It’s not easy to find a decent and affordable place to live in Indianapolis.
That’s why I’m starting a free texting group, to detail all the ways the city is harmful to renters, homebuyers and people who are homeless.
You can text “HOME” to 317-548-1599 to sign up.
I’ll use the group to share my reporting with you, and you can text me directly with tips, story ideas, questions — anything you want to send my way.
I’ve named this group Calling Home.
The idea is that no matter where you go in life, you should always have somewhere to call home.
My hope is that our group is a place where we can come together as a dedicated community of people who care about housing.
I want to take you with me into eviction court. You can come with me as an elderly woman packs her few belongings into storage and resigns herself to sleep on the sidewalk. We can go together to a new housing development on the east side, or a new apartment complex on the south side.
There’s a lot to talk about.
Our rents keep going up — to the tune of $400 year-over-year. Almost no other city has seen such a sharp increase.
Indianapolis landlords file more evictions than in nearly every other city — around 2,000 each month, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab.
And with so few protections in place for renters, most of these cases don’t take long at all — less than 5 minutes, based on my experience watching court.
This spiraling effect often spits people out onto the streets, which leads to another harsh reality.
Indianapolis hasn’t solved homelessness. We haven’t even made much progress, as my reporting continues to show.
And don’t get confused: Escaping housing instability isn’t as simple as owning a home.
The median sale price for homes is $250,000. Fewer homes are selling, and they’re sitting on the market for longer. There are around 80 foreclosure cases every month in Marion County.
Even if you’re someone whose housing is relatively safe and stable, it doesn’t take a wild imagination to relate to someone who spends half of their income on rent and can’t get the property manager to come fix a leaky pipe.
Everyone has an interest in housing stability — for yourself and for the people around you.
Mirror Indy reporter Tyler Fenwick covers economics. Contact him at 317-766-1406 or tyler.fenwick@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @ty_fenwick.
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