FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 26, 2021
Contact: Jessica Love, Executive Director, executivedirector@prosperityindiana.org
Andrew Bradley, Policy Director, abradley@prosperityindiana.org, 317-222-1221 x403
Prosperity Indiana Receives Grant to Strengthen Emergency Rental Assistance Programs in Indiana
INDIANAPOLIS – Prosperity Indiana is pleased to announce an award totaling $80,000 from National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) to support and strengthen emergency rental assistance programs in Indiana. Prosperity Indiana joins 27 state and local organizations selected for the NLIHC Ending Rental Arrears to Stop Evictions (ERASE) grantee cohort. The cohort will work to influence state and local emergency rental assistance (ERA) programs and ensure that ERA funds quickly reach the lowest-income and most marginalized people. The ERASE program seeks to ensure housing stability for the lowest-income renters in the short-term while building the framework for long-term sustainability.
“This opportunity to bolster efforts to get emergency rental assistance out the door and to those who need it most comes at a critical time,” said Jessica Love, executive director for Prosperity Indiana. “The temporary extension of the CDC eviction moratorium gives us a brief window to help assess where the ERA programs are experiencing challenges. Then we can come alongside these programs to share best practices to target outreach, get landlords paid, keep people housed, and prevent evictions, even after the moratorium has been lifted.”
Building off NLIHC’s ERASE call to action, grantees will work to:
- Influence state and local programs to accelerate the equitable use of funding
- Enable the adoption of eviction-prevention and diversion measures through policy reforms and/or judicial partnerships
- Encourage transparency through tracking program data, successes, and challenges
Prosperity Indiana’s grant will add capacity for the Hoosier Housing Needs Coalition to support and strengthen Indiana’s seven ERA programs. Specifically, the grant will support Prosperity Indiana’s work to implement the framework of the White House Eviction Prevention Summit’s Indianapolis working group to ensure equitable implementation of emergency rental assistance that can serve as a model to scale statewide. The participants in this working group will engage community stakeholders, including housing providers, public officials, low-income tenants, and Black, indigenous, and other people of color to implement a checklist to strengthen equitable marketing and targeting of ERA and other recovery programs to ensure outreach to the hardest hit communities. The group has prioritized reducing barriers for tenants and landlords to apply for and receive the maximum allowed amount of ERA funds in the shortest possible amount of time. The framework also includes actions to strengthen connections and coordination between court-based eviction diversion activities and the Emergency Rental Assistance program, exploring adding ERA program access points in courts during eviction proceedings to increase awareness and fast-track applications. Prosperity Indiana plans to use outcome data to ensure that the communities most at need are being served and the local effort in Indianapolis can be scaled to other ERA programs and courts statewide to help ensure no one is left out of a stronger and more equitable recovery for all Hoosiers.
Love said, “A lot is at stake here. Not only do we want to see communities maximize the short-term assistance being made available to respond to the crisis, but we also want to help state and local policymakers reimagine the policy infrastructure that is driving our broader response to housing needs. If we can help strengthen partnerships among community partners through this process, we’ll be better prepared to address any other current or future challenges our state might face.”
In addition to Prosperity Indiana, the ERASE grantees are:
- Housing Network of Rhode Island
- Housing Action IL
- Chicago Anti Eviction Campaign
- Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness
- United Community Housing Coalition, MI
- Richland Library, Columbia, SC
- Dataworks NC
- Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy
- Nebraska Housing Developers Association
- Hope Enterprise Corporation, MS
- Washington Low Income Housing Alliance
- Byrd Barr Place Seattle
- Homeless & Housing Coalition of Kentucky
- CT Fair Housing Center
- Hawai’i Appleseed
- Texas Housers
- Florida Housing Coalition
- Miami Workers Center
- Housing and Counseling Service of DC
- Empower DC
- Georgia Advancing Communities Together, Inc.
- Minnesota Housing Partnership
- Utah Housing Coalition
- Alaska Coalition to End Homelessness
- Housing Alliance PA
- HousingLOUISIANA
Since its founding in 1986, Prosperity Indiana has used its broad membership base to help Hoosiers meet their basic needs, preserve and expand affordable housing, and connect individuals and families to education, employment, and economic opportunity. The organization is known for its role as a convener and advocacy voice in Indiana’s community development landscape and has established its presence as an authority on housing and community development policy.
###
About Prosperity Indiana
The Indiana Association for Community Economic Development d/b/a Prosperity Indiana builds a better future for our communities by providing advocacy, leveraging resources, and engaging an empowered network of members to create inclusive opportunities that build assets and improve lives. Since its founding in 1986, Prosperity Indiana has grown to nearly 200 members from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
About the National Low Income Housing Coalition
Founded in 1974, National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) educates, organizes and advocates to ensure decent, affordable housing for everyone. NLIHC’s goals are to preserve existing federally assisted homes and housing resources, expand the supply of low income housing, and establish housing stability as the primary purpose of federal low income housing policy.