WEBVTT 00:00:00.386 --> 00:00:08.035 - Hello, Monroe County. Hello, yes, I love that you're talking back to me already. That is wonderful. 00:00:08.035 --> 00:00:15.685 - I am glad that you are here. My name is Raph Kornford. I am a community organizer. And not too long 00:00:15.685 --> 00:00:23.411 - ago, I was not a community organizer. I was an ABA provider. That meant I was working with kids with 00:00:23.411 --> 00:00:30.142 - disabilities, and I loved that work. And I was able to do that work for like six years. 00:00:30.754 --> 00:00:38.901 - I was out of my Bloomington bubble. I was in Lawrence County. I was in Morgan County. I was with people, 00:00:38.901 --> 00:00:46.659 - with people I wouldn't have met under other circumstances. And I loved the work that I was doing. I 00:00:46.659 --> 00:00:54.418 - loved being with those people. And as Medicaid came under attack from our state, it became more and 00:00:54.418 --> 00:00:55.582 - more difficult 00:00:55.874 --> 00:01:03.035 - to get an authorization, which is like the six-month kind of contract that you have with Medicaid to 00:01:03.035 --> 00:01:10.195 - work with a family, it became more and more difficult to get that in place and to work with the kids 00:01:10.195 --> 00:01:17.214 - that I was working with that I felt called to work with. And in response to that, I gave of myself 00:01:17.346 --> 00:01:25.691 - more and more and more and I would work without pay and I would work extra hours and I ended up towards 00:01:25.691 --> 00:01:34.116 - the very end of my business working for three months without pay just to get kids situated if I possibly 00:01:34.116 --> 00:01:42.942 - could and in all of that work I did not change the circumstances around me and it was hard for me it was hard 00:01:43.234 --> 00:02:00.926 - for my marriage. It was a very, very difficult time. And in that, I learned... Sorry. It's back. 00:02:02.146 --> 00:02:10.776 - In that, I learned I had to do something else. I had to turn towards community. I had to start looking 00:02:10.776 --> 00:02:19.154 - to do more than just serve, to do more than just give and give and give of myself, because each one 00:02:19.154 --> 00:02:27.701 - of us is finite by ourselves. And that's what brought me here. Hi. My name is Lindsay O'Neill, and if 00:02:27.701 --> 00:02:31.806 - four years ago you told me that I would be here, 00:02:32.194 --> 00:02:40.357 - doing this on purpose, I would not believe you. That's when I first came to Bloomington, a city I had 00:02:40.357 --> 00:02:48.361 - never heard of in a state that I seldom visited. Despite how new I was, within a few months I found 00:02:48.361 --> 00:02:56.364 - myself frantically loading up my car in the middle of the night to escape domestic violence. Sorry, 00:02:56.364 --> 00:03:01.566 - can we hear? Should I repeat? Yes. I wouldn't have believed you. 00:03:01.986 --> 00:03:09.011 - That was when I first came to Bloomington, a city I never knew existed and a state I seldom visited. 00:03:09.011 --> 00:03:16.176 - Despite how new I was, within a few months, I found myself frantically loading up my car in the middle 00:03:16.176 --> 00:03:23.201 - of the night to escape domestic violence. My kids and I were alone. We had no family, no friends, no 00:03:23.201 --> 00:03:23.966 - community. 00:03:28.514 --> 00:03:35.474 - I was adrift and noticed a pattern of feeling as if I am an observer to my own tragedy. Experiences 00:03:35.474 --> 00:03:42.851 - of repeated uncontrollable stress or failure results in the brain responding on a chemical level, leading 00:03:42.851 --> 00:03:49.811 - someone to believe and physically operate as if they are unable to influence, escape, and overcome. 00:03:49.811 --> 00:03:55.518 - This process I've come to understand is also referred to as learned helplessness. 00:03:56.546 --> 00:04:04.287 - Dependency prevails as escape and agency dissolve. And abuse. Isolation is no accident. It is a requirement. 00:04:04.287 --> 00:04:11.390 - But I was not ready to give up yet. I love my children. I love the joy of life. I love to laugh and 00:04:11.390 --> 00:04:19.060 - to feel. I love to connect. I love. So with love as my intention, I began to build community. For brevity's 00:04:19.060 --> 00:04:25.310 - sake, I'll spare the details of years gone by. But I will say my efforts have paid off. 00:04:25.602 --> 00:04:32.503 - It began by joining Thriving Connections, a program through SCAP. This action led me into my policy 00:04:32.503 --> 00:04:39.818 - fellowship, an accomplishment I'm very proud of. Then, earlier this year, in the middle of my fellowship, 00:04:39.818 --> 00:04:47.134 - I was introduced to Hoosier Action at the State House. Now, I'm here. With the housing team, I've planned 00:04:47.134 --> 00:04:54.035 - meetings with county-level power people, excuse me, helped design events for tenants and more. I've 00:04:54.035 --> 00:04:55.070 - knocked doors. 00:04:55.170 --> 00:05:02.598 - and talk to so many people, collecting stories about what's troubling renters in Monroe County. Through 00:05:02.598 --> 00:05:09.954 - this work, I've noticed suffering, leading to isolation and resignation as a collective. This is where 00:05:09.954 --> 00:05:17.310 - I feel my perspective becomes valuable to the solution. We have a duty to question those who encourage 00:05:17.310 --> 00:05:22.238 - division and we must reject it completely. We can influence systems. 00:05:23.106 --> 00:05:30.584 - escape neglect and cruelty, and overcome resignation. This scale of suffering is not normal. It is a 00:05:30.584 --> 00:05:38.358 - predictable outcome to a society shaped by dollars, not hands. It's time to bring form to a civilization 00:05:38.358 --> 00:05:46.057 - shaped for us by us. Let's use our time tonight to start that and let us not be daunted by the enormity 00:05:46.057 --> 00:05:51.166 - of the task, but instead embrace the spirit of adventure. Thank you. 00:05:59.010 --> 00:06:08.755 - Lindsay had mentioned talking to people. I want to put some numbers on that. I've knocked about 1,000 00:06:08.755 --> 00:06:18.691 - doors in our county. I've spoken to probably about 300, 350 people. And our team has knocked altogether 00:06:18.691 --> 00:06:26.238 - like 6,500 doors and had well over 1,000 conversations, filled out 750 surveys 00:06:26.434 --> 00:06:34.333 - heard from hundreds of renters about what it's like to rent here in our community. We have been out 00:06:34.333 --> 00:06:42.390 - there talking to people and hearing about what's going on. So now I want to ask you and I want you to 00:06:42.390 --> 00:06:50.526 - be loud. What issue brought you in the door? Are you here because health care has become too difficult 00:06:50.526 --> 00:06:53.054 - to access and is too expensive? 00:06:55.362 --> 00:07:05.164 - Yeah, yeah, some of you are. Was that everyone? Do we want to do like one more? Who's here for health 00:07:05.164 --> 00:07:14.870 - care? All right. I want to know if you are here because housing isn't safe, it's not affordable, and 00:07:14.870 --> 00:07:22.174 - it's difficult to live where you live. Are you here for housing? All right. 00:07:22.658 --> 00:07:30.607 - And finally, this overarching problem, everything is way too expensive. Are you here because it is just 00:07:30.607 --> 00:07:38.404 - too expensive to live any way you want to slice it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These are serious problems, and 00:07:38.404 --> 00:07:45.054 - we are facing them. And we are, who's your action? We are a community organizing group 00:07:45.186 --> 00:07:53.374 - based in New Albany with chapters in the Ohio River Valley, in Bartholomew County and Columbus, here 00:07:53.374 --> 00:08:01.643 - in Monroe County with members in Owen County, in Morgan County, in Lawrence County. And we are trying 00:08:01.643 --> 00:08:09.831 - to make a difference in our own lives. That's what this is about. That is who we are. And when we do 00:08:09.831 --> 00:08:12.830 - that, we are building an independent 00:08:12.994 --> 00:08:24.987 - politics that is nonpartisan. It's not about a party. It's about what we need and working together to 00:08:24.987 --> 00:08:37.216 - get what we need. And we are defining that. That's what this is. I will keep this short. Tonight I will 00:08:37.216 --> 00:08:41.566 - ask you to listen with an open mind. 00:08:41.954 --> 00:08:51.602 - Lead with curiosity and model respect. No booing, hissing, or other disturbing or distracting behaviors 00:08:51.602 --> 00:09:01.527 - will be tolerated. This is a non-partisan space. Working together may take effort or may even feel strange 00:09:01.527 --> 00:09:09.598 - at first, but it is essential for our survival. Yeah. There's been a lot of talk about 00:09:10.146 --> 00:09:19.454 - mattering and I want to hear you declare loudly. I want to hear you say I matter. I want to hear you 00:09:19.454 --> 00:09:28.670 - say we matter. I want you to turn to somebody that you know or don't know and tell them you matter. 00:09:36.098 --> 00:09:41.587 - There's going to be a lot happening at tables. I'm going to run over to the table that I'm going to 00:09:41.587 --> 00:09:47.351 - be at, and I'm going to spend about four or five minutes getting to know the people who are at my table. 