Way, YWCA, and several faith-based ministries.
Exact counts of Muncie’s homeless population can be challenging to estimate, but Vice President of Community Engagement at Muncie Mission Leigh Edwards comments that her non-profit may be feeding anywhere from 200 to 250 people per day between their men’s shelter and daily community lunch programs.
“We fed, I think, 80,000 meals last year,” Leigh says.
Pastor Joseph Romero Jr., Founder of Shepherd’s Hearts and Hands Ministry, finds Muncie to be in need of “urban missionaries.” He describes this term as individuals helping others who may be unable to utilize other community resources like temporary or transitional housing.
Pastor Joseph explains being an urban missionary takes many forms — whether it’s setting up tent encampments in the woods, delivering meals, or being a life coach.
Individuals may be unable to access community resources due to previous criminal charges or lack of essential documentation, Pastor Joseph explains.
“I just got done rescuing a woman who was hanging out in the parking lot where the YWCA is. She said they don’t want her there. The Lord put it back on my heart to go check on her, and I told her ‘I’m going to get you a tent,’” says Pastor Joseph.
Pastor Joseph’s downtown ministry focuses on helping the individuals who don’t qualify for care at Muncie’s larger non-profits.
Other individuals may choose to remain unsheltered due to a multitude of reasons, including owning a pet.
“You and I are not black and white, we are gray,” says Leigh. “… We serve a population that is not black and white, it’s very gray.”
The gray space
In 2016, Mandy and her then-boyfriend were in the midst of a 17-year struggle with addiction. Mandy describes their lives as “functional” addicts, as they “kind of held it together.”
After 11 years of believing she was unable to give birth, she had a son. At a doctor’s appointment following her son’s birth, she discovered she was four months pregnant with a second child.
“Of course, I just kind of freaked out a little bit. By this time, I was really in the depths of my addiction, and I had no idea how to parent myself, let alone two human beings,” Mandy says.
Three days after the birth of her second son, Mandy explains that the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS) came to the hospital and removed her newborn son from her custody.
Twelve days later, DCS took her older son, then 19 months old.
“Whatever symbols of normalcy at that point that we had maintained was out the window,” Mandy says. “… What do you do when you spiral into the deepest depression of your life, being mentally ill and chronically dependent on drugs?”
Mandy and her then-boyfriend didn’t pay their mortgage and “let everything go” as they struggled to cope with the loss of their sons.
After being evicted, they found themselves searching for shelter for the next eight months, until able to move in with a family member. During this time, they did not reach out to any resources in the community.
Mandy recalls being told by DCS to go to Meridian Health Services and “get sober.” However, Mandy is from Richmond, Ind., and has no family in the area.
She also explains that she and her boyfriend could not go through the six-week program simultaneously, due to rules within the program regarding couples.
Mandy did not want to split with the father of her children, which prevented both of them from using the Meridian services.
“All of these things [were] really working against us, and not one single time was [anything] mentioned about housing or how to get our kids back in [a] home together with us,” Mandy says.
Pastor Joseph finds that many couples are unable to get access to shelters, as all non-profit shelters in Muncie are either all-male or all-female.
“That is their issue, and that’s why they want the tent [to live in],” Pastor Joseph says. “They don’t want to separate.”
Muncie Mission’s services include an emergency shelter, a prolonged recovery program and transitional housing. However, its shelter services are only available to men.
Pastor Joseph emphasizes the need for additional shelter space for women. Women in need of shelter must either go to A Better Way services or YWCA, both located in downtown Muncie.
A Better Way only provides emergency shelter to survivors of domestic violence, while the YWCA offers a nightly shelter, as well as a 45-day shelter program. YWCA also includes second-stage housing, a more long-term option.
Members of Pastor Joseph Romero Jr.’s ministry, Shepherd’s Hearts and Hands, help to feed Muncie’s homeless. Joseph Romero Jr., Photo Provided
Addressing the root
Mandy agrees that far too many individuals fall through the cracks of Muncie’s non-profits. She finds that each coalition has its own “niche,” leading them to be “siloed.”
She believes that simply placing individuals in housing is not enough and thinks people need to be taught how to take care of a house and learn to “be a person.”
