A Call for Tangible Housing Action Now!
To Mayor Joe Hogsett,
As you know, record numbers of our Indianapolis neighbors are now homeless, including an alarming number of families with children. Every week, 500 more Indianapolis households receive notice that they face a court order of eviction. Emergency shelters are overflowing and turning people away; the cost of rent is sometimes more than a household’s entire income.
Although many in our community are striving heroically to respond to these needs, we are falling short. That is because this crisis cannot be fi xed by non-profi t organizations, a task force, or a congregation.
This crisis can only be fi xed by the person we elected to the most powerful position in our community. Mayor Hogsett, we are calling on you to act:
Fulfill with tangible, fast action your many promises to make Indianapolis a true Housing First community. Mayor Hogsett, you have said, “The solution is housing—homelessness is solvable in Indianapolis.” Many times, you have stated that you are committed to Indianapolis as a Housing First community.
Housing First has been a dramatic success in communities like Milwaukee and Houston because those cities’ mayors followed up their commitments with personal, tangible leadership.
We call on you to do the same by committing city resources and by personally leading the charge to raise other revenue. When funding is needed for Indianapolis sports stadiums, business development, and political campaigns, you have proven your ability to secure the money needed to achieve big things. Now, we call on you to do the same in response to our housing crisis.
We call on you to provide by March 31, 2025 your plan—including identified specific funding resources--to ensure that, by December 1, 2025, all persons in Indianapolis will have immediate access to permanent housing.
Fulfill with tangible, fast action your many promises to transform the Indianapolis Housing Agency into a source of safe, clean, affordable housing.
Your longtime role in the governance of the Indianapolis Housing Agency was made even more concrete in April, 2024, when the City of Indianapolis and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agreed to take full possession of the agency. On that date you promised, “Today’s partnership ensures that IHA – a fundamental resource in providing housing to Indianapolis’ most vulnerable neighbors – will be fully functional, transparent, and accountable.”
With as many as 25,000 low-income Indianapolis neighbors relying on IHA housing, it is essential that you fulfi ll that promise by taking personal responsibility for ensuring that each available Housing Choice Voucher is in use providing safe, clean housing and each IHA-managed unit is doing the same. As with Housing First communities, successful public housing agencies build their performance on mayoral leadership and mayoral accountability to the people served and to the community that relies on a strong public housing agency.
You promised that IHA would be “functional, transparent, and accountable.” Therefore, we call on you by March 31, 2025 to provide a detailed report to the community on the status of all IHA-managed vouchers and housing units. That report must include your plan to ensure that by December 1, 2025 all IHA vouchers and units are in use and all are providing safe, clean housing to our sisters and brothers in need of assistance.
Respectfully Submitted,
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