Southeast Abandoned Housing Initiative

History

In January of 2008, the Bates Hendricks Neighborhood Association (BHNA), supported by an Imagine grant, sponsored a street by street inventory of all vacant and abandoned houses in their neighborhood. Using this information, BHNA was able to identify their “Dirty Thirty” – the worst homes in the neighborhood – and begin aggressively addressing these problem properties. Letters were written to property owners, data was collected of code violations and police runs, and neighbors began to remonstrate against these properties in court. After two years, ten properties on this list were remediated in some way.

In July of 2010, the Southeast Neighborhood Congress adopted objectives designed to take the pilot program in the Bates Hendricks neighborhood to full scale in Southeast Indianapolis. In August, supported by a Southeast Learning Partnership grant, 40 residents inventoried nearly 900 blocks using a standardized survey. Southeast Neighborhood Development provided staffing to collect all this data into spreadsheets and GIS maps.

Purpose

The purpose of this initiative is to give neighborhood leaders, institutions, funders, and city officials a better handle on the scope of the problem of abandoned properties in Southeast Indianapolis. In addition, based on the experience of Bates Hendricks residents, it is hoped that this data will allow Southeast residents to better address the worst properties in their neighborhoods. Data was collected, organized and mapped around several key concerns:

• All vacant and abandoned properties.
• A rating system identifying the worst properties based on a standardized point system.
• The number of code violations connected to a property.
• The amount of back taxes.

This site allows you to view the composite maps for Southeast Indianapolis as well as maps for every neighborhood association with the Southeast Indianapolis boundaries. Spreadsheets with all mapping data are included in the PDF documents for individual neighborhoods.

Survey Maps and Data

Southeast Points (6MB pdf)	Southeast Back Taxes (6MB pdf)	Southeast Combined (600k pdf)
Bates-Hendricks Neighborhood (800k pdf)	Fletcher Place Neighborhood (6MB pdf)	Fountain Square Alliance Neighborhood (1MB pdf)
Fountain Square Neighborhood (4MB pdf)	Holy Rosary Neighborhood (400k pdf)	Irish Hill Neighborhood (400k pdf)
North Square Neighborhood (6MB pdf)	Norwood Place Neighborhood (400k pdf)	SECO Neighborhood (800k pdf)
WECAN Neighborhood (600k pdf)

Next Steps

It is our hope that neighborhood leaders will use this data to identify and address the worst properties in their respective areas. A presentation of this information is available by contacting Jim Mulholland, SEND Community Building Coordinator at 503-5852 or jim@sendcdc.org. We also plan to offer training to residents on how to use this data and how to remonstrate against problem properties.