INDIANAPOLIS — “Everyone has a circumstance,” said 47-year-old Tiniya Brock as she stood in her kitchen cooking dinner for her 2-year-old grandson.
Brock is just thankful that her circumstances ultimately led to the place she finds herself in now, living in a house that’s become a home.
“Nobody ever knows what kind of situation they’re going to be in, first of all,” said Brock.
A year ago, Brock found herself in a situation that she never expected, homeless with no place to go after difficulties with family members forced her out of the house where she’d been living.
“It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever been homeless. I raised four boys by myself, and I’ve never been homeless,” Brock, a military veteran, explained.
She’s not alone.
Every year in Marion County, hundreds of military veterans end up without a place to live.
“You just have to drive around our city and you can see men and women who served our country who volunteered to defend our freedom, living in the shadow of all the money and power that is downtown, completely forgotten by those of us, they’ve sworn to defend,” said Emmy Hildebrand, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Helping Veterans and Families (HVAF).
The organization is funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and helps military veterans and their families who are experiencing homelessness.
At the start of 2022, Hildebrand said the number of homeless veterans in Marion County was counted at 167, down 35% from the year prior.
“It means that a third fewer veterans are experiencing homelessness in our city streets than compared to this time last year,” she explained.
HVAF received an additional $4 million in federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic last year. Hildebrand credits that funding for HVAF's ability to get more veterans like Brock into housing for longer periods of time. That extra money, though, isn’t here to stay.
“As we get on the other side of COVID, a lot of those emergency funds are starting to decrease,” Hildebrand said.
That’s why HVAF is working on finding other funding sources so the number of veterans who are homeless in Marion County can continue to decrease.
“We really believe strongly that no veteran should be homeless on our city streets,” Hildebrand said.
Tiniya Brock is certainly thankful for that strongly held belief, no matter where the funding’s coming from. She’s got a roof over her head because of it.
“It was a complete blessing because I didn’t have anywhere to go,” said Brock.