00:09:47.351 --> 00:09:52.895 - And I want everyone to do the same thing. I want you to introduce yourself to the people that are at 00:09:52.895 --> 00:09:58.494 - that table. Say where you're from, how long you've been here, if you can mention what brought you in, 00:09:58.494 --> 00:10:03.983 - what you're dealing with, what's happening right now. We'll keep coming back to this, but this is a 00:10:03.983 --> 00:10:05.246 - great time to do that. 00:10:05.634 --> 00:10:12.427 - So go ahead and spend four or five minutes doing that right now. I'm going to call you back into the 00:10:12.427 --> 00:10:19.287 - room. Yeah. Hi. I hope you had a nice time getting introduced to one another. It feels nice to see so 00:10:19.287 --> 00:10:26.013 - many faces, so many tables that are filled. I'm going to do something I don't normally do, which is 00:10:26.013 --> 00:10:33.008 - I'm going to work off my phone. We had printer problems, and I'm working on having to make use of this. 00:10:33.008 --> 00:10:34.622 - So please bear with me. 00:10:35.042 --> 00:10:42.836 - I'm really happy to be standing here though. So I am, that's why I hate phones, right there. I should 00:10:42.836 --> 00:10:50.553 - do interference all the time. So I'm George Ann, and I'm a founding member of Who's Your Action, and 00:10:50.553 --> 00:10:58.194 - I come into this work having spent most of my adult working life supporting and being with families 00:10:58.194 --> 00:11:03.390 - as they had babies. I'm a retired birth doula, childbirth educator, 00:11:03.650 --> 00:11:11.079 - I used to run an organization in town called Bloomington Area Birth Services so people knew as Babs. 00:11:11.079 --> 00:11:18.508 - Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I felt like it was a really special thing to be able 00:11:18.508 --> 00:11:25.938 - to walk that path with people. But can I tell you, it was so painful so often that we worked so hard 00:11:25.938 --> 00:11:32.190 - to give people good experiences, we really built a community, and then life is life. 00:11:33.218 --> 00:11:39.551 - and it got hard and kids grew up and things got difficult and people struggled and much happened. My 00:11:39.551 --> 00:11:45.884 - own life changed a lot. I am a caregiver for a sister who lives far away who has dementia. I've gone 00:11:45.884 --> 00:11:52.154 - through other people with dementia in my life. Life is too stinking hard and it feels to me all the 00:11:52.154 --> 00:11:58.236 - time like every single bit of my life is monetized for somebody else. It's not monetized for me. 00:11:58.236 --> 00:12:02.750 - I know that. And so that's why I'm standing in front of you to do this. 00:12:02.946 --> 00:12:11.020 - Amazing thing with you, Dan. My name is Dan Caldwell. I'm a pastor of a small church in town called 00:12:11.020 --> 00:12:19.255 - Sacred Heart. And I'm also the volunteer coordinator and a leadership team member for the Bloomington 00:12:19.255 --> 00:12:27.812 - Severe Winter Emergency Shelter, which provides shelter to up to 35 unhoused guests on the coldest nights 00:12:27.812 --> 00:12:28.862 - of the year. 00:12:29.026 --> 00:12:35.928 - And I have close family members, which I'm going to share about here in a bit, who have experienced 00:12:35.928 --> 00:12:42.900 - housing insecurity. And I've seen firsthand the trauma that it causes. I've been a Who's Your Action 00:12:42.900 --> 00:12:49.871 - member now and a member of the Monroe County Safe Housing Committee since this past spring. And this 00:12:49.871 --> 00:12:56.911 - work that we've been doing brings to mind, for me, the words of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who 00:12:56.911 --> 00:12:58.430 - was an anti-apartheid 00:12:58.658 --> 00:13:06.442 - leader in South Africa. He said, there comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of 00:13:06.442 --> 00:13:14.074 - the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in. And for me, that's what this 00:13:14.074 --> 00:13:21.782 - work is about. We have to build a world where no one is being pushed in the river and left to drown. 00:13:21.782 --> 00:13:26.590 - So thank you all for showing up and being a part of that work. 00:13:27.202 --> 00:13:35.043 - of building the world that we need, a world where everyone has access to safe and affordable, comfortable 00:13:35.043 --> 00:13:42.736 - housing, where everyone has access to good quality, affordable care, where everyone has the opportunity 00:13:42.736 --> 00:13:50.280 - to live a life of dignity and purpose. So now George Ann is going to walk us through the next portion 00:13:50.280 --> 00:13:55.902 - of the evening and how this part's going to work. So yes, absolutely. Yeah. 00:13:56.450 --> 00:14:03.031 - So part of why we're in the room together is to be able to share at our tables, and we will also have 00:14:03.031 --> 00:14:09.031 - some storytellers who will share with the room, what our, how to say this, our private pain, 00:14:09.031 --> 00:14:15.354 - how to tell, we're gonna tell public stories of our private pain. You'll tell it with each other. 00:14:15.354 --> 00:14:21.805 - Like I said, we have storytellers that are going to be in front of the room. We're naming injustice 00:14:21.805 --> 00:14:23.870 - and the realities of our lives. 00:14:24.450 --> 00:14:31.048 - In organizing, we often talk about standing at the corner of the world as it is and the world as it 00:14:31.048 --> 00:14:37.976 - should be. So part of what we're doing is holding the tension between those two things, naming the world 00:14:37.976 --> 00:14:44.706 - as it is, and then we have invited a set of elected officials and candidates who want to take on some 00:14:44.706 --> 00:14:51.304 - leadership and responsibilities together with us, we hope, who are a part of making the world as it 00:14:51.304 --> 00:14:52.030 - should be. 00:14:52.258 --> 00:14:57.840 - That's the request we're going to be putting in front of them. Sorry, I move around a lot. My apologies. 00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:03.582 - We're going to call ourselves into leadership. Leadership means taking responsibility. It means showing up. 00:15:03.746 --> 00:15:10.201 - It means calling other people in with you. And then we're also calling those people who have said publicly 00:15:10.201 --> 00:15:16.295 - that they want to be our leaders, our collective leaders, also to take responsibility with us and be 00:15:16.295 --> 00:15:22.750 - accountable, help steward our world into a better place, and really help us build community on the ground. 00:15:23.042 --> 00:15:30.069 - Not everyone gets to speak. I am so sorry I wish we could open mic and let like just be here all night 00:15:30.069 --> 00:15:37.096 - and have a slumber party and it'd be awesome But I'm afraid that's not practical and I the floor looks 00:15:37.096 --> 00:15:44.124 - really hard. So We do have the possibility for you at the tables with the table leads for them to have 00:15:44.124 --> 00:15:47.262 - hand you paper and places to share written or 00:15:47.458 --> 00:15:55.078 - versions of your story or if you just want to take notes for yourself, that is going to be made available 00:15:55.078 --> 00:16:02.554 - to you if it hasn't been already. And yeah, let me see. Next I need to say something. We ask that those 00:16:02.554 --> 00:16:09.814 - that are in office or running for office, that you respect the nonpartisan nature of our space, that 00:16:09.814 --> 00:16:14.846 - you be here to listen and to learn, not to campaign, not to wonky out 00:16:15.138 --> 00:16:22.117 - Though, I mean, I'm happy to do that somewhere else with you. Nothing's better than some good policy 00:16:22.117 --> 00:16:29.097 - talk, right? But really, that's not kind of the space right now. Let's see. OK, I think that's maybe 00:16:29.097 --> 00:16:36.007 - it. I'm just going to remind you, you're an expert on your own life. And that's the expertise we're 00:16:36.007 --> 00:16:40.222 - asking you to bring in. And please, electeds and candidates, 00:16:40.514 --> 00:16:53.189 - Be your human selves as well. Feel free to share stories as needed. And I'm actually going to hand it 00:16:53.189 --> 00:17:06.486 - over to Dan for the first story. All right. Yeah. So I've never personally experienced housing insecurity. 00:17:06.486 --> 00:17:08.350 - But all right. 00:17:08.834 --> 00:17:17.631 - Somebody here had a shirt on about crying. Who was that? I need that shirt. So anyways, I'm sorry. So 00:17:17.631 --> 00:17:26.774 - about 10 years ago, my family's life changed radically. We got involved in a program called Safe Families 00:17:26.774 --> 00:17:35.657 - for Children, which is, I always describe it as being short-term, parent-initiated foster care. So the 00:17:35.657 --> 00:17:36.606 - idea being 00:17:36.738 --> 00:17:46.093 - to try and keep kids out of the foster care system if at all possible. And so yeah, 10 years ago we 00:17:46.093 --> 00:17:55.916 - had a little four-year-old come and stay with us for eight weeks. He's now my 14-year-old son. And yeah, 00:17:55.916 --> 00:18:04.990 - so he and his at the time six-year-old sister, who's now my 16-year-old daughter, and their mom, 00:18:05.154 --> 00:18:15.758 - were living at the old, it's not even there anymore, the old Motel 6, I guess it is, it was on the north 00:18:15.758 --> 00:18:26.159 - side of town, because they had been evicted. And so we did our best to try and help them stay together 00:18:26.159 --> 00:18:29.694 - and got them into housing. But the 00:18:30.466 --> 00:18:37.956 - The hand, and this is kind of the theme, I think, of my story here that I want to share is that the 00:18:37.956 --> 00:18:45.745 - hand that was dealt to their biological mom was a really awful hand that she was dealt. And in the end, 00:18:45.745 --> 00:18:53.459 - DCS got involved. She texted us to say, hey, could you take my children? And we said, sure, of course. 