Vigo Commissioners hear county housing update from Thrive

Feb. 20—Thrive West Central CEO Ryan Keller provided the Vigo County Commissioners with an update on the Homes for the Future initiative during their meeting Tuesday at the Vigo County Annex.

"We should see a large bump at the 2030 census," Keller predicted. With the number of homes being built or in the planning stages, he foresees 7,515 households migrating to the area throughout the income spectrum.

In the last six months, Thrive has given permission to builders to construct 322 housing units. Seven homes have been completed, while others are awaiting spring weather, perhaps as soon as March, to begin construction.

Of those projects, 104 are multi-family homes in Terre Haute, 42 are townhomes in Terre Haute, 73 are detached single-family homes in Terre Haute, 32 are detached single-family homes elsewhere in Vigo County, 48 are multi-family homes in Clay County and 23 are detached single-family homes in Clay County.

Funding for the homes comes from $854,778 in American Rescue Plan Act funding for the city of Terre Haute, $446,222 in ARPA funding for Vigo County, $487,000 in READI 1.0 funding for Vigo County and $687,000 in READI funding for Clay County. Thrive received $5 million from both the county and the city of Terre Haute to embark on the Homes for the Future program.

Money is distributed through four building programs: for professionals, for small builders, for those focusing on blight and rehabilitation and for nonprofit builders.

That funding has inspired $74,484,916 in private investment. Thrive's goal is to create 3,420 to 4,570 new homes in the next five years.

Commissioner Mike Morris responded to Keller's presentation enthusiastically. "I'm pleased with your success rate," he told him.

After the meeting, Keller spoke of how that success rate has helped expand the Homes for the Future project.

"When we started, we weren't 100% sure where our [goal] was," he said. That's why we did all that research and analysis of our region for our market potential. Prior to our research, our goal was 500 housing units.

"Now that we've seen the research and know that we have a lot more potential, our goal has shifted to where we're going to be between 3,400 and 4,500 by the end of 2029," Keller continued. So we're at 9% of our goal so far in 2024, so in five more years, we'll continue to march forward."

Keller explained the market forces that has helped Homes for the Future come running out of the gate.

"It's a sum of many parts," he said. "One is having Thrive be that regional housing optimizer, and how we're structured in the work we do within the community aligns very well with this line of work."

Keller continued, "The second is just having really great, willing partners in the community to help us with this, from the county councils to the commissioners to the mayor and anybody in between there on a governmental level."

He concluded, "And the private-sector community, the builder community, the lender community — all of them seeing value in that kind of work and trusting the data. It's made this a remarkably successful program that we think will continue for decades."

David Kronke can be reached at 812-231-4232 or at david.kronke@tribstar.com.