Yesterday, we had the opportunity to bring invited elected officials, law enforcement, and local leaders together live on WIMS radio to discuss Indiana’s new Senate Bill 285. Together, we engaged in an honest, civil working conversation among people who do not all agree on causes and solutions, but who are all working to end homelessness.
Nest Executive Director Harrison Holtkamp hosted the discussion on WIMS. The guests included State Representative Jim Pressel, State Representative Randy Novak, State Senator Rodney Pol, La Porte County Sheriff Ron Heeg, and Michigan City Mayor Angie Nelson Deuitch, with longtime community advocate Ed Marion calling in.
What IS SB 285?
The conversation surrounded Indiana Senate Bill 285, signed into law in 2026 and taking effect July 1, which prohibits camping, sleeping, or long-term sheltering on state or local government land that has not been authorized for that use. A law enforcement officer who encounters someone is first directed to determine whether there are grounds for emergency detention and to connect the person to help. If there are no such grounds and the person does not relocate, the conduct can become a Class C misdemeanor. The bill also includes a defense if no shelter bed is available within five miles and adds new reporting requirements to track how many people are affected statewide. SOURCE: SB 285 / Senate Enrolled
This law has already passed. The purpose of the conversation was to understand what it means for La Porte County and how the community can work within it to help people.
Honest disagreement about the law
Our guests did not pretend to share one view, and that was the strength of the hour.
Representative Pressel framed the bill as a starting point. In his view, it creates a first point of contact where someone in crisis can be informed about available services, and it ultimately requires data collection to help the state understand the scale and causes of the problem. He argued that doing something imperfect is better than doing nothing.
Representative Novak said he did not support the bill. He agreed with the goal of helping people but worried the state was acting downstream, pulling people out of the river without asking why they fell in. His concern was that without adequate facilities and funding already in place, the law risks shifting the problem rather than fixing it.
Senator Pol said he had opposed the bill throughout the process. He pointed to testimony from outreach organizations that the relocation timeline could undo the slow, patient trust-building that their work depends on, and he raised practical questions, including what happens to a person’s belongings when they are moved or arrested.
Different conclusions, but the same underlying question ran beneath all of them: how do we help?
Broad agreement on what is missing
Mental health capacity came up repeatedly. The group noted that every county in Indiana has been federally designated as having a shortage of mental and behavioral health professionals, which makes fast, consistent access to care difficult, regardless of how the law is written. Michigan City Mayor Angie Nelson Deuitch described the strain locally, where a single social worker covers an entire city, and floated the idea of state support to license and retain more clinicians who stay in the community.
Funding was the other constant. Several guests pointed out that the bill arrives without new dollars attached, even as local resources have been cut. Their shared point was blunt: the community will pay either way, whether by investing in housing and services on the front end or by absorbing the cost of jail stays, court processing, and repeat contact on the back end.
The view from law enforcement
Sheriff Heeg was direct about the practical strain on the county. He explained that jails are already crowded, that people brought in often arrive with medical and mental health needs the county then must cover, and that a low-level charge can set off a cycle of missed court dates and further warrants. He also raised a concern that matters deeply to organizations like ours: arrest can erode the trust that outreach workers and shelters spend years building. His position was not opposed to addressing homelessness. It was that a criminal charge at the end of the process can work against the relationship that moves someone forward.
The view from the street
Mayor Angie Nelson Deuitch brought the perspective of the people most affected. She described hosting a lunch where members of the unhoused community spoke for themselves, and she was candid that no two situations are alike. Some people are one paycheck from the edge. Some face a mental health crisis. Some carry eviction or criminal histories that already lock them out of housing, and a new charge becomes one more barrier on a record that keeps them from renting. Listening, she said, is half the battle.
Calling in, Ed Marion added a long-term frame: there is no single cause of homelessness to eliminate, but there is one solution that consistently helps: affordable housing that working people, people on fixed incomes, and people on disability can actually afford.
Where we agreed it begins: the first interaction
If the hour had a center of gravity, it was this. Representative Pressel argued that the first contact between an official and a person in crisis is an opportunity, a moment to connect someone with resources, including Nest, rather than a step toward a charge. Others pushed back usefully, noting that the connection works best when it comes from trained outreach staff and continues over time, not just once. But the underlying agreement held connection and continuity, not enforcement alone, that changed outcomes.
That is what Nest sees every day. Shelter is rarely the whole answer. It is the steady ground a person stands on while the rest of the answer is built services, a mailing address, a path back to work, and someone walking alongside them through systems that are hard to navigate alone, and reconnection to community.
Why this conversation matters
We were encouraged that elected officials from across party lines, law enforcement, city government, advocates, and Nest, a service provider, sat at the same table, openly and respectfully disagreed, and kept returning to the same goal of helping people.
These conversations will continue, and we hope our community stays in them. Ask questions. Listen to the way the people in that studio did.
You can watch the entire show on WIMS’s Facebook page here: Watch Show
