The Prosecutor Who Is Housing People

This article is part of The Rooftop, a blog and multimedia series from New America’s Future of Land and Housing program. Featuring insights from experts across diverse fields, the series is a home for bold ideas to improve housing in the United States and globally.

Indianapolis is experiencing a housing crisis. At least that’s how researcher Gregg Colburn put it when he came to speak to city leaders in February. The co-author of the book Homelessness is a Housing Problem shared many charts and analyses of American cities showing that while Indianapolis was still a relatively affordable city, there were troubling signs on the horizon. Since 2020, rents in the Indianapolis metropolitan area have risen more than 35 percent (based on Fair Market Rent from the Department of Housing and Urban Development), and vacancy rates have fallen below 5 percent—a threshold that formally signals a housing crisis as limited supply drives up prices.

Counter to the narrative that poor choices, mental illness, and substance abuse lead to homelessness, Colburn’s research shows that a city’s lack of affordable housing is the overwhelming explanation for increases in homelessness. In fact, the 2025 Indianapolis point-in-time count showed over 1,800 people experiencing homelessness, a 12 percent increase since 2023 (including an uptick of families). Indianapolis isn’t yet as unaffordable as Colburn’s hometown of Seattle, but that’s where we are heading if we don’t change course.

Individuals who have current or past criminal cases—also known as “justice involved”—are particularly vulnerable to losing stable housing. Because of social stigma and structural barriers to housing supports (such as housing voucher applications potentially being denied because of recent drug convictions), justice-involved individuals face even greater challenges competing to find housing in an increasingly tight market. This is a public safety issue. Not only can a lack of housing lead desperate people to commit low-level crimes like petty theft and trespassing, but those experiencing homelessness are also much more likely to be victims of crime.

“Counter to the narrative that poor choices, mental illness, and substance abuse lead to homelessness, Colburn’s research shows that a city’s lack of affordable housing is the overwhelming explanation for increases in homelessness.”

Recognizing this, Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears quietly assembled a team in 2020 to divert select defendants from prosecution—individuals charged with low-level crimes that are directly related to their housing status, or who are at risk of losing their housing if convicted. The Quality of Life Unit, where I’ve been embedded for two years, began taking referrals from social workers at the county’s public defender agency. If accepted, participants typically spend six to eight months regularly checking in with a cross-functional team of prosecutors, public defenders, and case managers in lieu of prosecution. Program participants work towards self-generated goals, typically around improving mental health, addressing substance abuse, or securing stable housing. The program complements other initiatives that divert participants from prosecution by focusing on housing stability.

Over a relatively short period, this approach has had a notable impact in Indianapolis: It has graduated more than 300 justice-involved individuals since 2020, according to the prosecutor’s office Chief of Criminal Screening, Jennifer Joy, who founded and oversees the Quality of Life Unit. “We’ve seen firsthand the success of this model in reducing recidivism and setting participants up for their next step,” Joy said. Led by two experienced deputy prosecutors, the unit has become a clearinghouse for referrals to other diversion programs such as Veterans Court or Behavioral Health Court as well. However, by 2024, Prosecutor Mears recognized that while connections from the justice system to mental health support and substance abuse treatment were robust, the partnerships for stable housing needed to be strengthened.

In October 2024, Mears announced a partnership with two Indianapolis community housing organizations—RDOOR Housing Corp. and Horizon House—to pilot a set of housing supports for Quality of Life participants including a housing navigator and barrier-busting fund for moving costs and clearing past due rent and utilities. First month’s rent and a security deposit for many in the Indianapolis market can easily exceed $3,500, posing a significant barrier to housing even for those with enough income to pay their monthly rent.

Through RDOOR, participants can access available apartments through a curated list of landlords who are friendly to tenants receiving housing supports. The program is designed to serve people that have enough income to sustain rent but could use assistance with furniture, security deposits, or paying back rent from past evictions. Over the past year, the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office referred 33 defendants and victims for assistance, as its internal records show. Other community-based organizations and the county’s probation office began making many more referrals to the program as well.

Reviewing what we have learned, the pilot did help some participants secure stable housing. However, many participants faced needs beyond the program’s limited scope. Most had little to no income and required more consistent case management support than the housing navigator had the capacity to provide. The complex economic and social barriers to housing stability require the program to offer deeper, longer-term support. Building on these lessons, RDOOR tells me that the organization plans to begin providing ongoing rental assistance in 2026 for participants with limited income.

Indianapolis is making extensive investments to address the increase in homelessness and forcing the community to break down traditional silos between the housing, behavioral health, and criminal justice worlds. In June, Streets to Home Indy launched as a public-private partnership to end street and chronic homelessness, starting with Phase One to house 300 to 350 people living in street-level encampments. Led by the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention, the effort focuses on housing people living outside and providing services before decommissioning and closing down the encampment or zone.

As the Streets to Home team started trying to house participants, they ran into roadblocks when even friendly landlords were hesitant to lease an apartment to someone with an open criminal case. Following a successful model from Houston, the coalition enlisted the Quality of Life team at the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office to help address Streets to Home participants’ justice-related needs.

About a third of people identified through Streets to Home so far are considered justice-involved. When Streets to Home outreach workers or case managers identify participants with an open case, active warrant, or parole violation, those participants are referred to the Quality of Life Unit. Working with the public defender agency, the unit has been able to enroll eligible Streets to Home participants into the program or similar programs like Drug Treatment Court that divert defendants from prosecution. Deputy prosecutors provide the Streets to Home housing team with formal letters confirming participants’ enrollment in a diversion program. The letters help build landlord trust and speed up housing placements in an impressive example of cross-sector collaboration.

Not every case goes smoothly and Indianapolis has a long way to go, but the community is making meaningful progress towards its ambitious goal to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring. The intersection of the justice system and housing insecurity is deeper and more complex than many understand. Local Indianapolis leaders see firsthand how justice involvement can create housing instability and vice versa. Communities around the United States should be investing in the complex partnerships needed to navigate justice and housing barriers across traditional silos. The innovative professionals at the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office are demonstrating how public safety and housing stability can, and must, be addressed together.

Editor’s note: The views expressed in the articles on The Rooftop are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policy positions of New America.