The Indianapolis Foundation, one of the oldest community foundations in the United States, rolled out a new, five-year strategic plan Monday that will push for equity in housing, health, the environment and the economy.
The 108-year-old foundation said its new plan will go beyond traditional grantmaking to work with local leaders and residents to bring about an end to unfair systems.
“Racism is expensive for those who are victimized by it and for those who are projecting it,” Lorenzo Esters, the foundation’s president, said in a virtual press conference Monday. “But more importantly, we need to understand and acknowledge that racism that is baked into our systems, the systems that determine our opportunities for schooling, where we can buy a house, our ability to secure an investment in a new business, our access to quality health care. These systemic barriers can and do hold people back.”
The plan, called “Equity Imperative 2030,” focuses on what the foundation says are four interrelated areas for equity in Indianapolis.
First, it says housing equity will exist when all residents of Indianapolis and Marion County can access quality, safe and affordable housing. It said that the city and county have “profound housing inequities” and substantial disparities in home ownership, homelessness and evictions.
It pointed to a shortage of affordable rental housing and said more than 920 evictions and 110 foreclosures were recorded in Indianapolis each month in 2022, often due to job loss and lack of income.
Second, the foundation said the community needs to remove barriers to economic inequality. It said that more than one in three households within Marion County are considered “Alice households,” meaning they earn above the federal poverty level but cannot afford the cost of basic necessities. (Alice is the shorthand for “asset limited, income constrained, employed)
In Marion County, as of July 2024, there were an estimated 257,449 Alice households.
Third, the foundation said all residents deserve access to health care, high quality of care and fair health outcomes, without regard to ZIP code, race or ethnicity.
Marion County ranks 82nd out of 92 counties in health outcomes, the foundation said. In addition, nearly 26,000 adults were not able to receive treatment for serious mental illness.
Fourth, the foundation said environmental justice will be achieved in Marion County when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards. It said Indiana residents see excessive utility shut-offs in their home and long power outages.
“These energy burdens overwhelmingly impact communities of color and low socio-economic communities, and create additional health burdens,” the foundation report said.
In addition, the historic practice of redlining has caused communities of color in Marion County to face “disproportionate environmental burdens,” including air pollution, water pollution, lead in soil and water, as well as less access to parks, greenspace and renewable energy, the foundation said.
The foundation released a 48-page booklet that offered detailed strategies for addressing all four areas of inequality.
The foundation had assets of $1.09 billion at the end of 2023. It disbursed 117 grants last year totaling more than $5 million to organizations addressing the root causes of inequitable systems, “focusing on building better and brighter communities throughout Indianapolis.”
“Our founders envisioned a city where all individuals in our community have an equitable opportunity to reach their full potential,” said board chair Molly Wilkinson Chavers to reporters on Monday. “This continues to be our mission.”
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