More than 500 advocates gather to push elected officials on homelessness, immigration

On stage at St. Luke United Methodist Church Thursday night, Indy Action Coalition organizers directly asked Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett to make three commitments to the organization.

Will he commit to including funding in the 2027 budget for the citywide effort to end unsheltered homelessness, Streets to Home? Will he make a call to Lilly Endowment and request funds for the next phase of that effort? Will he meet with Indy Action Coalition by April 3 to develop a plan to protect the city’s most vulnerable neighbors?

Before an audience of about 550 attendees, Hogsett said “Yes,” “Yes” and “Absolutely.”

The pressure placed on the third-term Democratic mayor demonstrated what Live Free USA Indiana organizer Josh Riddick describes as “people power.” Indy Action Coalition, a grassroots, multifaith community movement that exists under the umbrella of Live Free Indiana, filled every pew of the north side church’s sanctuary and an overflow room for the “We Keep Us Safe” event that focused on homelessness and immigration. The group described Thursday’s event as “a public action.”

“This is just the beginning of the kind of independent political power that we’re building,” Riddick told IBJ.

While Hogsett used his allotted time at the mic Thursday evening to highlight the city’s work on those issues, organizers outlined plans to mobilize voters and hold elected officials accountable.

Group has influenced Hogsett policies

Although the Indy Action Coalition is just more than a year old, groups that preceded it had a hand in developing some key initiatives in Indianapolis.

In summer of 2024, Riddick’s Black Church Coalition announced that it had outgrown parent organization Faith in Indiana and would instead  join national nonprofit social justice network Live Free USA.

Onstage Thursday, Hogsett attributed work on some of the city’s “most successful and impactful programs” to those groups and their affiliates. The initiatives include Indianapolis’ first clinician-led emergency response team and a gun violence reduction strategy that employs “peacemakers” to engage with those at risk of becoming involved with gun violence.

Hogsett said his administration has continually expanded the programs since their inception “because they are working.” He also reiterated recent news that Streets to Home has housed 114 people so far at a rate much quicker than the previous methods.

Regarding both people living on Indianapolis’ streets and immigrants, Hogsett told attendees the city is “more committed than ever to helping all of these folks in any way we can.”

Push to remove Indy resources from ICE

Recently the group has mobilized with others to oppose local and state involvement in nationwide U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts to crackdown on people living in the U.S. illegally.

Organizer Lauren Lai decried the detention of immigrants at both the Miami Correctional Facility and the Marion County Adult Detention Center. Last September, advocates and city leaders questioned Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal on why the jail had become a holding location for ICE detainees.

Lai said, “After the people of Indianapolis kept asking, ‘Why is this happening?’ things changed.” Although the facility still accepts ICE detainees — Forestal has maintained that this is a requirement and he must do so to follow the law — it does not hold them beyond 48 hours.

Forestal asked for the change in January, citing overcrowding. He told IBJ Thursday evening that federal officials have complied with the request.

The Indianapolis International Airport has also become wrapped up in  deportation efforts, Lai said, through ICE flights that airport officials say they can’t stop.

“The same airlines that will be flying the NCAA athletes into town this month are being packed up with immigrants on deportation flights through private carriers,” she said.

She also pointed to preemptive organizing efforts in place to protect immigrants in Indianapolis in case ICE increases its presence.

So far, 52 businesses have completed Fourth Amendment training with an Indy Action Coalition organizer to better understand the legality of ICE agents searching private grounds.

Lai also said there are mutual aid groups ready to spring into action to attend immigration hearings, raise money for legal services or even go to the grocery store if immigrants are concerned about their safety.

“We’re here to protect each other,” she told the audience.

Plotting 2026 election efforts

Indy Action Coalition organizers laid out their plan to build “independent political power” and get voters out to the polls in November with the goal of rejecting the state’s proposed constitutional amendment to allow judges to deny some defendants the right to bail.

Organizer Danielle Cooney, an advocate against mass incarceration, called the amendment a “MAGA effort to eliminate bail” and said the group, “could build the biggest, most massive voter registration campaign this country has ever seen.”

Cooney urged attendees to use the upcoming elections as a time to demand that public officials “do what we elected them to do.” She rallied the crowd by calling back to the Indiana State Senate’s rejection of President Donald Trump’s call to redraw the state’s congressional maps.

“We have learned that when Indianapolis shows up, we shape the state’s political landscape, as well,” Cooney said. “We will not just stop at city power. We want state power.”