Representatives from the City of Shelbyville, Blue River Community Foundation and Intend Indiana held a groundbreaking ceremony Friday to celebrate Intend Indiana’s upcoming affordable housing projects in the community.
Intend Indiana is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing community development through innovative solutions in housing and economic opportunities, according to a press release the city issued last month.
City, housing nonprofit to hold groundbreaking on first home
The property at 109 Walker Street will be the first of four properties the nonprofit will develop and then sell to a low-income resident. Those interested will be able to apply for the home at the nonprofit’s website, intendindiana.org.
“I think this says it all,” said Mayor Scott Furgeson, pointing to a yard sign marking the property for Intend Indiana’s project. “Their website says it all – affordablehomematters.org. That’s what this is about. This is what we need in our community – providing people with opportunities for better housing in our community at lower prices, it’s what we need.”
The nonprofit received state and local support, including a $500,000 impact investment from the Blue River Community Foundation and a $500,000 HOME construction-gap financing from the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority.
Affordable housing is a new venture for the Blue River Community Foundation, BRCF Executive Director Jennifer Jones said.
“Historically, our foundation has made a contribution locally by supporting our students with scholarships and our nonprofits with grants,” Jones said. “Recently, our board and our impact investing committee went through training to do something new to us about impact investing. It allows us to take just a little bit of our investable assets and invest them locally.
“We went through that training and afterwards we didn’t have any projects,” she went onto say. “We were a little bit nervous, and then [Plan Director Adam Rude] set us up with some meetings with Intend, and it felt right. One reason it felt right is that we’ve been able to make a lot of impact locally with the Early Learning Center, with the YMCA, and this week we got a really great grant from Lilly for a nonprofit center, but affordable housing has not been something our organization has been able to address. We’re really excited about that.”
Intend Indiana Chief Executive Officer Steven Meyer said this is exciting for his organization, too.
“We’re going to be building several houses, and we’re really excited about the long-term investment in Shelby County and Shelbyville,” he said. “These are houses that are intended to be for residents of Shelby County, so we want to make sure everybody knows about the opportunity. Reach out to people you work with, people at your church, people at your school, and make sure that they’re aware of these opportunities. We’re going to be building houses for years to come and we want to make sure everybody who wants to be connected to these opportunities is.”
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