By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
January 31, 2025
When Leslea Townsend Cronin, executive director of the Homeless Coalition of Southern Indiana, looks at the communities in Clark and Floyd counties, she sees the beginning of the housing problem that now plagues places like Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles.
The economic development happening along the Ohio River is creating jobs and attracting new residents who are building high-level, expensive homes and renting upgraded and costly apartments, Townsend Cronin said. This is contributing to a rise in housing prices, which is pushing lower-income families and individuals out of their homes.
“They’re bringing all these new people and creating houses for them, but they’re not focusing on the community that’s already there,” Townsend Cronin said of local leaders.
The solution, she said, will require collaboration as well as fresh, innovative thinking, rather than continuing to implement the same ideas from the past. Private entities and nonprofits, along with the government, will have to work together to address the changing housing problems.
“It truly has to be a collaborative effort with people with all different skill sets and expertise coming together at all different angles and saying, ‘What can we put into this system?’ and also, ‘What do we get out of it?’” Townsend Cronin said.
To bring attention and support to housing issues, Townsend Cronin was among the leaders from advocacy nonprofits and community organizations at the Indiana capitol building on Thursday to talk to legislators, attend some committee hearings and connect with each other as part of Prosperity Indiana’s 2025 Statehouse Day. This year a record 189 individuals registered for what has become an annual event.
The day began in the north atrium on the main floor of the Statehouse, where the registrants were divided into small groups before being sent to meet with individual lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. Nonprofit leaders and staff members from across the state came to Indianapolis to take part in the event.
In the morning, some legislators stopped by to briefly chat with the nonprofit people. Gov. Mike Braun had been scheduled to speak at the event at 10:45 a.m. – the first time a governor had been confirmed to address the group – but he had to cancel at the last minute due to a change in his calendar.
“The purpose of our Statehouse Day is to let legislators know that there are these resources who are doing good work in their communities, but we need the General Assembly to do their part to strengthen Indiana’s communities,” Andrew Bradley, Prosperity Indiana’s senior director of policy and strategy, said. “There are a lot of proactive bills that we’re talking about with them that would increase the supply of safe, affordable housing, add new assets, like the state’s first newborn tax credit, and protect consumers who have been hurt by increasing costs and prices.”
Prosperity Indiana identified 19 bills as its priorities for the 2025 legislative session. Housing was the dominant issue with seven bills viewed as benefiting homeowners and renters and eight bills seen as putting vulnerable Hoosiers at risk of losing their homes.
Also included in the priority bills were two measures that bolstered asset building and consumer protection, and two House bills that were considered potentially harmful to consumer finances.
Bradley said Statehouse Day enables nonprofits and service providers to bring the concerns of low-income Hoosiers and other in need of help to the legislators. Not only are those voices rarely heard in the Capitol building, but also lawmakers are often surprised to learn about all of the services these nonprofits are providing in their communities.
For the nonprofit participants who attend, Bradley said, they learn about the legislative process, seeing people testify about bills before legislative committees and watching lawmakers debate on the House and Senate floors. Also, they gain confidence that they can advocate for their particular interests in the Statehouse.
“We’ve heard from members in the past that they feel like they could come and do this, where they felt before, it was a really opaque, intimidating process,” Bradley said. “It is something that you have to experience for yourself, but once you experience it, you realize that Hoosiers are the ones who can make change.”
Townsend Cronin traveled two hours to be part of Statehouse Day. Many times, she said, the needs and concerns of Southern Indiana fail to get represented in Indianapolis. Her goal was to bring the housing problems in her community to the attention of lawmakers, she said.
“With Amazon coming and our River Ridge area and all these industrial places coming, we’re rapidly growing,” Townsend Cronin said. “We’re losing housing. We’re increasing the unhoused population very, very fast, so we just want to make sure that we’re represented here at the Statehouse.”
Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
