In May, Evansville Mayor Stephanie Terry delivered her second State of the City address. She updated the affordable housing goals set one year ago, announcing that the target of at least 350 new units completed or underway had not only been met but exceeded.
Terry spoke with Inside Indiana Business about finding a solution to Evansville’s housing issues and other priorities on her mind in the coming months.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Your overall goal is to have 2,000 new housing units in Evansville by the end of 2027. Can you talk about that mission?
Overall, we know that the goal and the need is greater than 2,000 units, based on the Bowen National Research, which says we need at least 4,000 in the next five years. And that’s not just affordable, that’s at all income levels. And so 2,000 units would be a strong start on that effort. I felt it was ambitious but also achievable.
We’re facing a housing crisis across the nation. It’s a critical issue for us and making it a priority is what we’re focused on. To accomplish that, a couple of things we’re doing is, number one, we’ll continue to invest in our Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Last year, we increased our budget for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to a million dollars, and we hope to do the same in the coming year.
We’re going to continue also to partner with the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership, better known as E-REP, to leverage some of the READI dollars, which are state dollars, for some of the larger multifamily housing units and then continue to modernize some of the incentives and policies to make it easier, faster and more attractive for developers to build in our city.
The other thing, in order for us to get to that 2,000 units, is leaning also on some of our nonprofit organizations that are working in the housing space. There’s been some great success in that.
In your address, you said more than 350 units were finished or in progress, and another 240 were in the pipeline. Any update on those numbers?
There’s a lot has happened since then, but I would say, right now, we’ve got roughly 396 units in the pipeline. And there’s a mix of single-family, duplex and apartment units.
What’s the latest on the Fight Blight program to demolish 150 properties?
In May, we said 132 blight structures had been identified. The latest numbers I’ve received, we’ve brought down 40 houses, and we’ve had more than double that in the pipeline. Either they’re waiting on a contractor to do the work, or they’re waiting on a hearing to affirm the raze order. We’ve also identified more blighted properties. A lot of that is thanks to the work of our Harvard Fellow, who spent time here this summer.
The Evansville and Vanderburgh County Commission on Homelessness released a new strategic plan earlier this year. What are your thoughts on that initiative?
It was time to update the plan. The last plan was about five years ago. We know this continues to be a growing issue in Evansville but also in other areas.
Evansville has always taken a housing-first model. We want to educate people about their options available to them, empower them to stand on their own feet and then look at enforcement when crimes are being committed and public safety is affected. That’s the last step in the continuum is enforcement. But our goal is to get people off the street into housing, and that’s what this plan lays out.
What are your priorities in Evansville for the rest of the year?
The biggest priority right now is the completion of our 2026 budget. We will be presenting that to the council in September with hopes that it will be approved in October.
There’s a significant amount of strain being put on cities and towns across the state due to changes in legislation. We’re trying to get through this budget cycle to be sure that we present a budget that still allows us to maintain the city services that we’re responsible for providing, that we’re transparent about our challenges and that we continue to keep the community informed about where we’re headed.
We’re also going to continue our efforts in neighborhood revitalization. That’s a combination of going into neighborhoods through our Block-by-Block initiative, razing blight, clearing up areas, looking for new development opportunities and hopefully seeing some of that approved. There are a couple of projects that are waiting on state approval from the IEDC. Once that comes through, we’ll be in a position to continue reaching our housing goals.
Another thing that’s recently come up is concerns around high utility rates in our state, particularly in this area. We continue to be an advocate on behalf of the residents in the community. I’ll spend some time as well making those connections and talking with our state legislators and leadership on those issues.
Most of the Evansville news I’ve heard lately has been about CenterPoint Energy bills and ongoing road construction.
Same here. But we’re in constant communication with those folks to try to provide relief and respond to concerns. But also, while responding to concerns that are being raised, still looking ahead and ensuring that there’s growth happening in our city.
There are continued investments in our parks and recreational spaces that we committed to that are underway. We hope we’ll be able to announce where our new fire station will go and break ground on that area before the end of the year.
There are a lot of things on the horizon, and this is an exciting time in this part of Indiana. And even though we have some challenges, we’re still pressing forward, and we’re on the move, is what I said in my State of the City address. And I truly believe that.