Dayspring Center’s mission is to lovingly meet the basic needs of homeless families seeking assistance and connect them with opportunities to help them realize their potential.
That word — lovingly — matters. It’s not a throwaway. It’s the entire posture of the organization. Dayspring doesn’t just shelter families. It holds them. It meets people in crisis with warmth, not bureaucracy. With a plan, not a clipboard.
The mission hasn’t changed in 40 years. The need hasn’t gone away either.
40 Years of History
How We Got Here
1982-1986
Before There Were Doors
In the early 1980s, a pastor at an Episcopal church in the Old Northside neighborhood of Indianapolis started letting homeless people sleep on the pews. He had seen too many of them sleeping on the streets. One man froze to death. There was no shelter to send them to. There was no system — just a man with a church who wouldn’t look away.
By 1982, a daily feeding program had started for those in need. By 1984, volunteers had established a soup kitchen and an overnight shelter in the church’s basement. Within weeks, women and children began showing up at the doorstep seeking food and a place to sleep.
That’s when everything shifted. This wasn’t just about homeless men anymore. These were families. Mothers with children. Fathers trying to keep their kids together. The volunteers, the larger Episcopal Church community, the City of Indianapolis, and local foundations recognized a need that no one else was meeting.
1982
Daily feeding program begins at Episcopal church in Old Northside neighborhood
1984
Soup kitchen and overnight shelter established in church basement
1986
Dayspring Center incorporated as a not-for-profit agency
Dayspring Center Emergency Family Shelter opens at 1537 N. Central Avenue.
1989
The Shelter Opens
Volunteers from the Indianapolis Episcopalian diocese built it, connecting the shelter to the church where it all began. The City of Indianapolis and major foundations funded it. It started with the basics: emergency shelter, food, and personal items for homeless families with children.
From the beginning, Dayspring was one of the only shelters in Indianapolis that allowed entire families to stay together. Fathers aren’t separated from their children. Siblings aren’t split up. The family stays intact.
Today, Dayspring’s mission is to lovingly meet the basic needs of homeless families seeking assistance and connect them with opportunities to help them realize their potential. The shelter has 14 private family rooms and operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Each family is assigned a case manager who develops an individualized plan to address the issues that led to their homelessness. The average stay is 45 to 60 days, though recently some families have stayed 100 to 120 days as affordable housing becomes harder to find.
Growing Beyond Emergency
2004
Follow-Up Case Management Program
When families left the shelter, something kept happening: without ongoing support, half were back in shelter within three months. The Follow-Up Case Management Program was Dayspring’s answer. A case manager stays connected with each family for up to 12 months after they leave, providing individualized support: intervening on evictions, unpaid utility bills, medical referrals, food pantry needs, transportation, and connection to community resources.
This program changed what Dayspring is. Before Follow-Up, Dayspring was a shelter. After it, Dayspring became something more. An organization that stays involved long after a family walks out the door.
2005
Lori Casson becomes Executive Director
Lori Casson, MSW became Executive Director in 2005. She’d previously served as Dayspring’s Housing Director and ran the transitional housing program. Before that, she was the Social Service Director at Horizon House, a homeless day center in Indianapolis.
Her connection to this work started as a high school student at Heritage Christian School, where she participated in a mentorship program at Wheeler Mission. She went to Purdue to study pharmacy, realized it wasn’t right, and pivoted to psychology and social work. She’s been serving homeless communities in Indianapolis ever since.
Twenty-one years into her tenure as Executive Director, Lori is the person who knows Dayspring’s history better than anyone. She is the voice of the organization — in media, in donor conversations, in crisis. Any 40th anniversary storytelling that doesn’t include Lori’s perspective is incomplete.
2011
Children’s Services Program
Dayspring had always served children. They make up the majority of the shelter’s residents. But in 2011, the organization formalized what it knew: homeless children aren’t just “at risk.” Many are already behind. Slow to develop cognitive, social, and behavioral skills. Without intervention at a young age, they’re less likely to reach their full potential and more likely to follow the path of poverty into adulthood.
The Children’s Services Program was established as an extension of Dayspring’s core services, tailored specifically for kids. Children meet regularly with the CSP Director and are assessed for their physical, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive health. Conditions impeding their development are flagged and addressed with individualized attention for up to six months.
Programming includes weekday after-school tutoring, therapeutic arts and crafts, birthday celebrations, and parenting classes for caregivers.
2011
Children’s Services: Camp Discovery Expands
Camp Discovery is a six-week summer camp for children who have lived or are living at Dayspring. It is designed to help kids cope and thrive. Above all, to just be kids again.
The founding camp vision launched in 2002, and by 2011, it was a fully developed day camp.
Activities include art classes, STEM, creative writing and journaling, tutoring through Bright Learning, field trips to community parks and museums, gardening, and mind-body movement, including yoga, dance, and breathing exercises. Many children experience these things for the first time at Camp Discovery.
2025
Federal funding cuts eliminate government support. Marion County homelessness at near-record levels.
2026
40th Year Celebration
What We’ve Built
Since opening its doors, Dayspring Center has served more than 4,000 families, including over 11,000 children. Today, 70 percent of families who complete the program move directly into permanent housing, a powerful outcome for families rebuilding stability.
Dayspring is not a large organization. The staff is small. Everyone wears more than one hat. But this work has never been carried out solely by staff.
Each year, more than 275 volunteers support the mission. They serve meals. They donate clothing and essential supplies. They help with repairs that make the shelter feel less like a facility and more like a home. Individual donors, congregations, foundations, and corporate partners provide nearly every dollar that keeps Dayspring operating.
That is what 40 years have built.
Not just a shelter, but a community that refuses to let families face homelessness alone.
Where We Are Now
The 2025 point-in-time count found 1,815 people experiencing homelessness in Marion County, a 7% increase from the prior year and the highest since 2021. 316 children under 18 were experiencing homelessness, a 14% increase. Families with children make up more than a quarter of the total homeless population. More families sleep in vehicles. More families are trying to get access to shelters, but can’t.
50-60% of families at Dayspring are working. They have jobs. They just don’t earn enough. The average family arriving at Dayspring consists of a mother with two children under age five. They come because of job loss, domestic violence, medical crisis, and eviction. These are people who were managing until something snapped.
This is why the 40th anniversary matters. Not as a celebration, but as a reminder. For four decades, Dayspring has opened its doors to families with nowhere else to turn. The need has never been greater, and the work continues.
40 Years of Hope. 40 More to Come.