00:18:53.459 --> 00:19:00.350 - And then two years later, we ended up adopting them. But even after 10 years of living in a 00:19:00.482 --> 00:19:08.489 - in a place where they had stable housing and with a stable family and with plenty of food in the fridge, 00:19:08.489 --> 00:19:16.344 - were still every day working through the trauma of that housing insecurity from the beginning of their 00:19:16.344 --> 00:19:24.046 - life. And I've seen this over and over again in my work with our guests at the shelter as well, that 00:19:24.046 --> 00:19:28.926 - it's not that they made bad choices, that they became homeless. 00:19:29.154 --> 00:19:36.155 - over and over and over again, I hear their stories and I go, if I had that, if I was dealt that same 00:19:36.155 --> 00:19:43.087 - hand, I wouldn't be doing any better. And so what we're seeing, I think even cuts across like class 00:19:43.087 --> 00:19:50.366 - and race and kind of every dividing line is that the choices that are available to us are getting worse, 00:19:50.366 --> 00:19:51.198 - not better. 00:19:51.298 --> 00:19:58.761 - And for people on the very bottom, it's often awful. But even, like, I think middle class folks are 00:19:58.761 --> 00:20:06.597 - looking at things and saying, I don't have the choices available to me that I should have. And so, yeah, 00:20:06.597 --> 00:20:14.433 - kind of like I was saying earlier, that we are here so that we can build a better world so that everyone 00:20:14.433 --> 00:20:19.358 - has choices that allow them to live lives of dignity and purpose. 00:20:19.650 --> 00:20:32.034 - That's my story. Thanks for listening. So when I listen to Dan, part of what I think about is all of 00:20:32.034 --> 00:20:42.334 - the barriers there are to buying a home, the ways that housing prices have changed, 00:20:42.754 --> 00:20:52.545 - The way that I now spend a lot of time, I bet you do too, trying to figure out phone menus. And if I 00:20:52.545 --> 00:21:02.530 - could slap AI out of my phone, I would do it, right? Because I can't, just stop. Just stop, right? And 00:21:02.530 --> 00:21:12.030 - all of that is eating time. We're all paying a time tax. Do these things resonate with you? Yeah. 00:21:12.194 --> 00:21:19.277 - Okay, so I'm gonna, we're gonna turn you loose to have some discussion at your table so you can dig 00:21:19.277 --> 00:21:26.430 - into this a little bit more. You'll have about five minutes and we'll give you a one minute warning, 00:21:26.430 --> 00:21:34.008 - okay? Okay, we're gonna, if we could wrap up our conversations, we're gonna bring up our next storyteller. 00:21:34.008 --> 00:21:37.054 - Lindsay, are you ready to tell your story? 00:21:45.058 --> 00:21:54.892 - if I could have everybody's attention up front again. We're going to hear from Lindsay. Give it up for 00:21:54.892 --> 00:22:05.108 - Lindsay. Hi, everyone. Me again. I'm going to take us back to when I was 12 years old, and I was diagnosed 00:22:05.108 --> 00:22:14.942 - with an autoimmune disease that I will have forever. So I have to take medication. Hello? Can we hear? 00:22:15.042 --> 00:22:22.895 - Yes, sorry. Hello. Hi. Back when I was 12, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. And this means 00:22:22.895 --> 00:22:31.288 - that I will take medication every single day for the rest of my life. This medication allows me to function. 00:22:31.288 --> 00:22:38.987 - It makes me as comfortable as possible. And also, it actually keeps me alive. It would be kind of a 00:22:38.987 --> 00:22:43.838 - bummer if all of those things failed, especially the last one. 00:22:44.482 --> 00:22:52.583 - I'm a Medicaid enrollee, and I am feeling really afraid. Knowing how many people are being kicked off 00:22:52.583 --> 00:23:00.843 - of Medicaid, knowing how the FSSA does not do documentation well, they will send you random papers that 00:23:00.843 --> 00:23:08.785 - were supposed to be sent three weeks ago telling you that you have lost your SNAP, you've lost your 00:23:08.785 --> 00:23:11.326 - Medicaid, you've lost whatever. 00:23:12.866 --> 00:23:19.557 - I'm afraid to put my life in their hands, and that's exactly what's happening. And it's becoming more 00:23:19.557 --> 00:23:26.379 - and more hostile. And this is not my fault. I have had this disease for almost 20 years, and hopefully, 00:23:26.379 --> 00:23:33.136 - hopefully I'll have this disease for many more, because that means I'm alive. My question to everyone, 00:23:33.136 --> 00:23:39.892 - if you know anybody who is a Medicaid enrollee, or even anyone at all, because we all have bodies that 00:23:39.892 --> 00:23:41.598 - need to be taken care of, 00:23:42.530 --> 00:23:49.537 - What would happen if you cannot access your health care? What would happen if you could not 00:23:49.537 --> 00:23:57.611 - access medication? What would happen if you could not buy your child an EpiPen because it is $500? That's 00:23:57.611 --> 00:24:02.942 - not their problem. What would happen? I know what would happen to me. 00:24:16.930 --> 00:24:25.771 - I just want to ask a cup for a show of hands. Does anyone in here feel vulnerable in their health care 00:24:25.771 --> 00:24:34.527 - situation, either because of access, cost? Yeah, for real. I don't know about you, but I have a body. 00:24:34.527 --> 00:24:38.046 - You have a body. And anyone with a body? 00:24:38.242 --> 00:24:45.353 - That's how it rolls, right? And it's wrong. It is wrong. So please, at your tables now, five minutes 00:24:45.353 --> 00:24:52.676 - for discussion, continuing what you were talking about before, diving into health care issues, whatever 00:24:52.676 --> 00:24:59.646 - sounds right to you in this moment at your little village of a table. So yeah, go for it. So I had 00:25:01.666 --> 00:25:10.394 - I think I first met Mitch and Raff, who was up here earlier last spring at the Heading Home Housing 00:25:10.394 --> 00:25:19.994 - Summit at the Convention Center in Bloomington. I was there representing the shelter, where I am a leadership 00:25:19.994 --> 00:25:28.460 - team member. And while I was there, it really was impressed upon me that issues of habitability, 00:25:28.460 --> 00:25:31.166 - eviction law, tenants' rights, 00:25:31.778 --> 00:25:39.333 - homelessness, that these are not separate individual issues, but they're all interconnected. And so 00:25:39.333 --> 00:25:46.964 - to use that analogy from Desmond Tutu that I used earlier, I felt like in my shelter work that I was 00:25:46.964 --> 00:25:54.747 - pulling, drowning people out of the river. And then when I met Mitch and Raf, I felt like, okay, these 00:25:54.747 --> 00:25:59.582 - are people that are doing some of that important upstream work. 00:26:00.002 --> 00:26:07.372 - that justice work of trying to improve the conditions so people stop getting pushed into the river. 00:26:07.372 --> 00:26:14.742 - And they invited me into this work, and I'm so grateful they did. And so I know you're going to get 00:26:14.742 --> 00:26:22.333 - a lot out of Mitch's story. So I'm going to turn it over to him now. This is Mitch. Thank you. My name 00:26:22.333 --> 00:26:27.934 - is Mitch Carpenter. I'm a co-founding member of Monroe County Safe Housing. 00:26:28.098 --> 00:26:34.361 - A year ago, I didn't know I'd be doing that. But back in February, a tree fell on my roof. And the way 00:26:34.361 --> 00:26:40.502 - I found out about that was I went to a movie with my dad up in Indy. And when I got out, I turned on 00:26:40.502 --> 00:26:46.826 - my phone. And all of a sudden, my phone just started blowing up. People were like, are you OK? You were 00:26:46.826 --> 00:26:52.967 - right there near what was a tornado that went through the west side of town over there near the Otis 00:26:52.967 --> 00:26:54.974 - plant, where the Otis plant was. 00:26:55.778 --> 00:27:01.094 - I walked out and said goodbye to my dad, who I watched the movie with. And I was like, what's going 00:27:01.094 --> 00:27:06.462 - on? Because there wasn't really a big storm up there. There was just a little rain on the ground and 00:27:06.462 --> 00:27:11.778 - stuff. And I looked on there, and my mom, who's right there, had sent me a photo of a tree that was 00:27:11.778 --> 00:27:17.253 - on our roof. And I was like, oh my god, how bad is it? And I had the whole drive home to kind of think 00:27:17.253 --> 00:27:22.568 - about it and talk with her and hear that it could have been worse, but nothing was crazy. There was 00:27:22.568 --> 00:27:25.598 - no damage coming straight through the house or anything. 00:27:25.986 --> 00:27:33.467 - But it turns out that meant that my property manager could just sort of sit there and not do anything 00:27:33.467 --> 00:27:41.021 - about it. He worked within the law and just didn't do anything for six weeks. It stayed up on my roof. 00:27:41.021 --> 00:27:48.869 - And so in that time, water came in, but it didn't come in in the exact right way to mean that the building 00:27:48.869 --> 00:27:54.590 - department could do anything about it. It just came in my daughter's ceiling. 00:27:55.074 --> 00:28:02.377 - broke in there and dripped down on her Barbie dream house. And yeah, which Santa got for her. Anyway, 00:28:02.377 --> 00:28:09.609 - I saw him the next day, and he did what he normally did. My property manager, that is Tim, he ducked 00:28:09.609 --> 00:28:16.913 - out. I pulled in the driveway, or I pulled in the parking lot, and I thought, good, there he is. I'll 00:28:16.913 --> 00:28:24.574 - go talk to him. And as soon as I got out of my car, I looked over. He ran to his car and got out of there. 