Federal authorities are investigatinghousing discrimination complaints against the city of Noblesville and Hamilton County over the lack of low-income housing in the wealthy suburb.
A side effect of Hamilton County's increasing popularity as an affluent area, experts say, is a dampening of diversity.
Hamilton County's housing boom, its desire for more high-end housing and an emphasis on homeowners over renters have led to little development of affordable housing options,even though there's a need, according to the complaint filed this past week by the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana.
As a result, the complaint said, people of color are particularly excluded from living in Hamilton County because race and income can be highly correlated. Hamilton County, home to the mansions of Carmel and the new wealth of Fishers, is the fastest-growing county in Indiana— and it's more white than the state as a whole.
Fast market:It's getting even harder to find a home in Central Indiana
Connecting communities:Can Carmel help Muncie, Anderson grow?
Turf wars:Indy sues Carmel over 96th Street roundabouts
Although Noblesvilleis home to several lower-income housing options, city officials have restricted some new developments to limit the sizes of apartments and prohibit subsidized housing units, which the complaint said discourages families with children from renting in the city.
Regardless of whether they are intentional, Noblesville's development policies have kept segregation patterns intact instead of breaking them down, said Amy Nelson, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana.
"If you're working here, you should be able to live where you work," she said. "You should be able to have access to schools of choice. I'm not arguing that everyone should be able to jump to a $550,000 house. What I am arguing for is if you're working in that community, there should be an opportunity to live there as well."
A statement provided by Noblesville city spokesman Robert Herrington said the city does not see merit in the claim.
"Noblesville has more subsidized housing than any other community in Hamilton County, even though we have less than 25 percent of the total county population," the statement said in part. "The city is home to a variety of housing levels and claims to the contrary are unsupported by the evidence."
Herrington also said the city is in the process of amending ordinances to accept certain types of federal housing vouchers.
Hamilton County Commissioner Mark Heirbrandt declined to comment on the complaint, but he pointed out examples of where the county has tried to address affordability, such asHamilton County Area Neighborhood Development's 10-unit affordable housing project pitched near 106th Street and College Avenuein Carmel and existing low- and moderate-income housing units such as Greystone Apartments in Noblesville.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity is investigating the complaints.
The city and county receive federal funding aimed at helping communities reduce poverty. The complaints argued they violated the fair housing requirements that come with the money.
Tax hikes:How much Hamilton County schools paid to run referendums worth millions
"User fee":Vote to raise Indiana's gas tax could haunt GOP lawmakers
For more Hamilton County news, follow IndyStar North on Facebook.
The complaint lists the median rent in Hamilton County at $920 per month, which it notes would consume more than three-quarters of a minimum wage worker's total income. The median home cost in Hamilton County is $230,000, with new homes selling for an average price of about $370,000.
Housing assistance programscan reduce rents or set rates based on a person's income. One program offers tax credits to property owners who maintain rental costs at affordable or income-based levels.
Hamilton County has 330 subsidized housing units, with 325 in Noblesville and none in Carmel, the complaint said. In addition, 272 people use federal vouchers that subsidize rental costs for the housing of their choosing.
"If affordable housing is kept out, very often that's going to impact persons of color," Nelson said. In Hamilton County, one-third of housing voucher users are black and about 15 percent of residents in subsidized housing are black. In the more urban Indianapolis— which is more diverse than the state overall—those numbers are higher.
Experts say the demand for lower-income housing far outweighs the supply. The complaint cites a recent study by local development and consulting company Greenstreet that estimated Hamilton County needed 11,000 more affordable housing units. At the current rate of construction, it would take 100 years for the supply to catch up with demand.
For example, Hamilton County Area Neighborhood Development— known as HAND— runs 96 units of affordable housing, mostly geared toward the senior population. It frequently serves people who make 60 percentof Hamilton County's $84,000 median income, which is about $50,000. But it also works with clients who earn closer to from $25,000 to $35,000 a year.
There are 200 people on its waiting list, said HAND executive director Jennifer Miller.
"To break the poverty cycle, we need to take many approaches, but improving the opportunity for upward mobility is a start," she wrote in an email.
But the fair housing complaint said developers have no incentive to develop affordable housing projects because of the lack of support for those options in Hamilton County.
Areas like Hamilton County were built without much thought to affordability, said David Reingold, dean of Purdue University's College of Liberal Arts and a sociologist who has studiedlow-income housing policy.
Hamilton County is known as a suburb where large, new houses are aimed at affluent people: You can live there if you're rich enough. And clearly, Reingold said, the market has supported that development.
But class-based discrimination can have a ripple effect because income can be closely tied to race, a correlation built by the nation's history of systemic segregation and racism.
Still, trying to use housing as a mechanism for integration hasn't necessarily worked, Reingold said.
Even if Hamilton County decided to develop more subsidized housing, he said, "what tends to happen is these communities end up reflecting what's already there."
Sometimes, said Indiana University Maurer School of Law professor Jeannine Bell, people use income discriminationas a cover for racial bias.
Housing discrimination can be subtle, she said, such as requirements for minimum lot sizes, which can be meant to prohibit multifamily units and have a disparate impact on minorities.
Bell said to pay attention to the reasoning used to explain decisions, since critics may use coded language associated with racial biases that could reveal their concerns center on race, not income.
The fair housing complaint quoted Noblesville officials' discussions from past meeting minutes over apartment development plansand how they would fit into the city.
During one meeting, the complaint said aschool board member said "it is a big safety issue and it costs the school a lot more per kid to educate the ones in the apartments as it costs the city more for police and fire. It really puts the burden on us and the taxpayers."
At another meeting, a council member said "when he ran for office last year, the complaint he heard most from constituents was that there was too much multifamily housing going in."
Call IndyStar reporter Stephanie Wang at (317) 444-6184. Follow her on Twitter: @stephaniewang.
‘Homeownership was a mirage’:How home buyers say their American dream became a nightmare
Indiana has few protections for those who buy homes with a land contract
Rent-to-own contracts challenged in federal court
