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NSP Transforms Neighborhoods

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Watch this video highlighting the progress and growth resulting from a $29 million investment in our community during 2009-2013. LISC was already working in neighborhoods to assist residents develop Quality of Life Plans, which set a resident-led vision and course of action necessary to revitalize their communities. When investments from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) came into these communities, Quality of Life Plans were in place that allowed investments to quickly realize resident-drive goals. See how NSP transformed neighborhoods and people’s lives by building new housing units, creating parks and new community spaces, demolishing unsafe structures, and renovating homes into beautiful and … Continued

Neighborhood Visionary: Tabernacle Field

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Just north of Downtown Indianapolis, on the corner of Central Avenue and 34th Street, sits Tabernacle Presbyterian Church. Founded in 1924, TAB, as it’s commonly known, is more than a place to worship on Sundays. It’s a community anchor in the Mapleton-Fall Creek neighborhood. For decades, TAB has provided a safe place for area kids—many of them from low-income homes—to play and socialize. Throughout the years the church’s large athletic field has been particularly popular among children. From early morning until late night, kids have flocked there to play lacrosse, football, soccer, and other sports. And these days, the field’s use is at … Continued

Neighborhood Visionary: Diane Arnold

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For Diane Arnold, executive director of Hawthorne Community Center, the Hawthorne neighborhood on Indianapolis’s Near Westside isn’t just where she works—it’s where she lives. It’s where her family lives. And it’s a community she’s been working to improve for more than 40 years. Diane’s roots at the Hawthorne Community Center began with her mother accepting the position as executive director more than four decades ago. At the time, the Hawthorne Community Center was little more than an informal rec center, providing kids and families a safe place to play and congregate. Since then, Hawthorne Community Center has taken tremendous strides … Continued

New Urban Greenhouse Farm will grow a Million Pounds of Local Produce

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WHO: Mayor Greg Ballard, Lieutenant Governor Susan Ellspermann, Congressman André Carson, Gina Sheets, Director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture,Phil Votaw, Executive Director of the Westside Community Development Corporation Paul Lightfoot, CEO of BrightFarms WHAT: Announce plans for a state-of the art hydroponic greenhouse farm. WHEN: Monday, July 15, 2013 3:00-4:30pm WHERE: The Platform, East Wing of City Market – 202 East Market Street BACKGROUND: Led by the WCDC, the area near the site of this greenhouse farm has become a redevelopment hub, connecting commercial revitalization to residents of the community. BrightFarms 100,000 square foot farm will create up to 25 green … Continued

Indianapolis Needs Complete Streets

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Imagine an Indianapolis where walking and biking are common ways of getting to work, to school, to visit friends or to run errands. Imagine a community diversifying its transportation options and taking a significant step in creating a positive impact on public health and the environment. Unfortunately, too many areas of our city cannot support safe and convenient walking. A once-common mode of transportation has vanished from our neighborhoods. Our public health has suffered as a result. Today, nearly two-thirds of adults and 40 percent of youth inMarionCountyare overweight or obese. Working together to develop a more walker-friendly community will … Continued

Cities are Great Places to Raise Kids

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I recently participated in a planning session for downtown Indianapolis that included cultural and civic leaders who I would generally consider very pro-urban Indianapolis. As the conversation turned toward the urgent need to recruit more taxpayers into city neighborhoods, one of my colleagues stated that it really wasn’t practical to raise a middle-class family in the city, and many others agreed. Well, as a father of three young adults raised in urban Indy, this strong sentiment shocked me. I mistakenly thought that city living had become popular enough that young parents would now consider an urban lifestyle a viable alternative … Continued

You Can Bike it, Bus it or Trail it ….to The Platform

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We hear it all the time…..”man we love your new space, but parking is a real challenge!” But who said a car was the only way to come see us here at The Platform? It’s pretty amazing how accessible we are by bus! Certainly cheaper to ride the bus to a meeting at the Platform than pay for parking. More than 20 IndyGo routes drop you practically at our front door. Or how walking or biking along that amazing Cultural Trail? The Alabama Street portion gets you right to our office in the West Wing of the Indianapolis City Market. So ditch the car and bus … Continued

What A Year It’s Been

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A year that started with one of the biggest parties in the world and ends with a new home in one of America’s most innovative new workspaces? Maybe that sounds a little backwards—but it all makes sense to us at Indianapolis LISC. Our 20th anniversary year was one for the books: we celebrated the good work we’ve been honored to be part of for the last two decades, and set the stage for even greater things to come. In late January and early February, the world came to Indianapolis for Super Bowl XLVI. And all eyes turned to Indianapolis’s Near … Continued