00:28:25.154 --> 00:28:31.846 - The people that love me, the people I know that are my friends and everything, they reached out to me 00:28:31.846 --> 00:28:38.407 - right away. As soon as I was in the movie, I was hearing from them and he couldn't even talk to me. 00:28:38.407 --> 00:28:45.099 - And he continued that way for six weeks and just waited and waited for someone to do maybe the lowest 00:28:45.099 --> 00:28:51.857 - bid possible, which is what he is supposed to do, I guess, right? He's supposed to make more money for 00:28:51.857 --> 00:28:53.694 - the people that pay him and 00:28:53.954 --> 00:29:00.811 - He's not really supposed to look out for us. But you see my daughter with the wavy hair running around 00:29:00.811 --> 00:29:07.202 - here a little bit. I'm supposed to look out for her. And so there were points where I was like, 00:29:07.202 --> 00:29:13.925 - screw it. I'll go get a tarp. I'll go up there. I'll pin the tarp down. I'll put it on there myself. 00:29:13.925 --> 00:29:20.050 - This has to stop. And he told me, if you do that, you'll be evicted. You can't do anything. 00:29:20.050 --> 00:29:22.846 - So your agency, when you have a landlord, 00:29:23.490 --> 00:29:30.818 - is completely taken away from you. They lord over you. And so we have to come together and stop them 00:29:30.818 --> 00:29:38.073 - from doing that. There has to be regulations. There has to be people that we put in power that stop 00:29:38.073 --> 00:29:45.401 - that for us. And I'm glad that you guys are here to hear my story. You know, I've heard hundreds and 00:29:45.401 --> 00:29:50.334 - hundreds of stories as I've gone around knocking on people's doors. 00:29:50.690 --> 00:29:57.000 - Some stories the same as mine with trees that fall on people's roofs and cars and stuff like that. And 00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:03.371 - I want to hear more of these stories. And I want us to get together and fix this and stop this and make 00:30:03.371 --> 00:30:07.966 - sure that landlords and property managers are held accountable. Thank you. 00:30:18.626 --> 00:30:27.676 - Thank you, Mitch. So now we're going to take another five minutes, I think, at tables. And again, if 00:30:27.676 --> 00:30:36.637 - candidates and electeds can move to the next spot on their list. And your table leads will help get 00:30:36.637 --> 00:30:45.150 - that next conversation started. So we'll go ahead and take a few minutes to do that now. Yeah. 00:30:46.978 --> 00:30:56.093 - On the cusp of shifting to a different section right here, so I'm gonna ask you to finish the sentences 00:30:56.093 --> 00:31:04.858 - and get ready to shift gears. We've been turning internally, sharing at the tables, and we're gonna 00:31:04.858 --> 00:31:13.886 - invite Ian and Tracy to come up and to get us started in the next section here. Very excited for this. 00:31:15.714 --> 00:31:23.748 - Thank you so much, Georgianne and Dan and all of our storytellers who came up here. My name is Tracy 00:31:23.748 --> 00:31:31.862 - Hutchings-Getz. I'm Hoosier Action's health justice organizer. And I'm really proud and excited to be 00:31:31.862 --> 00:31:40.293 - standing up here because I know what it's like to have to deal with not being able to fill a prescription 00:31:40.293 --> 00:31:44.350 - because I'm afraid of how much it's going to cost. 00:31:44.802 --> 00:31:56.769 - putting off seeing a doctor, and I'm pretty sick and tired of it. Yeah. I know what it is like to think 00:31:56.769 --> 00:32:08.390 - that everything is my fault and to sit in the shame of that when things are hard. And what I know is 00:32:08.390 --> 00:32:09.886 - the only way 00:32:10.658 --> 00:32:18.262 - to get out of that shame and to move into actually fixing stuff is by coming together with other people. 00:32:18.262 --> 00:32:25.503 - Because what y'all heard at the tables and what we heard in front of the room and what I have heard 00:32:25.503 --> 00:32:32.745 - on hundreds of doors is things are harder than they should be right now. Yeah. How was that hearing 00:32:32.745 --> 00:32:40.638 - from other folks at the tables? Good, great. That's interesting. OK, anyone want to throw anything else out? 00:32:43.810 --> 00:32:54.906 - No. Yeah. Bad. Yeah. We don't do this enough. Yeah. Joe said not feeling like you're alone. Yeah. How 00:32:54.906 --> 00:33:07.198 - many of y'all have felt alone recently in what you're going through? Yeah. I think it's a pretty common feeling. 00:33:07.714 --> 00:33:15.011 - So as we kind of shift gears tonight a little bit into relating to some of the elected officials and 00:33:15.011 --> 00:33:22.307 - candidates who are in the room, the thing that I want to communicate to all of y'all is you can keep 00:33:22.307 --> 00:33:29.748 - doing this. Whether it's with Hoosier Action or on your own, like we are too divided right now. We are 00:33:29.748 --> 00:33:37.406 - too isolated and we don't talk enough about what is going on in our lives, what is hard and what we need. 00:33:38.914 --> 00:33:45.580 - And that silence and that isolation and that sitting in shame, that is what keeps us stuck and keeps 00:33:45.580 --> 00:33:52.379 - us thinking that it is all on us alone. When in fact, I actually know when I live here, because we are 00:33:52.379 --> 00:33:59.177 - a community and it is on us together. And when I know that people are struggling in my community, when 00:33:59.177 --> 00:34:06.042 - I know that they're delaying health care and they're going to end up in the emergency room because they 00:34:06.042 --> 00:34:08.286 - don't have a primary care doctor, 00:34:08.674 --> 00:34:19.324 - And then I'm going to have to wait longer in the emergency room if I get into a car accident. We are 00:34:19.324 --> 00:34:26.494 - all connected here. And our only way out of this is together. Yeah. 00:34:26.594 --> 00:34:33.959 - In a moment, I'm going to have Ian introduce himself, who's co-leading this section with me. And what 00:34:33.959 --> 00:34:41.252 - I would like to do is invite our elected officials and candidates to make their way up front so that 00:34:41.252 --> 00:34:48.617 - we can have some rapid-fire introductions together. And I'll invite you all up on the stage while Ian 00:34:48.617 --> 00:34:55.838 - introduces himself and explains a little bit about what we're going to be doing together. Hi, guys. 00:34:56.034 --> 00:35:05.556 - Glad to be here and slightly nervous to be here as well. My name is Ian and I am on the door knocking 00:35:05.556 --> 00:35:15.452 - team with Hoosier Action. Thanks. Thank you, thank you. I remember, so Mitch's story, that's not actually 00:35:15.452 --> 00:35:25.534 - that unusual. So I just thought of something that happened like last year where my property manager sent in 00:35:25.698 --> 00:35:33.414 - Okay, I was getting home, actually, and I was gonna use the bathroom, and I discover that there's been 00:35:33.414 --> 00:35:41.055 - people in my house, and they sent maintenance to my house, and they tore out the entire bathroom, and 00:35:41.055 --> 00:35:48.697 - they just left. This actually happened, and we didn't have a bathroom for a week. So, you can imagine 00:35:48.697 --> 00:35:53.566 - all... Anyway, this is not... So, I looked into what we could be 00:35:53.858 --> 00:35:59.867 - we could get back in return and basically nothing. We could have sued them for like 150 bucks or something. 00:35:59.867 --> 00:36:05.431 - And so this stuff happens more than just, in Mitch's case, I mean, is far worse than mine, but I do 00:36:05.431 --> 00:36:10.995 - think this stuff is actually pretty widespread. And you know, like knocking on doors, like before I 00:36:10.995 --> 00:36:16.559 - started doing this, I would have told you, like to be honest, that I'm not a political person, that 00:36:16.559 --> 00:36:22.846 - politics really isn't for me. I thought it was something that people talk about, have a bunch of opinions about, 00:36:23.298 --> 00:36:29.622 - and all that stuff was really abstract, and I don't know enough, and so on. But I've learned, talking 00:36:29.622 --> 00:36:36.379 - to hundreds of people, knocking on doors, that actually, you know, there's a way of thinking about politics, 00:36:36.379 --> 00:36:42.579 - and to be honest, a lot of people on the doors that have a lot better ideas about what's wrong than 00:36:42.579 --> 00:36:48.964 - the people often that they see on media and so on. So I've learned that politics is actually something 00:36:48.964 --> 00:36:51.134 - that can be about practical stuff. 00:36:51.522 --> 00:36:59.336 - And we share more of that stuff than you guys or that I thought we would. I'm here right now with you 00:36:59.336 --> 00:37:07.226 - all to get us all the things we need. So I wanna, as you all just heard from each other, and that I've 00:37:07.226 --> 00:37:14.963 - heard knocking on doors of people that things are pretty dire right now. It's getting harder just to 00:37:14.963 --> 00:37:20.862 - live. We talked about housing costs going up, cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. 