Standing before a packed church Thursday night, Mayor Joe Hogsett made several promises to the citizens of Indianapolis.
He committed to making continued investments in Streets to Home, the city’s homelessness prevention program. The 2026 budget included $10 million in funding for the initiative, which aims to end homelessness by 2028.
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He vowed to meet with community organizers to help develop a plan that would, in their words, help “the most vulnerable” and “those that are uncertain when they walk out their front door.”
And when asked if he would leverage his influence to ask the Lilly Endowment to contribute additional dollars to Streets to Home?
“Absolutely,” he told them.
“One caveat,” he added. “I don’t demand anything from the Lilly Endowment,” he said, before mentioning the private foundation — the fifth largest in the world — donated $80 million to the city’s parks system.
Hogsett, a Democrat, was addressing a crowd of more than 500 people who came to St. Luke’s United Methodist Church on March 12 for a public action event organized by the Indy Action Coalition, a grassroots community organizing group made up of faith leaders, activists and concerned citizens.
Seated on a chair at the edge of the stage, Hogsett watched and listened as speakers railed against “sellout politicians” and “tyrannical billionaires” driven by power and greed.
The rising cost of housing, health care and energy bills are crises “manufactured by corporations backed by the same billionaires benefiting from our community’s misery,” said Danielle Cooney, a small business owner and coalition organizer.
When it was Hogsett’s turn to take the podium, he touted his administration’s gun violence reduction program and its homelessness intervention efforts.
“We are helping provide our neighbors with the care they so desperately need,” the mayor told the older, mostly white audience gathered inside the northside chapel, “and we together are helping to make our justice system one that is both effective and compassionate.”
Despite several scandals that have rocked the Democrat’s third term — sexual misconduct allegations against his former chief of staff, after-hours text messages sent to female staffers, and conflicts of interest involving $80 million in public incentives — Hogsett appeared mostly comfortable during the 90 minutes he sat on stage.
But the mayor wasn’t the main focus of the event.
Public safety
The mantra of the evening was “We Keep Us Safe,” a phrase popularized by Zach Norris, whose 2020 book by the same name offered a blueprint for holding people in power accountable.
For the Indy Action Coalition, that applies to everything from disrupting ICE operations in Indiana to making sure that all Indy residents have a roof over their head.
Over the past six months, the group has been meeting in church sanctuaries, libraries, basements and front porches to learn what their neighbors care about.
“After all of those conversations, a clear drumbeat grows to the top: We want our neighbors, and we want stability, dignity and safety,” Rev. Joel Reichenbach, ministry director at Trinity Church, told the crowd, his voice bouncing off the chapel’s towering brick walls and vaulted ceilings.
Several public officials who were watching from the front row, including Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal; City-County Councilors Brienne Delaney, Vop Osili and Nick Roberts; and state Sen. Fady Qaddoura, all Democrats. Qaddoura, who lives in the district where the church is located, received the biggest ovation of the night.
Voter engagement
The group has big goals, including plans to launch a large-scale voter engagement effort ahead of the November midterm election.
“We could build the biggest, most massive voter registration campaign this country has ever seen, and we will,” Cooney said.
Indiana consistently ranks as one of the lowest-performing states for voter turnout. In the 2022 midterm, fewer than 35% of registered voters in Marion County cast a ballot, below the state rate of 40% and the national rate of 46%.
With President Trump’s approval rating declining amid backlash to the war in Iran, the Epstein files and his mass deportation agenda, Democrats are hopeful they can flip the House in the 2026 midterm.
“This is not called a public action just because,” Cooney said. “It is time to take what we learned and act.”
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Peter Blanchard covers local government. Reach him at 317-605-4836 or peter.blanchard@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @peterlblanchard.
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