The City of Fort Wayne and the Fort Wayne Housing Authority have contracted with Socialserve.com to create a Fort Wayne-specific portal for the Socialserve.com housing listing service in Allen County. FortWayneHousingNow.org is a sister site to the already popular IndianaHousingNow.org, which lists housing across the state. Like IndianaHousingNow.org, FortWayneHousingNow.org is completely free for users to list and search for housing and will increase access to affordable housing information. Offering 24-hour access to managing, adding and updating property listings, FortWayneHousingNow.org also features a dedicated page of housing resource links with a local focus.

The service has had encouraging initial response in its first few months of operation. Between May and June 2008, the number of landlords using the service has doubled, as has the number of daily searches. The amount of units listed increased by 35%. Local advisory group efforts will continue the trend of increased service usage.

Landlords can list housing with rent up to 130% of HUD FMR even when their units are rented or under repair, providing city leaders with a snapshot of affordable housing inventory in Allen County.

A bilingual call center is available for those who do lack access to or are not comfortable with the Internet. For more information, visit FortWayneHousingNow.org or contact Socialserve.com at 1-877-428-8844.