00:37:20.962 --> 00:37:28.159 - making sure it's go up for everyone. Hospitals are closing. I just heard from my table someone talking 00:37:28.159 --> 00:37:35.147 - about elderly care. A lot of those facilities are closing these days, too. And it's going to affect 00:37:35.147 --> 00:37:42.414 - all of us. It's getting clearer and clearer to me that we are in a crisis and we've got to do something 00:37:42.414 --> 00:37:49.751 - about this. How many of you, show of hands, have either experienced or heard someone at your table who's 00:37:49.751 --> 00:37:50.590 - experienced 00:37:50.754 --> 00:37:57.391 - the system letting you down, show of hands. Yeah, yeah, no, everyone. We're facing a lot of problems. 00:37:57.391 --> 00:38:04.222 - And it's easy right now to be cynical about politics because everything is focused at the national level 00:38:04.222 --> 00:38:10.469 - when you look at the news. And that's so far out of our reach, even when that stuff affects us. 00:38:10.469 --> 00:38:17.040 - And meanwhile, for us, for regular people, things just keep getting worse. Neither party seems to be 00:38:17.040 --> 00:38:19.838 - fighting for regular people. But politics, 00:38:20.066 --> 00:38:25.775 - Another way of thinking about it that I've been thinking through these days is it's about figuring out 00:38:25.775 --> 00:38:31.040 - how to use our shared resources. And recently, none of those shared resources are going to us. 00:38:31.040 --> 00:38:36.638 - What's more, though, you'd be surprised, like I was saying earlier, how many people, if you just ask 00:38:36.638 --> 00:38:42.402 - them what they care about, cares about all the stuff that we do. I mean, just the amount of people here 00:38:42.402 --> 00:38:48.222 - today I think shows that we all care about basically housing costs, health care costs. They're too high. 00:38:49.442 --> 00:38:54.706 - And that's why we're here. That's what we're putting into action right now. We're trying to make that 00:38:54.706 --> 00:38:59.866 - stuff. This is an attempt to make that stuff better for all of us. Now is our chance to demand that 00:38:59.866 --> 00:39:05.336 - our needs are met. We need to build power if we want to get our democracy working again in our interests. 00:39:05.336 --> 00:39:06.110 - Thank you all. 00:39:11.554 --> 00:39:16.921 - Thank you, Ian. And the first way that we do that is by getting in relationship with each other and 00:39:16.921 --> 00:39:22.288 - with the people who are running to represent us or who already represent us, because we have a mix. 00:39:22.288 --> 00:39:27.923 - And first of all, I want to thank all of you all for making it out tonight. I know there were some other 00:39:27.923 --> 00:39:33.397 - folks who wanted to be here and couldn't, but very grateful for this whole slate of elected officials 00:39:33.397 --> 00:39:36.510 - and candidates who we have here. So here's the game plan. 00:39:36.642 --> 00:39:41.982 - A lot of us don't know what different people in local government do. 00:39:42.146 --> 00:39:48.563 - So on your sheets, and I'm going to read out loud, some descriptions of some of the elected officials' 00:39:48.563 --> 00:39:54.917 - roles that we have here. And then all of y'all are going to have one minute. We will keep you to time 00:39:54.917 --> 00:40:01.334 - to introduce yourself and share anything about what this experience has been like for you so far, what 00:40:01.334 --> 00:40:07.751 - you heard at the tables. Because this is first and foremost a people's forum. It is about what's going 00:40:07.751 --> 00:40:12.112 - on in our lives. And we so appreciate all of you being here to listen 00:40:12.112 --> 00:40:19.498 - in to that first and foremost. And we'll have some time afterwards at the very end to mingle. And this 00:40:19.498 --> 00:40:26.670 - is just a beginning. So we're going to start with township trustees. And I'm going to have to trust 00:40:26.670 --> 00:40:34.558 - you all to be passing the mic to one another. And we'll just go down the line. So what is a township trustee? 00:40:35.138 --> 00:40:40.865 - Township trustees are the elected officials closest to the ground. They're maybe my personal favorite. 00:40:40.865 --> 00:40:46.591 - They're kind of special to Indiana. They provide emergency assistance such as food, housing, utilities 00:40:46.591 --> 00:40:52.207 - and medical assistance. Township trustees are also responsible for ensuring reliable fire protection 00:40:52.207 --> 00:40:57.822 - and emergency ambulance services, as well as overseeing township records, properties and cemeteries. 00:40:57.954 --> 00:41:07.444 - So I'd now like to invite the Township Trustee candidates and currently sitting Township Trustees to 00:41:07.444 --> 00:41:17.027 - respond to what they heard tonight and introduce themselves in one minute. Hello, I'm Ron Hudson. I'm 00:41:17.027 --> 00:41:27.550 - the Trustee of Beam Boston Township, which is the northern section of Monroe County. I heard a lot at my table. 00:41:27.714 --> 00:41:38.789 - But it's mostly health care. Most of those girls are having trouble with their health care, finding 00:41:38.789 --> 00:41:49.976 - health care for their kids. And I can understand. I'm on Medicare. And my premiums are horrible. But 00:41:49.976 --> 00:41:56.510 - I don't make that much money as a township trustee either. 00:41:57.794 --> 00:42:08.839 - Actually, my wife makes more money than I do in two jobs. But that's what I heard from them. But I just 00:42:08.839 --> 00:42:19.565 - came from uptown at the Planning Commission meeting. And they were hearing the same stuff there from 00:42:19.565 --> 00:42:27.742 - some of the people speaking to them. Housing costs are exorbitant right now. 00:42:29.602 --> 00:42:40.905 - My costs for assistance on housing have gone up threefold in the last two years. At one time, it was 00:42:40.905 --> 00:42:52.655 - easy for me to help somebody with their rent. Rent was $300 maybe. But now it's closer to $1,000, closer 00:42:52.655 --> 00:42:53.886 - to $1,500. 00:43:02.914 --> 00:43:10.902 - Hello, my name is Susan Luther. I'm a candidate for Clear Creek Township Trustee, which is in far south 00:43:10.902 --> 00:43:18.736 - Monroe County. So, it's a very rural area. It has two community centers, one in Smithville and one in 00:43:18.736 --> 00:43:26.570 - Harrodsburg, but both very small communities. What I heard today at the tables was resonating with me 00:43:26.570 --> 00:43:30.334 - because it's happening out there, it's happening 00:43:30.530 --> 00:43:42.654 - I would be surprised 00:43:43.074 --> 00:43:49.975 - food stamps, I'm not sure exactly what it's called today, TANF maybe, and they get kicked off on a regular 00:43:49.975 --> 00:43:56.617 - basis, and then you try to submit your documentation to the state. They conveniently never receive it, 00:43:56.617 --> 00:44:03.518 - or they received it one day, and then two hours later they've lost it again, and then you have to resubmit 00:44:03.518 --> 00:44:07.710 - it, and then you have, it just goes, and then they keep you off. 00:44:08.162 --> 00:44:14.015 - when you resubmit it. If it's their fault, you know, it's okay, you're not gonna get it. If it's your 00:44:14.015 --> 00:44:19.753 - fault, it's still, you're not gonna get it. So you just don't get it. It's ridiculous. So anyway, I 00:44:19.753 --> 00:44:22.622 - see a stop out here, so I'll stop and move it on. 00:44:29.058 --> 00:44:36.587 - Hello my name is Susan or Gus Hingle the other Susan not Susan Luther I'm running as a first-time candidate 00:44:36.587 --> 00:44:43.698 - for the Indian Creek Township trustee which is in the southwest corner of Monroe County and if you've 00:44:43.698 --> 00:44:50.878 - never been out there I highly recommend it. We have actually no towns in I mean we have Kirksville and 00:44:51.394 --> 00:44:57.930 - but nothing incorporated. We have Bloomington addresses. Anyway, we have our lovely fire station and 00:44:57.930 --> 00:45:04.531 - we have our community park, which I highly recommend. And one of the things that I'm working on in my 00:45:04.531 --> 00:45:11.002 - township is a walking trail at our park. We have the property to do so because there's nowhere safe 00:45:11.002 --> 00:45:17.668 - to walk out there and we have the property. So build a trail so we can be safe and build community and 00:45:17.668 --> 00:45:20.062 - enjoy ourselves. I also hope to, uh, 00:45:20.546 --> 00:45:31.312 - have transparent office hours and be accessible to the people in my community because it's, I wanna 00:45:31.312 --> 00:45:43.262 - be the place that people come for help. Hi, everyone. Efrat Rosser. I'm the Bloomington Township Trustee in my 00:45:43.746 --> 00:45:52.923 - end of my first term and running for my second term. And I think, you know, I've heard the things that 00:45:52.923 --> 00:46:01.922 - unfortunately I see every day in the office. Usually people are there on their worst day and dealing 00:46:01.922 --> 00:46:06.110 - with landlords that just put a lot of barriers 00:46:06.562 --> 00:46:15.224 - on them. Some landlords are better than others. But, you know, the roof example, I think, was a good 00:46:15.224 --> 00:46:24.057 - one because we've seen that when there have been fires or tornadoes and renters are disproportionately 00:46:24.057 --> 00:46:29.374 - impacted and left out of programs that help homeowners often. 