The Regional Opportunity Initiatives has released a report detailing housing issues in the 11-county region the organization calls the Indiana Uplands. The report looks at economic growth rates, household income, education and labor rates among many other factors that influence housing and employment in the area.
Tina Peterson, president and CEO of the ROI as well as the Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County, says the report makes it clear that a lot more housing will be needed in the area in the near future.
“What we know across the region now is that we need about 14,000 housing units in the next decade," Peterson says.
The report links housing and community resources to the ability to draw more employers and jobs to the region. Peterson says there is a lot more to drawing in workers than just good jobs.
“If we don’t have a place for people to live, if we don’t have broadband, if we don’t have quality of life assets that are going to allow us to keep, attract, develop talent, then we aren’t going to be successful in really taking advantage of the opportunity we have in this region," she says.
Peterson says every county in south central Indiana has unique issues, but addressing the housing shortage is a region-wide effort.
The report looks at 11 south central Indiana counties; Owen, Monroe, Brown Greene, Daviess, Martin, Lawrence, Washington, Orange, Crawford, and Dubois.
ROI representatives will meet again with county leaders in the coming months to help them use the data from the report to make better informed decisions.