Mandy finds that there is a stereotype that homelessness only manifests itself in people sleeping in tents. In reality, thousands of Muncie residents may only be a couple of paychecks from losing their living situation.
According to the 2023 Census Report, 27.7% of Muncie residents live below the poverty line. This is more than double the average of Indiana residents, 12.3%, who live below the poverty line.
The 2023 average median household income in Muncie was $43,507 compared to Indiana’s average of $69,477.
These statistics combined with Muncie’s renter-heavy housing market create somewhat of a cycle, says Pastor Joseph.
According to a report by the Center for Research on Inclusion & Social Policy at Indiana University (CRISP), chronic homelessness, or one or more consecutive years of homelessness, affected 715 individuals each night in Indiana — approximately 1 in 10 of the nightly unhoused population — in 2023.
“Every landlord right now has the potential to be putting someone out on the street forever,” Pastor Joseph says. “… Nothing wrong with raising the rent, [but] there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.”
The 2023 Census Report also reports that 47% of occupied housing units in Muncie are renter-occupied, compared to the Indiana average of 30%.
Per ZillowRentals, the current average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Muncie is $703 per month, which is $37 more than last year’s average. There are also a mere 60 reported currently available one-bedroom apartments as of Nov. 16.
According to CRISP’s report, 47% of Indiana residents paid more than 30% of household gross income in rent and utilities in 2022.
Additional data shows an “affordability concern” in all of Indiana’s housing market, as the state’s rent increased over 18% in 2023.
Leigh agrees that affordable housing in Muncie is “very scarce.” She also believes that the lack of affordable housing is an issue that affects every city across the country, not just Muncie.
Muncie Mission infrequently hits capacity and is prepared to “not turn people away,” helping to fill the gap of unavailable housing. Leigh explains that the Mission has a large “flex” room with available cots for when they are near capacity.
Joseph Romero Jr.’s of Shepherd’s Hearts and Hands ministry, preforms at a Muncie homeless encampment. Joseph Romero Jr., Photo Provided
Unfolding solutions
Mandy believes Muncie could do more to solve its lack of affordable housing.
She says there should be a city-run or state-run program that credits landlords willing to partner with renters with parameters such as teaching renters to “really take care of a home.”
“I feel like some of this [lack of housing] would be helped and prevented if we just had these partnerships where people are holding hands with each other,” Mandy says. “… This is the community of people, where we’re going to teach you, instead of punish you.”
Mandy proposes that landlords be reimbursed for participating in a program that allows struggling individuals to learn life skills.
She claims that if someone had given her a house after she was evicted, she would’ve sold it and never would’ve been “saved.”
Mandy now refers to herself as “recovered, not recovering” following a near-fatal car crash with her then-boyfriend. This prompted her and her now-husband to live for a purpose.
They then were able to move into a friend’s house via land contract, a form of seller financing, and begin their journey towards a better life, eventually paying the house off in 5 years.
They are now soon to purchase their second home, while planning to let another family purchase their current home via land contract. Both of their sons are back home, after Mandy and her husband regained custody less than a year after DCS’s initial removal.
Mandy now volunteers as a parental advocate for Indiana and pushes for accountability.
She also works at Muncie’s WorkOne office, an overarching place for the state to distribute grant funding for unemployment, and often sees citizens at their lowest.
Still, Mandy finds the lack of housing the predominant issue. She explains that if ten people came to her and asked for food, gas, or bus passes, she could resolve that.
However, if ten people were without a place to sleep at night, she claims there is “nothing” she can do, even if they fit the qualifications for shelters.
Pastor Joseph believes a tent he assembled last year may have kept around 30 people alive in freezing temperatures, highlighting many citizens’ need for a roof over their heads.
“There’s just not enough vacancies. That’s the same problem we have here every winter. All the shelters, all the residential programs, are full,” Pastor Joseph says.
However, he wishes encampments such as these aren’t necessary. He hopes charities in the future will collaborate and network with more organizations, even the smaller ministries in Muncie.
Pastor Joseph claims he was drawn to Muncie from his previous home in Central Florida to “actually solve homelessness.” He believes a shift in mindset will help accomplish this goal.
“We’re too quick to give up on people. Our tolerance towards difficult ones is an issue,” Pastor Joseph says.
Contact Maci Hoskins via email at maci.hoskins@bsu.edu.
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