00:46:29.730 --> 00:46:40.266 - The Medicaid changes and the changes to SNAP that are impacting everyone, both in terms of just putting 00:46:40.266 --> 00:46:46.750 - up barriers, I think that's been the theme. I see my stop sign. 00:46:52.898 --> 00:46:59.059 - OK, thank you all. I'm now going to speak a little bit about the two parts of our county government 00:46:59.059 --> 00:47:05.406 - and then give those folks an opportunity to speak. So county government is made up of a county council 00:47:05.406 --> 00:47:11.752 - and a county commission. The county council approves budgets for all county departments and authorizes 00:47:11.752 --> 00:47:18.160 - or denies the spending of public funds. The council sets property tax rates, levies, and approves bonds 00:47:18.160 --> 00:47:19.454 - for money borrowing. 00:47:19.554 --> 00:47:27.180 - The council establishes salaries and benefits for county employees and also authorizes land sales leases 00:47:27.180 --> 00:47:29.214 - and purchases. We have our. 00:47:29.346 --> 00:47:36.230 - you know, lucky here to have multiple county council members as well as a candidate for county commission. 00:47:36.230 --> 00:47:42.986 - The county commissioners oversee property and infrastructure such as jails and county roads. They review 00:47:42.986 --> 00:47:49.613 - and approve payments, receive bids for projects and award contracts. They also have legislative powers 00:47:49.613 --> 00:47:52.830 - to adopt ordinances and oversee county employees. 00:47:53.250 --> 00:48:05.204 - I will now pass the mic over to the folks who are here who serve in our county government to introduce 00:48:05.204 --> 00:48:16.927 - themselves. Hi, my name is Kate Welts and I'm on county council and the things that really resonated 00:48:16.927 --> 00:48:22.846 - with me this evening are how much we in government 00:48:23.330 --> 00:48:34.590 - need to work together across not just political differences, but across offices. Because there are a 00:48:34.590 --> 00:48:46.297 - lot of problems that we're all dealing with that I don't feel empowered just myself to be able to solve. 00:48:46.297 --> 00:48:48.638 - And that's daunting. 00:48:48.770 --> 00:48:56.555 - That's daunting, because I ran for office to solve problems. And I want to work on those things. We 00:48:56.555 --> 00:49:04.963 - don't have the same kind of services and programs from our government that we used to. And that's something 00:49:04.963 --> 00:49:09.790 - else I heard. And so I'd like to look at how we can fix that. 00:49:16.354 --> 00:49:23.239 - Hi, everybody. My name is Trent Deckard. I'm on county council running for county commissioner. First, 00:49:23.239 --> 00:49:30.123 - thank you all for letting me sit and listen and take lots of notes and observe. This is the healthiest 00:49:30.123 --> 00:49:37.008 - thing that we do in these jobs. I often say the best things we can do are not be at the NatU Hill Room 00:49:37.008 --> 00:49:43.692 - in the courthouse and be somewhere where we're actually where folks are and keeping our mouth shut, 00:49:43.692 --> 00:49:45.630 - because that's how we learn. 00:49:45.986 --> 00:49:53.795 - As I think about what I've heard tonight, I've heard frustration, I've heard a myriad of issues that 00:49:53.795 --> 00:50:01.526 - cascade through every level of government, doesn't matter where the jurisdiction is. And as I think 00:50:01.526 --> 00:50:09.335 - about the county, our county has a lot of times adopted a mindset, and I say this even as we said at 00:50:09.335 --> 00:50:15.134 - the fairgrounds, that we've got to keep 1982 approaches for 2026 problems. 00:50:15.234 --> 00:50:21.925 - I believe the future for our county until somebody invents a better way or goes to work at other levels 00:50:21.925 --> 00:50:28.617 - is that we've got to step forward for those problems. And that may mean getting beyond the conventional 00:50:28.617 --> 00:50:34.986 - routes or engaging lots of folks, but doing our jobs. I see my time's up and I got the tab. Sorry. 00:50:34.986 --> 00:50:38.718 - It is hard. I'm not going to get through my introduction. 00:50:39.362 --> 00:50:44.742 - David Henry, I'm one of the Monroe County counselors at large, and I'm not running for anything in November, 00:50:44.742 --> 00:50:49.678 - so I'm happy to be here right now. I want to thank you all for bringing this in, and this group has 00:50:49.678 --> 00:50:54.614 - done amazing work over the years. I met Michelle Higgs, whose reaction so many others over the past 00:50:54.614 --> 00:50:59.699 - decade of your hard work. You know, I want to say, and building on what I've heard from my colleagues, 00:50:59.699 --> 00:51:04.931 - that I don't think county government does things out of malice. I do think we do things out of ignorance, 00:51:04.931 --> 00:51:05.918 - and I do think that 00:51:06.082 --> 00:51:10.741 - The more we can get our elected officials in rooms to hear these stories, it removes that ignorance 00:51:10.741 --> 00:51:15.400 - of how people are really living in our community. I was late because I was at Plan Commission. It's 00:51:15.400 --> 00:51:20.106 - one of the hats I wear on county council. It was in the Natahue Hill room where we got to get out of 00:51:20.106 --> 00:51:24.812 - it and be with you all. And, you know, I'm just going to share a fun fact with you. The only kind of 00:51:24.812 --> 00:51:29.844 - home you can build outside city limits in Monroe County without getting extra permission is a single-family 00:51:29.844 --> 00:51:31.614 - home, usually on a 2.5 to 5-acre lot. 00:51:31.682 --> 00:51:38.001 - We're debating that on County, literally on Plan Commission an hour ago, about how to fix that in the 00:51:38.001 --> 00:51:44.445 - community. And there's an attitude that it doesn't need to be fixed. And that's what's causing the cost 00:51:44.445 --> 00:51:50.826 - problems to go up. We are the architects of these problems. What has been done can also be undone. And 00:51:50.826 --> 00:51:56.030 - I appreciate your stories to help us really understand it better. Thank you. Hello. 00:51:56.354 --> 00:52:03.570 - My name is Liz Fiddle. I'm the youngest member of the county council. I'm at large also. And I mean 00:52:03.570 --> 00:52:11.147 - youngest in service, not in age. Because I'm really close to the top in age. But I come from a different 00:52:11.147 --> 00:52:18.508 - background. I have organizing roots in labor, organizing. I have activist roots in this community for 00:52:18.508 --> 00:52:23.198 - a very long time. Proud to have done all of that, and so I don't 00:52:23.522 --> 00:52:30.572 - have trouble sticking up for much of anything that I think is a good thing to do. So I'm really happy 00:52:30.572 --> 00:52:37.760 - that I got to hear from the tables and the speakers that spoke tonight. And I'm long interested in this 00:52:37.760 --> 00:52:44.948 - problem with getting apartment owners or people who own property to get their housing up to snuff where 00:52:44.948 --> 00:52:51.998 - people can live in it safely. I'm really up for that challenge. That's a big thing. And so I'm ready. 00:52:52.162 --> 00:52:59.673 - to do whatever I can do with my name behind it to tackle almost any of this. Thank you all so much. 00:52:59.673 --> 00:53:07.260 - I am now going to read a brief statement from County Commissioner Jody Madeira, who very much wanted 00:53:07.260 --> 00:53:14.922 - to be here tonight, but is at the planning meeting you all have heard so much about. She said, quote, 00:53:14.922 --> 00:53:18.302 - I'm truly sorry I can't be with you tonight. 00:53:18.402 --> 00:53:23.644 - I have to be at the planning commission meeting where we are hearing public comment on housing in our 00:53:23.644 --> 00:53:28.988 - community, an issue that touches so many in this room. Hearing your stories directly is one of the most 00:53:28.988 --> 00:53:34.127 - important parts of holding elected office. It's how I learn what's really happening and how I learn 00:53:34.127 --> 00:53:39.318 - how I can actually help. I will watch the video of tonight's meeting and would love to meet with any 00:53:39.318 --> 00:53:45.022 - person or group that would like to share stories with me in person. Thanks so much to everyone for showing up. 00:53:45.186 --> 00:53:52.574 - for speaking out and for caring so much about our community because that's how we make it better. You 00:53:52.574 --> 00:53:53.950 - can clap for that. 00:53:54.978 --> 00:54:00.838 - And I'll just add, if you would like to have any of your stories delivered to elected officials, you 00:54:00.838 --> 00:54:06.698 - can mark that down on your sheets. And then additionally, this is just a starting point, and Jody is 00:54:06.698 --> 00:54:12.790 - not the only person who wanted to be here but could not be here tonight. And so we are going to continue 00:54:12.790 --> 00:54:17.374 - to build out those relationships and follow up and report out on this meeting. 00:54:18.242 --> 00:54:26.358 - Finally, I would like to pass the mic over to the candidates here who are running for state representative. 