Housing, employment, education and criminal justice are targeted in a new report by the Terre Haute Human Relations Commission and the Terre Haute 10. Participants of three listening sessions identified issues confronting the city in each category. The report specifies two areas of concern within each.
Commission executive director Anne-Therese Ryan presented the report, which can be found at bit.ly/3YrDc1a, to the Terre Haute City Council at this month’s meeting.
According to the report, the local housing situation was exacerbated by the city’s homeless population and paucity of affordable housing. Employment in the city is vexed by aspiring laborers’ lack of access to transportation and the community’s poor self-esteem challenging its ability to attract and retain talent in Terre Haute.
The report shows education is beset by the lack of professional development available to teachers, as well the lack of diversity in the Vigo County School Corp.’s workforce. And criminal justice locally is troubled by marginalized communities’ distrust in the system and a lack of diversity within law enforcement.
Those with a passing knowledge of Terre Haute likely understood these concerns before the report was released.
“A lot of people were like, these aren’t surprising, what was found in these listening sessions, but ultimately it’s good to have it written down,” Ryan said. “This document isn’t necessarily a deep analysis of those conversations. It is the record of what was spoken.”
Ryan began her collaboration with the Terre Haute 10 earlier this year after meeting with different community members.
“I wanted to hear where do you think the Human Relations Commission should go, what things should I keep in mind as I take this position, what does the city need,” she said.
She met with Mary Howard Hamilton, a distinguished professor of education at Indiana State University, who invited Ryan and new Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun to meet with the Terre Haute 10 to discuss the group’s initiatives.
“They said, ‘Could we do something with the city? We’d like to get more people to come out and hear about more issues than just education,’” Ryan said. The listening sessions — which took place in February, March and May — were one of her first projects in Sakbun’s administration. A total of 100 unique people attended the meetings.
Since then, other groups have approached Ryan to work on other projects.
“Terre Haute 10 was a spectacular first partnership that we formed,” she said.
One of the issues mentioned, residents’ poor self-image on the city, is rarely mentioned in official city documents.
“We’re confronting that head-on,” Ryan said. “I’m really glad that that group named that as a concern for the city, because sometimes we can get so down on ourselves [about] Terre Haute. … Terre Haute deserves to be just as beautiful and amazing [as] other places.
“We have to move away from that negative self-image because the people, we deserve better, and I think naming it in this report — yeah, Terre Haute struggles with this and sometimes you can be your own worst enemy, we can prevent ourselves from sometimes stopping these excellent things from coming to our community.”
She added, however, “I really am feeling a shift, people are talking more openly about new opportunities for Terre Haute and having that same belief that Terre Haute deserves better. I’m hopeful that having this document will be a reminder that we can fall into those bad habits of ‘We can’t’ or ‘This is why we shouldn’t,’ but rather dream bigger and bolder for our community.”
Diversity could have been a concern in every category, and something that both the Human Relations Commission and the Terre Haute 10 are adamant about addressing.
“Equity is something that both of us are striving for,” Ryan said. “Equity means that all people need to have access to the opportunities that they deserve. … The word ‘diversity’ can scare some people because it tends to get politicized, but realistically, the thing we want is for all people, no matter their race or religion or gender identity, to feel a sense of belonging and to feel that they are included and their identity isn’t a barrier to access.”
The document reports on the city’s socioeconomic woes, but fixing them will take individuals in a much higher pay grade.
“One of the things that is great is that it’s not up to me — I don’t have to solve these issues,” Ryan said. “I’m not an economic expert. … I will continue to aid and be a part of the solution. I want to continue to be the liaison between the community and local government.”
She added, “The self-image, that is years of culture you have to shift, there’s no schedule on how to necessarily fix that. But the solution of programs for young people — some of those [fixes] are happening as we speak.
“There won’t be one day when we wake up and everything is fixed,” Ryan continued. “But I’m hoping that people will see over the next six months to a year some of the initiatives pop up in little places in our community.”
The two groups are positive that the study’s release represents a step in the right direction.
“This has been a great conversation starter, because people say they recognize this and they’re glad it’s being talked about,” Ryan said. “It’s to keep encouraging that, to keep the momentum going.”
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