Thank you to everyone who came out to support the Kevin Kohn Memorial La Porte County Homeward Bound walk last Saturday!  The walk took place in scenic Washington Park on the beach in Michigan City.  Family members of Kevin Kohn, a homeless man from Michigan City who tragically passed away from exposure in 2009, spoke to supporters about the need for greater awareness about the causes of homelessness and how community members can support local organizations dedicated to ending homelessness.   All of the funds raised for the walk will support the work of the following IACED members: Catholic Charities of LaPorte County, Gabriel's Horn Homeless Shelter, LaPorte County Habitat for Humanity, Men's Homeless Shelter, Michigan City Housing Authority, and Stepping Stone Shelter for Women.   

September Community-Based TA Roundup

Fall is here and IACED staff has been busy on the community front during September in addition to hosting the Statewide Conference and preparing for the big move to the City Market! On our blog post that can be found here, we have a thorough roundup of the work we have been doing with and on behalf of our members, but below is a brief list of the work we are doing to support the critical work of our members in Hoosier communities:

• South Central Elkhart QoL Plan- South Central Elkhart is wrapping up their Quality of Life Plan and about to roll it out to the public on October 13.  This will be the "end of the beginning" for the neighborhood as they move into implementation.
• Neighborhood Revitalization Plans- With the deadline for LIHTC applications approaching, we have been busy helping our affordable housing developer members develop neighborhood revitalization plans for their LIHTC applications. 
• Jacobsville Neighborhood Quality of Life Plan- The Jacobsville neighborhood in Evansville has kicked off their comprehensive community development process.  IACED staff and Jim Capraro from the Institute for Comprehensive Community Development met with local leaders to begin the one-on-one interview process.  Interviews will be ongoing for the remainder of the year. 
• OKI Conference- IACED Executive Director Andy Fraizer and Program Manager Rose Scovel presented at the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Planning Conference in Columbus, Ohio along with IACED board member John Niederman of Pathfinder Services.

East 10th United Methodist Children and Youth Center Wins Key Award for Services Program of the Year

At this year's conference, IACED was proud to present the Key Award for Services Program of the Year for excellence and innovation in a service-oriented, non-construction, community development initiative in Indiana to the  East 10th United Methodist Children and Youth Center. This organization has been providing support to neighborhood children on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis for fifteen years.  They are a community anchor of stability and quality programming for children facing social and economic challenges. This organization believes that all children deserve quality care regardless of socioeconomic status or a parent's ability to pay. This award is presented annually at the Indiana Statewide Conference on Housing and Community Economic Development.  For more information about this impressive, award-winning program, read our full blog post here. 

At this year's conference, IACED was also proud to present the Robert O. Zdenek Staff Member of the Year award to Ann Helkme, the Executive Director of Vincent Village, Inc. Ann has led Vincent Village for the past 25 years.  She is known throughout the Fort Wayne community as an advocate for homeless families and homelessness issues. When she started, the "village" as it is presently known, it was a single-site family shelter program.  Through Ann Helmke's vision and leadership, she grew the organization from a shelter to the village it is today encompassing more than 30 units of clustered rehabilitated housing. For more information about Ann's legacy of community development leadership, read our full blog post here.

Across the Nation

CR Passes, Sets the Stage for Sequestration

Before Members of Congress went into recess for the remainder of the campaign season, both chambers passed a six-month Continuing Resolution (CR).  On Friday, September 28, President Obama signed this CR to fund the government through March 27, 2013 after bipartisan agreement to prevent a government shutdown before the elections and maintain funding levels for critical programs and services. As we discussed in depth in our earlier blog post that can be found here, both parties reached a major agreement to fund programs using the $1.05 trillion cap passed in the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA).  This short-term budget, however, means Congress must act in the lame duck session to prevent the 8.2 percent across-the-board cuts for all discretionary spending, or sequestration, from taking effect on January 3, 2013.

As IACED members, you know how devastating these cuts would be for affordable housing and homeless assistance programs. We ask you to reach out to our Senators and Members of Congress to urge them to protect funding for critical community development programs. For those of you who were able to join us at the Statewide Conference on Housing and Community Economic Development, you may recall that we discussed several key steps to making an impact when you do Congressional outreach. We urge you to read our blog post that can be found here, where we have those steps listed along with numerous helpful resources for your outreach campaign. IACED will continue our outreach, but your voices are critical to helping protect key programs that support Hoosier communities.

New Census Report on Housing, Poverty, Health Care

On September 27, the U.S. Census Bureau also released the

 2010 Census Emergency and Transitional Shelter Population report. The report offers information on the number of people counted at emergency and transitional shelters (with sleeping facilities) for people experiencing homelessness, not the entire population experiencing homelessness. The report mostly offers key demographic information regarding people counted at emergency and transitional shelters. In Indiana, for instance, the report found that there were 3,529 people in these shelters. They make up 1.7 percent of the national total of individuals in these shelters. For more information, read our full blog post that can be found here. 

On September 21, 2012 the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that the New Albany Housing Authority (NAHA), an IACED member, was awarded $162,965 in grant funding to continue serving public housing and Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) residents for another year.  The HUD announcement explained that this program funding will help ensure that public and assisted housing residents in New Albany will have a stronger connection to local services to help them obtain higher education and training to find jobs by allowing NAHA to fund service coordinator positions to work directly with HUD-assisted families.  This individual attention ensures these families will be connected to supportive services that meet their unique needs to become gainfully employed.  NAHA announced that these two competitive grants will fund salaries and benefits for 3 case managers.

This is the 13th consecutive year NAHA has secured grant funding to support self-sufficiency activities for families like education, training, debt resolution, budgeting and eventual home ownership.  Youth are served through after-school programming including recreation, self-esteem building, nutrition, arts and crafts and tutoring.  Aging residents receive transportation, activities related to aging in place, health screenings, recreation, exercise, and social activities.  The full HUD press release is available on our blog that can be found here.