00:54:26.358 --> 00:54:34.098 - Okay. So, what are state representatives? Indiana state representatives work with members of our state 00:54:34.098 --> 00:54:41.613 - senate, that's our legislative body as a state, the General Assembly, to pass state laws and decide 00:54:41.613 --> 00:54:47.550 - the state budget, which funds our schools, roads, healthcare system, and more. 00:54:48.194 --> 00:54:54.785 - The members of Indiana's House of Representatives draft the state budget, which amounts to more than 00:54:54.785 --> 00:55:01.377 - $50 billion annually of your money and our money together. We invited State Representative Dave Hall 00:55:01.377 --> 00:55:08.099 - to join us this evening, and he was unable to attend, so he sent this notice. Quote, I'm sorry I can't 00:55:08.099 --> 00:55:14.625 - be with you tonight. I wanted to thank Hoosier Action and everyone here for the work you do meeting 00:55:14.625 --> 00:55:16.126 - people where they are. 00:55:16.514 --> 00:55:22.164 - I've done a lot of door-to-door myself, and I've actually run into some Hoosier Action volunteers on 00:55:22.164 --> 00:55:28.150 - the streets, so I know firsthand how much that work matters. After thousands of front porch conversations, 00:55:28.150 --> 00:55:33.913 - I'm convinced it's one of the most important things any of us can do. It's made me a better legislator 00:55:33.913 --> 00:55:39.675 - and a better person. Thank you for showing up for people where they are. And if anyone here needs help 00:55:39.675 --> 00:55:44.542 - with anything, Hoosier Action has my contact info, please don't hesitate to reach out. 00:55:45.250 --> 00:56:00.374 - I'm now going to pass the mic over to our candidates for state representative who were able to join 00:56:00.374 --> 00:56:03.550 - us this evening. Hi. 00:56:03.714 --> 00:56:10.622 - My name's Amy Huffman Oliver. I'm running for Indiana State Representative and District 62, which you 00:56:10.622 --> 00:56:17.800 - are sitting in right now. And it includes all of Brown County, a lot of rural Monroe County, and a little 00:56:17.800 --> 00:56:24.572 - bit of Jackson County. And what I'm struck by this evening is just thank you for being here and for 00:56:24.572 --> 00:56:31.006 - sharing your stories. It is the number one job of a representative to be there, to listen, and 00:56:31.330 --> 00:56:39.294 - you need to be sending these stories to your representatives, they need to hear it. And I think that 00:56:39.294 --> 00:56:47.336 - that's the only job of a representative is to do that. I'm seeing a lot of these issues at the policy 00:56:47.336 --> 00:56:55.458 - level, and that's where we need to solve some of these problems about healthcare, about housing, about 00:56:55.458 --> 00:57:01.214 - childcare, and all of the issues we're talking about because we have to, 00:57:01.506 --> 00:57:10.357 - find solutions that are going to be right for us, and it's everything that we need, and that should 00:57:10.357 --> 00:57:19.209 - be our priority. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jimmy Pittsburgh. I'm running for the House of 00:57:19.209 --> 00:57:28.326 - Representatives for the District 46, which is Bean Blossom and Richland Townships, all of Owen County, 00:57:28.326 --> 00:57:31.070 - five townships in Clay County, 00:57:31.586 --> 00:57:39.228 - free townships in Vigo County. I want to thank you for this opportunity to be here to hear the stories 00:57:39.228 --> 00:57:46.721 - so that I can do a better job if I'm elected, so that I can find a way to make these people that own 00:57:46.721 --> 00:57:54.140 - these buildings feel that they have a responsibility. Just as you have a responsibility to have car 00:57:54.140 --> 00:58:00.446 - insurance, they should also be prepared to deal with problems with their facilities. 00:58:00.834 --> 00:58:12.933 - that they're providing you with. And I thank you for this opportunity. Good evening. I am Carrie Cicello. 00:58:12.933 --> 00:58:24.575 - I am your House District 60 candidate for Morgan Johnson and Monroe counties. What I heard tonight is 00:58:24.575 --> 00:58:28.798 - a lot of discussion over housing and 00:58:29.314 --> 00:58:37.726 - One thing I want to leave you with today, and I hope I can stay quicker than a minute, but I live in 00:58:37.726 --> 00:58:46.304 - a rural space. I live in rural Morgan County. And what I hear from rural people regarding housing, and 00:58:46.304 --> 00:58:54.798 - I think that we can all learn something from this. I constantly hear, well, I'd rather have this kind 00:58:54.798 --> 00:58:57.630 - of entity moving in than housing. 00:58:58.850 --> 00:59:07.050 - Like, I'd rather see manufacturing or I'd rather see a data center than housing. I hear that often all 00:59:07.050 --> 00:59:15.092 - over. And I wonder myself, I think that there is so much goodness in people that I would rather take 00:59:15.092 --> 00:59:23.213 - a chance on a new neighbor than I would something like a data center that is going to take our water, 00:59:23.213 --> 00:59:26.238 - take our clean air, all these things. 00:59:26.530 --> 00:59:36.034 - I do believe we'll be better if we can promote housing just with our tone, that we can stop saying, 00:59:36.034 --> 00:59:45.539 - I'd rather have that and not housing. We can all have a good neighbor. Thank you all so much. So we 00:59:45.539 --> 00:59:52.382 - now have a couple of super quick yes or no questions for y'all based on 00:59:52.482 --> 00:59:59.166 - what we have heard this evening as well as what we've heard on the doors. So we have surveyed more than 00:59:59.166 --> 01:00:05.593 - 1,000 Monroe County residents so far, and you'll find on some of the materials on your table a link 01:00:05.593 --> 01:00:12.084 - to that survey if you haven't taken it yet and you wanna have your voice heard. And what has come up 01:00:12.084 --> 01:00:19.026 - over and over again are these concerns about cost of living, these concerns about safe, quality, affordable 01:00:19.026 --> 01:00:21.982 - housing, and these concerns about healthcare. 01:00:22.082 --> 01:00:28.626 - And we're not going to ask any specific policy questions here because we're not there yet. But we want 01:00:28.626 --> 01:00:35.678 - to work with y'all on that to advance specific housing. And when I say y'all, I mean you in this room with us. 01:00:35.842 --> 01:00:43.914 - I really think that the best policy is the policy that comes from everyday people and that the people 01:00:43.914 --> 01:00:52.066 - most impacted by problems are the ones closest to the solutions. So what we're really asking are like, 01:00:52.066 --> 01:01:00.138 - did you listen to us? Did you hear us? So I'm gonna kick it over to Ian to ask a few questions to our 01:01:00.138 --> 01:01:02.750 - Monroe County elected officials. 01:01:04.738 --> 01:01:15.736 - Okay, first question is for all of you guys. Monroe County residents, do we need rental property oversight 01:01:15.736 --> 01:01:26.528 - outside city limits? Yeah, yeah, good. Now, Monroe County electeds, will you fight for the county rental 01:01:26.528 --> 01:01:32.798 - oversight we need? Yes, good. That was super fast, good job. 01:01:33.186 --> 01:01:41.406 - Okay. I'll now be asking two questions to our state representative candidates. So the first question 01:01:41.406 --> 01:01:49.626 - I have is, will you work to prevent further preemption encroachment on our local community's ability 01:01:49.626 --> 01:01:58.008 - to protect renters? So if your friends in county governments get us some more oversight, are you going 01:01:58.008 --> 01:02:01.182 - to have their back at the state house? 01:02:03.330 --> 01:02:13.385 - Heck yes! Okay, and then for our state reps as well, will you commit to fighting back against the dangerous 01:02:13.385 --> 01:02:22.881 - Medicaid cuts, which we heard about earlier, and increase access to health care if you are elected to 01:02:22.881 --> 01:02:26.046 - the state house? Okay. Excellent. 01:02:26.562 --> 01:02:35.364 - We will also be forwarding these questions to the individuals who are not here this evening and now 01:02:35.364 --> 01:02:44.781 - I'm gonna kick it to Ian to flip the big board over there because we have one more request for our elected 01:02:44.781 --> 01:02:49.886 - officials and candidates before we close out the meeting. 01:02:50.402 --> 01:03:00.664 - At Hoosier Action, we recently ratified a set of values to be accountable, to be a steward of our resources, 01:03:00.664 --> 01:03:10.079 - and to work in community together. These are the values which we hold one another accountable to in 01:03:10.079 --> 01:03:11.774 - our organization. 01:03:11.874 --> 01:03:19.754 - And we wanted to invite elected officials, should you agree to it, to sign our big old values pledge 01:03:19.754 --> 01:03:27.711 - with a big old marker as you leave the dais. And that pledge reads, I pledge to work together with my 01:03:27.711 --> 01:03:36.137 - colleagues and my fellow elected officials across position, party, and county to address the interconnected 01:03:36.137 --> 01:03:40.350 - challenges to my constituents discussed here tonight. 01:03:40.930 --> 01:03:48.854 - I pledge to listen those I seek to represent. I pledge to be accountable to this community. I pledge 01:03:48.854 --> 01:03:56.856 - to responsibly steward our shared resources. And I pledge to put the people who live in our community 01:03:56.856 --> 01:04:04.937 - ahead of party and private profit. Yeah, is that you guys into that? Okay. So Ian, if you want to grab 01:04:04.937 --> 01:04:09.566 - some markers, I'm going to invite our elected officials to 01:04:09.666 --> 01:04:18.731 - leave the dais, and I'm here to help you down, because I know it's a big step, and give you the opportunity 01:04:18.731 --> 01:04:27.627 - to sign this. And then Ian is going to speak to this room about how we are going to keep working together 01:04:27.627 --> 01:04:36.105 - with y'all, because you can't do this alone, and neither can we. Right. And that we actually have to 01:04:36.105 --> 01:04:39.294 - be accountable altogether. So please, 01:04:39.394 --> 01:04:51.134 - exit the chaos. 