Launched in 2010, the Indiana Stellar Communities Program (ISCP) is a multi-year, over $58 million (investments to date) initiative operated by the Indiana Lieutenant Governor’s office and funded by three state agencies: the Indiana Housing and Community Economic Development Authority, the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs and the Indiana Department of Transportation. The Lieutenant Governor’s Office recognized a need for “more innovative, comprehensive development efforts in rural communities in Indiana to meet the unique local needs and make a bigger impact.” So it brought the three state agencies together to design the Indiana Stellar Communities Program.
The ISCP develops strategic community investment plans, promotes partnerships, and implements comprehensive solutions to address local challenges in Indiana’s smaller communities involving community economic development, housing, transportation, and overall quality of life. Within each ISCP designated community, a steering team of local and regional partners come together to plan and implement a variety of revitalization projects that are part of that city’s vision for its future sustainability. ISCP’s approach to comprehensive community development is unique by its attempt to improve rural communities in a way that is 1) rooted in emphasizing partnerships and collaboration among multiple public agencies and community partners and 2) focused on combining state resources to make wide-ranging quality-of-life impacts as opposed to separate, piecemeal, incremental improvements.
The ISCP develops strategic community investment plans, promotes partnerships, and implements comprehensive solutions to address local challenges in Indiana’s smaller communities involving community economic development, housing, transportation, and overall quality of life. Within each ISCP designated community, a steering team of local and regional partners come together to plan and implement a variety of revitalization projects that are part of that city’s vision for its future sustainability. ISCP’s approach to comprehensive community development is unique by its attempt to improve rural communities in a way that is 1) rooted in emphasizing partnerships and collaboration among multiple public agencies and community partners and 2) focused on combining state resources to make wide-ranging quality-of-life impacts as opposed to separate, piecemeal, incremental improvements.
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Thought Leadership
LINK Rural Rental Assistance Needs USDA’s Support to Survive
The cost of USDA’s Section 521 Rental Assistance program is growing every year. After a funding crisis hit the program in September, Congress increased its funding for fiscal year 2014, giving USDA time to reduce program costs, cut program spending, or work a little magic. LINK Is the Housing Crisis Over in Rural America? In 2008, the U.S. economy fell off a cliff. Depending on your perspective, it either slipped or was pushed from that precipice by the housing market. In 2009 and 2010, when the crisis was arguably at its worst, the Housing Assistance Council (HAC) began receiving frequent inquiries from the press and others asking, “How is the housing crisis affecting rural America?” We simply had no answer. Mortgage and foreclosure data were virtually nonexistent for most rural areas. LINK Hollowing out the middle: The rural brain drain and what it means for America Why should we care about the future of small towns in the Heartland? If many of them disappear and become latter-day ghost towns, what real difference will it make to most of our lives? Though the small town claims an iconic place in the American psyche, we are considerably less alarmed by the emptying out of prairie and plains towns than by the endangered status of the polar bear, an altogether more universally vulnerable symbol and one that our kids can easily comprehend and mourn the loss of. Publications
LINK Rural Decline and Revival: State and Local Partnerships in Creating “Stellar Communities” in Rural Indiana Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs
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