With the shift from one gubernatorial administration to the next, a number of Indiana’s services have faced abrupt cuts — we reported on the abrupt cessation of early childhood education training programs earlier this year — and those sudden announcements, without follow-up communication from the governor’s administration, have left local Hoosiers uncertain about what the future holds.
But sometimes, the end of one program doesn’t have to crater options for Hoosiers. This week, we look at the housing crisis in Indiana. In September, the Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority (IHCDA) and the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention & Prevention reported on the state of homelessness in the balance of the state of Indiana, which excludes Marion and Hamilton counties. In their report, they grounded this year’s housing context.
Nearly anyone working and trying to find housing might feel this without seeing the numbers, but here’s the stark reality:
A person earning minimum wage would need to work:
- ●91 hours a week for a studio apartment,
- ●101 hours a week for a 1-bedroom housing unit,
- ●122 hours a week for a 2-bedroom housing unit,
- ●156 hours a week for a 3-bedroom housing unit, and
- ●180 hours a week for a 4-bedroom housing unit.
There are only 168 hours in a week. Think of the single parent with two kids too old to bunk together.
So, Hoosiers would need to make how much for a 40-hour week to cover the costs of the following housing units:
- ●$16.48/hour for a studio
- ●$18.39/hour for a 1-bedroom unit
- ●$22.18/hour for 2-bedroom housing unit
- ●$28.24/hour for 3-bedroom housing unit
- ●$32.64/hour for a 4-bedroom housing unit.
To put it in the context of our local manufacturing community: Local manufacturing jobs offer above minimum wage, ranging from $16-$25 an hour. But what this doesn’t consider is that housing should not cost more than 25-30% of a household’s earnings, to leave room for food, clothing, utilities, school fees, healthcare, emergencies, and gifts. Anyone budgeting for their household can do the numbers.
What happens when a landlord decides to sell a property out from under a renter, or evicts a renter who juggled bills and fell behind?
Indiana is one of those states with laws that favor landlords and whose legislators have voted against laws to expand tenants' rights. This is why the abrupt termination of Indiana’s emergency housing program in March—the program served the state’s rural and non-urban counties, excluding Marion and Hamilton—left countless families and individuals at heightened risk of homelessness, exposing deep vulnerabilities and urgent policy gaps merely uncovered by the COVID pandemic. These conditions were policy failures that rendered Hoosiers at risk long before the pandemic, before COVID sidelined many households’ breadwinners. These are people whose wage earners faced a health crisis, maybe a cancer or other debilitating health diagnosis, or a fire, or a recession. And for a while, federal funding provided a mere 18 months of relief, often long enough to cause a complete turnaround for lower-income households.
The Indiana Emergency Rental Assistance Program, managed by the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA), was created during the surge of pandemic disruptions. It became a crucial lifeline for renters in crisis outside the state’s major metro areas. IHCDA staff such as Mindi Kensinger Dillinger, who worked in outreach, helped cut through red tape to directly assist households facing housing instability, evictions, and mounting rental debt.
The outreach was expansive. Staff traversed rural communities, explained eligibility, and assisted with what for many is a daunting application process. At its peak, the program was a safety net not just for those who lost jobs, but anyone whose household income was damaged by the pandemic—single mothers, the disabled, and struggling extended families among them. Dillinger recalls serving a diverse cross-section of Hoosiers, including those who simply did not know they had rights or options to avoid homelessness, especially in a state notorious for weak renter protections and aggressive landlord practices. The program’s staff knew it wouldn’t last forever, but they’d made plans to wind down and avoid leaving their clients in a lurch.
Despite hopes for an orderly wrap, the program was terminated abruptly in March 2025, months ahead of its anticipated sunset. “It’s done today,” the staff were told. They packed their boxes without being able to explain the end and the lack of transition to their clients. This shut-off was reportedly a direct order from Indiana’s new governor.
As detailed in the 2025 homelessness report, homelessness is climbing in Indiana and surrounding states. In Indiana, the unsheltered PIT (Point-in-Time) count, completed every January, surged by 16.6% from 2023 to 2025—a rate higher than the increase seen in urban counties. Many, once on the brink of eviction or doubling up on couches, moved into outright homelessness when emergency rent protection vanished. For those who had been lucky enough to learn about the program and access it — usually by word of mouth — the outcome was often unfinished applications and sudden exposure to the full impacts of rampant rent increases (up 53% for renters since 2010) and limited affordable housing stock.
One of the program’s greatest strengths was its human touch. Dillinger described helping a woman who, with no other options, managed to stay housed after weeks of back-and-forth, thanks to the perseverance and flexibility of outreach staff. Yet for many, landlords remained a wild card: smaller ones were often accommodating, corporate landlords less so, sometimes refusing rental assistance and prioritizing rapid turnover over stability for tenants at risk, Dillinger observed.
With the program’s abrupt end, advocacy networks and local coalitions are now scrambling to offer help. Locally, the Crawfordsville Housing Authority has offered very limited services. And around Indiana, about 4,860 homeless, sheltered and unsheltered, need permanent housing, which Dillinger’s staff helped make possible. And these numbers exclude those couch surfing, doubling up with friends or family, or who qualify for the McKinney-Vento supports for school-aged children. And still, almost a quarter of the households that need housing have children. And the numbers keep climbing.
The single most important message for mayors, county commissioners, and state legislators is: housing is unaffordable. Even new apartment buildings are not making housing affordable for our manufacturing workers. To exacerbate the problems, renters lack robust rights for safe, sound housing and eviction diversion services.
The Indiana Balance of State Continuum of Care, in partnership with agencies like CHIP (Coalition for Homelessness Intervention & Prevention) and IHCDA, made clear in its summer 2025 report that permanent solutions require more than temporary aid. Stable and scalable housing interventions work—they keep people housed and reduce long-term instability. The added benefit of household stability is that both educational attainment and health become more stable. As the Emergency Rental Assistance program collapsed, so did one of the bridges for thousands whose pandemic scars remain unhealed.
Chronic instability, loss of literacy, family stress and abuse, and poverty, health problems and mental illness are all interconnected when wages remain low, housing and other basic human services are unaffordable, and social complexities increase.
Every time communities prioritize interventions in the social safety net, it offers an entry point to move households from struggle to success.
Long-term, flexible rental assistance, enforceable renters’ rights, and strategic outreach in rural communities are necessary if we are to turn the tide. Holistic solutions matter, and every path to stable permanent housing is a crucial piece in the puzzle.