01:06:54.466 --> 01:07:02.585 - All right. Let's have a round of applause for our local elected officials. This stuff that is on this 01:07:02.585 --> 01:07:10.624 - board is actually something that at this point we shouldn't take for granted. This is something that 01:07:10.624 --> 01:07:18.663 - we need to do. And it's also something, I mean, you just heard your elected officials pledge to walk 01:07:18.663 --> 01:07:23.678 - with us to make this place the place we need. But if we don't, 01:07:24.322 --> 01:07:30.570 - walk with them, all of us here. We've made already a step in that direction by being here tonight in 01:07:30.570 --> 01:07:36.879 - person. They're going to leave us behind. Democracy only works if we walk toward it together with our 01:07:36.879 --> 01:07:43.312 - elected officials. We're all in the same room together. This has to happen more. We need to build those 01:07:43.312 --> 01:07:49.993 - relationships with each other, with our electeds, and we do that by working together, by planning together. 01:07:49.993 --> 01:07:51.230 - I mean, this event, 01:07:51.394 --> 01:07:58.421 - that we're all taking part in right now. This was a result of a lot of planning, but it happens because 01:07:58.421 --> 01:08:05.179 - people like you all work to make it happen. And this is what Hoosier Action is here for. We want to 01:08:05.179 --> 01:08:11.936 - continue to build these relationships closer over time. So if you're interested in walking with us, 01:08:11.936 --> 01:08:18.760 - and you just saw your elected officials do the same thing, there's on your tables, there's a Hoosier 01:08:18.760 --> 01:08:20.382 - Action commitment card. 01:08:21.698 --> 01:08:30.074 - And it has a set of things on it that is basically exactly that. Helps you guys, helps all of us fulfill 01:08:30.074 --> 01:08:38.130 - our part of the bargain of democracy. First off is voting. This is the most obvious one. This is the 01:08:38.130 --> 01:08:46.187 - most direct participation in electing officials. We live in a democracy. Voting is part of what that 01:08:46.187 --> 01:08:50.494 - means. But next, we got a couple of events coming up. 01:08:51.330 --> 01:08:58.472 - that are all an opportunity to be in the same place that we're in now, to build policy together. And 01:08:58.472 --> 01:09:06.039 - like Tracy just said, policy is built from us all together collaboratively. That's how you make it better, 01:09:06.039 --> 01:09:13.393 - by having it being planned by people who are closest to the problems. First, we got our monthly chapter 01:09:13.393 --> 01:09:20.606 - meeting. Our next one's gonna be on November 1st, and that's like not this Sunday, but the one after. 01:09:21.378 --> 01:09:28.099 - It's the best way to plug in locally. We have a care and housing team, and we'll talk about this event 01:09:28.099 --> 01:09:35.016 - together. We'll debrief, come up with ideas of what to do next. The next is the organization-wide meeting 01:09:35.016 --> 01:09:41.673 - in Columbus, and this is the one, is on the 14th, so two weeks later. All Hoosier Action members from 01:09:41.673 --> 01:09:48.198 - across southern Indiana, so if you want to meet our friends and colleagues from all over the place. 01:09:48.198 --> 01:09:49.438 - And then last, but 01:09:49.602 --> 01:09:54.764 - in some ways the most important. On January 13th, we're going to have a health care day of action. We're 01:09:54.764 --> 01:09:59.680 - going to demand justice at the state house. That's going to be in Indianapolis. So hopefully we can 01:09:59.680 --> 01:10:04.595 - see at least some of us there. And that's going to be a huge event. We're going to have people from 01:10:04.595 --> 01:10:09.511 - all over the state coming for that one. So it's a big mobilization, demand cuts for our health care 01:10:09.511 --> 01:10:14.673 - to stop, like we heard today. And this is something that I think all of us should be able to get behind, 01:10:14.673 --> 01:10:15.902 - health care and housing. 01:10:17.474 --> 01:10:23.938 - And finally, the last thing on there is dues. You know, we can't just have organized people. We can't 01:10:23.938 --> 01:10:30.465 - just all show up together in the same place because we also need to back this up with organized money. 01:10:30.465 --> 01:10:37.055 - That's what power is. This is just half of what power looks like. And you can pay what you can. Usually 01:10:37.055 --> 01:10:43.646 - members pay $15 a month online. Sometimes people pay less, sometimes more. So whatever you can would be 01:10:43.938 --> 01:10:53.298 - would be meaningful to take ownership of Hoosier Action. This is an organization that's here for you 01:10:53.298 --> 01:11:02.750 - guys. Okay, now I'm gonna hand it off to, do you wanna say something more? No, no. I wanna welcome up 01:11:02.750 --> 01:11:11.646 - our last speaker. Where did she go? Yes, come on up as you're filling out our commitment cards. 01:11:11.842 --> 01:11:20.838 - We are going to move towards the conclusion of the meeting. So take a minute, write down what you want 01:11:20.838 --> 01:11:29.834 - to commit to, and when you're done, give it to your table captain. And you can hold it up to show that 01:11:29.834 --> 01:11:32.542 - you're done when you are done. 01:11:35.074 --> 01:11:42.559 - I've got to clarify, is there another speaker somewhere? Friends, it has been a gift to be with you 01:11:42.559 --> 01:11:50.193 - tonight. I'm Reverend Jessica Peterson Mutai. I have the privilege, the honor, and the responsibility 01:11:50.193 --> 01:11:57.678 - as serving as the senior minister of First United Church in Bloomington, Indiana. And in some ways, 01:11:57.678 --> 01:12:04.414 - I feel like I have gone to church tonight. And it could just be me, because I'm a pastor, 01:12:04.514 --> 01:12:13.990 - Right? But what we've been doing here, telling the truth, working for justice, building community, taking 01:12:13.990 --> 01:12:22.929 - collective action, this is what my faith calls me to. And I have felt inspired to continue engaging 01:12:22.929 --> 01:12:32.584 - in this work. Has anybody else felt inspired? Yeah, yeah, right? This has been amazing. This is us building 01:12:32.584 --> 01:12:34.014 - power together. 01:12:35.554 --> 01:12:44.767 - but it's not just a moment. This is a movement. This is the kind of inspiration that continues with 01:12:44.767 --> 01:12:53.979 - us, that sticks with us beyond 730, obviously, because we're way past that time, but beyond the end 01:12:53.979 --> 01:13:04.574 - of this meeting and beyond us leaving this auditorium. This inspiration is one that sticks with us because stories 01:13:04.834 --> 01:13:12.443 - stick with us because experiences stick with us. And there's one other thing that we tend to do in church 01:13:12.443 --> 01:13:19.981 - and we haven't done it here tonight that sticks with you in that song. All right. So I'm going to invite 01:13:19.981 --> 01:13:27.303 - you to get a little more uncomfortable before you leave. And that might be good. Work you out of your 01:13:27.303 --> 01:13:30.462 - chair. And I'm going to invite you to sing. 01:13:30.882 --> 01:13:38.497 - And this is a call and response, but really, it's a repeat after me, okay? That will take us out into 01:13:38.497 --> 01:13:46.112 - the world and keep moving us forward in this work together, right? Together, because we can't do this 01:13:46.112 --> 01:13:53.578 - alone. We can only do it together. So I'm gonna teach y'all a song. It's called Rise Up, and if you 01:13:53.578 --> 01:13:59.998 - wanna rise up physically, you're welcome to do that, but we all know you're rising up 01:14:00.226 --> 01:14:08.496 - spiritually in this space. And this was written by Sharon Fribar and Jose Vasquez of the Poor People's 01:14:08.496 --> 01:14:16.605 - Campaign and National Call for Moral Revival. So I can't take credit for that. But I'm going to sing 01:14:16.605 --> 01:14:24.875 - it, and then y'all are invited to sing. I talked to some people earlier, and they said they were going 01:14:24.875 --> 01:14:30.174 - to sing. OK? So all right. Rise up. Come on and rise up. Rise up. 01:14:30.434 --> 01:14:41.651 - Come on and rise up. Rise up. We're gonna rise up. Rise up. We're gonna rise up. We ain't gonna let 01:14:41.651 --> 01:14:53.092 - nobody turn us around. We ain't gonna let nobody turn us around. Because the people united will stand 01:14:53.092 --> 01:14:59.934 - our ground. Because the people united will stand our ground. 01:15:00.194 --> 01:15:13.513 - So rise up, we're gonna rise up. Rise up, we're gonna rise up. Rise up, we're gonna rise up. Rise up, 01:15:13.513 --> 01:15:27.223 - we're gonna rise up. The powers that be can't keep us down. The powers that be can't keep us down. We're 01:15:27.223 --> 01:15:29.182 - gonna rise up. 01:15:29.474 --> 01:15:41.083 - And turn the world around. We're going to rise up. And turn the world around. You know this. Rise up. 01:15:41.083 --> 01:15:53.034 - Come on and rise up. Rise up. Come on and rise up. Rise up. We're going to rise up. Rise up. We're going 01:15:53.034 --> 01:15:59.294 - to rise up. The people are ready so follow their lead. 01:16:00.098 --> 01:16:10.950 - The people are ready so follow their lead. We'll put an end to the violence, the hatred, and greed. 01:16:10.950 --> 01:16:22.020 - We'll put an end to the violence, the hatred, and greed. So rise up. We're going to rise up. Rise up. 01:16:22.020 --> 01:16:29.182 - We're going to rise up. Rise up. We're going to rise up. Rise up. 01:16:29.506 --> 01:16:46.526 - We're gonna rise up, rise up, rise up, rise up, rise up, rise up. May it be so.