Elizabeth has lived in her car since July, when she left her home to escape abuse. The local women's shelters she tried didn't have room, she said. So instead of paying for rent, she spent her paycheck on gas money as she bounced from one public park to another, sleeping in her car each night.
In church, Elizabeth, who declined to share her last name for her safety, learned about a new program offering free overnight parking to people who are homeless and sleeping in their vehicle. She applied and was accepted into Safe Park Indy , the first model of its kind in Indiana.
The program, which started Oct. 1, allows people who lack homes but have cars to sleep in a private parking lot in Indianapolis for up to 60 days, free from the fear that they'll be shooed away by police or property owners. The program has already attracted more than 170 applicants, according to its founder, a sign of the need for low-barrier options in a city where an estimated 1,700 people are homeless on a given night.
Elizabeth Friedland, an Indy native who also leads a network of free food pantries, founded the program after learning about more than 40 similar models on the West Coast and places like Duluth, Minn. Friedland said she wanted to do something simple to help people experiencing homelessness get a good night's rest while they search for their next living arrangement.
"There's this perception that people may have about people who live in their cars. But it's everybody — we have several social workers who are on our list. We have a teacher. We have health care workers, people with graduate degrees," Friedland said in a recent interview at the Safe Park site, whose exact location IndyStar has agreed to keep private for the safety of guests.
"It's a series of financial emergencies that could happen to anybody," Friedland added, "and when there's not a great safety net, and there's not a lot of affordable housing, this is kind of what happens."
According to national estimates, Friedland said, more than 100,000 people live in their cars. More than 650,000 people are homeless in the United States, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness .
Of the Safe Park applicants, nearly half reported that they're working full- or part-time, according to data Friedland provided. Nearly 70% said they were experiencing homelessness for the first time. Most said they had last lived either in a rental home or with friends or family. A quarter of people own pets, a common disqualifier at most of the area's homeless shelters.
For now, Safe Park has spots for only 10 vehicles. But Friedland said several churches and nonprofits have already reached out about offering their parking lots, and she's looking to expand to multiple sites across the city. Initially planned as volunteer-run, Safe Park hired a part-time employee to monitor nightly check-in.
Homelessness: Indianapolis pilot program will help pay rents for some people who lack permanent housing
Safe Park Indy's first week hosting homeless guests
On the program's second night, Friedland checked in several clients who had applied online and passed a background check. Anyone with an active arrest warrant or past convictions for either violence or sexual abuse is barred. Guests agree not to drink, smoke or take drugs at the site, at the risk of being forced to leave. Friedland has asked Indianapolis police from a nearby substation to patrol the Safe Park lot.
From 6 to 8 p.m., two women and a couple arrived for the night. They ate donated snacks and drank coffee in an adjacent building where they could grab hygiene products and use the restroom. Friedland locked the building at 8 p.m., and the guests went to their cars, which they can keep in the lot until 7 a.m. the following day. A portable bathroom sits outside, and guests can access the building from 6 to 7 a.m. to grab breakfast before heading out for the day.
Mary, a 47-year-old mother of four grown children, felt like the only way to escape the fog of anxiety and depression that had trapped her for years after the sudden death of her younger sister was to leave California. So she got in her van and drove until she ran out of money — in Indianapolis, more than 2,000 miles away from where she began.
Toward the end of this summer, Mary found herself spending the night outside an east side gas station after the owner agreed to let her stay there in her van. But she soon had to find someplace else to rest. In a city park, Mary, who asked that her last name not be used for her privacy, met a kind woman who prayed for her and led her to Safe Park Indy.
She used the stability of the Safe Park site last week to call one of her sons, a Marine stationed near Japan who sends her photos of the ocean and the mountains there. She hadn't told him, her other three kids or her niece, whose house she shared in California, where she is. She said she doesn't want them to worry.
Days later, Friedland told IndyStar, Mary went missing.
Homeless guests are transient, but a small community's forming
Safe Park has already moved through about two dozen applicants because many people use it for a couple of nights and move on, Friedland said. If guests don't communicate for 48 hours, Safe Park will offer that spot to the next applicant.
Mary's story of traveling from out of state is a rarity among applicants, Friedland said. Just 4% of people who have applied say their last address was outside Indiana.
Friedland said some, like Elizabeth, have already formed a small core of returning guests. She said those people have begun to self-police, ensuring the newcomers follow the rules.
Elizabeth said Safe Park helps her to save money while she looks for another affordable place to live and takes classes for her high school equivalency diploma. In the meantime, she works part-time on the night shift at an Amazon warehouse, so she parks in the Safe Park lot on off nights and in the early morning hours following her shifts.
She said she's reassured that there's a police substation near the Safe Park site. She once stayed up all night when a man parked his vehicle next to hers in a city park and stood looking at her car.
"It's safer," Elizabeth said, "than any other option that I would have."
Email IndyStar Housing, Growth and Development Reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com . Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: New Indianapolis program offers free overnight parking to people living in their cars
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