Neighborhood Visionary: Ken Morgan – Visionary Project: 500 Place

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Ken Morgan has deep roots in Indianapolis. And an area of Indianapolis that’s particularly important to Ken is Indiana Avenue—the city’s most historically significant African-American district. It’s where he spent part of his childhood, where he was a student, minister, and lawyer, and where he first became involved in the world of community development. In the 1980s, most of the historic buildings that populated Indiana Avenue in its heyday of the ‘30s and ‘40s were gone. But one of the few remaining ones, the iconic Madame Walker Theatre, is where Ken got his first taste of community development. “The Madame … Continued

Neighborhood Visionary Project: The Charles A. Tindley Accelerated School

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It was an idea as risky as it was bold: to open Indiana’s first accelerated school—using a rigorous accelerated education model that treats all students as gifted—in an abandoned grocery store in one of Indianapolis’s most economically-depressed areas. But LISC saw promise in the vision of the Charles A. Tindley Accelerated School’s founders, and provided a charter school loan to help it get off the ground. “LISC saw what we saw,” Tindley co-founder Siri Loescher said. “An opportunity to help kids get a better education in an area where it’s needed most.” Today, the Tindley School is a model of … Continued

Neighborhood Visionary Project: Chase Near Eastside Legacy Center

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Vibrant neighborhoods. Impassioned community leadership. Engaged residents. They’re all components of a successful city. And ambitious projects like the Chase Near Eastside Legacy Center show that Indianapolis is rich in all three. It hasn’t always been that way—especially not on the city’s Near Eastside. For decades, the area was characterized by vacant homes and storefronts, rising crime rates, and the collapse of key neighborhood institutions. But five years ago, a group of dedicated residents came together under the auspices of the Great Indy Neighborhoods Initiatives (GINI) and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) to improve their community through a bold … Continued

Neighborhood Visionary: The Bowlings

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If you ask the Bowlings, the key to healthy neighborhoods is family. And for them, “family” includes the whole neighborhood. For Mike Bowling and his sons Josh (community programming coordinator at the Chase Near Eastside Legacy Center) and Joe (director, East Washington Partnership at the Englewood CDC), the best way to keep the neighborhood family strong is simple: open conversation. And at Englewood Christian Church where Mike serves as pastor, conversation is the focus of the ministry. “About 15 years ago, we decided that on Sunday nights, we were going to put the chairs in a circle with our congregation … Continued

Neighborhood Visionary: Beverly Mukes-Gaither

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Success in neighborhood development doesn’t happen overnight. It takes dedication, perseverance and a strong desire to make a difference—and nobody knows that better than Beverly Mukes-Gaither. As Vice President and Enterprise CRA Manager at Fifth-Third Bank, Beverly oversees the corporation’s commitment to helping develop and improve local communities. And it’s a job she absolutely loves, because Beverly has always had a passion for making a difference in communities fighting for positive change. But positive change doesn’t always come easy—especially in some of Indy’s toughest neighborhoods. Sometimes it takes months or even years to make a significant difference. “To be successful … Continued

LISC in the news: Quietly making a big difference in Indy.

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Over the past 20 years, LISC has invested more than $120 million in various neighborhood development projects throughout Indianapolis. And it has done so with little fanfare, preferring to let its work speak for itself. But now, as LISC prepares to celebrate its 20th anniversary, people are starting to take notice. The latest example is this story featured on WTHR. It highlights LISC’s investments in up-and-coming neighborhoods like Fountain Square and the Near Eastside. And shows how LISC helps fund projects that not only improve our city, but also help its citizens improve their own lives. Watch the video here.

Neighborhood Visionary: Jackie Nytes

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When Jackie Nytes first moved to Indianapolis’s Mapleton Fall Creek community in 1981, the neighborhood was in dire shape. Homes were vacant and abandoned, property values were low, and many residents seemed unconcerned about the state of their neighborhood. But Jackie didn’t see the Mapleton Fall Creek Neighborhood as a problem. She saw it as an opportunity. It was a chance to help restore one of Indianapolis’s great neighborhoods. So Jackie joined the Mapleton Fall Creek Development Corporation and asked the simple question: “how can I help?” It’s a question that Jackie’s still asking today—and it’s a question that the … Continued