New housing without gentrification? This east-side neighborhood is doing just that.

David Campbell spent nearly two decades renting houses and apartments in Indianapolis, mostly in Fountain Square. 

The 36-year-old decided he was ready to become a homeowner, but places in Fountain Square were well out of his price range, Campbell said. 

Just a little further east on Prospect Street in the Norwood neighborhood, Campbell found a newly constructed two-story home that would have been well out of his price range if it was priced based on construction costs.

Instead, the home was built specifically with affordability in mind. Campbell bought the house for $98,000 in November.

"It’s incredible to finally own a home and be out of the cycle of renting," Campbell said. "It’s great to live in (a) brand new house…to not have to worry about things going bad and repairing things right away early on in owning a home."

Campbell lives in one of two new houses on Vandeman Street in Norwood developed by Southeast Neighborhood Development. Campbell's home, red with gray trim, and the one next door, blue with white trim, are just the start of a plan to invest in Norwood over the next several years. 

Nine new homes will be added to the Norwood neighborhood over the next year, through neighborhood partnerships with SEND, Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Indianapolis. Instead of the new homes being sold at market rate to earn a profit, the new developments will remain affordable, improving the community and bringing in new neighbors without pricing out its long-term residents.

"Without INHP… the help of organizations like that, it would be difficult for me to really find a house that I could afford to buy with the money I make," said Campbell, who works as a school custodian. "It's been great."

Sustaining affordable housing

Six north-south streets running from Vandeman Street to South Sherman comprise the small, family-centric Norwood neighborhood. Many lots at the south end of the neighborhood lay empty, filled with overgrown plants and trash instead of homes and families. 

But in 2022, seven new homes will be built in the 1200 block of Madeira Street — three financed by INHP and the other four through a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant dispersed by the city. Habitat for Humanity also plans to build two houses on Kealing Avenue in 2022, and SEND's application to acquire 10 more empty lots in the neighborhood was approved by the city Aug. 18.

A housing development strategy in Norwood has been in the works since 2018, said Kelli Mirgeaux, president of SEND. But with other Indianapolis neighborhoods rapidly gentrifying, and not wanting that to be the case in Norwood, Mirgeaux said having community input from the start has been critical to SEND's strategy.

"It’s what makes our work sustainable, being trusted by these neighbors," Mirgeaux said. "We don't want there to be private investors to come in and buy up remaining lots and bring them to the market rate when we're trying to do affordable housing."

SEND staff members regularly attend Norwood's monthly neighborhood meetings, bringing neighbors into each step of the development process and adjusting to their feedback, Mirgeaux said. Instead of sleek, modern building designs, neighbors said they wanted the new homes to look more traditional: think a boxy house with a front porch. 

That emphasis on community input spreads to contractors, financers and other partners joining in on the project. 

INHP, a nonprofit that helps finance projects to build and sustain affordable housing, first sought an "invitation" from the neighborhood before joining the development project, said Joe Hanson, vice president of strategic initiatives.

"In a neighborhood like Norwood, with the stability of some of the residents who have been there for a long time, we want to respect what they want," Hanson said. "If our priorities don't align with the priorities of the neighborhood, we shouldn't be there."

A family neighborhood: 'We are kin'

In the several months since Campbell moved into his new home on Vandeman Street, he said he quickly picked up on the "joint effort" between neighbors and organizations like SEND and INHP, building the new homes.

He also noticed the "generational history" of Norwood, something he said he never experienced, either growing up on the south side of Indianapolis or in Fountain Square. 

"There definitely seems to be a sense of connection," Campbell said. "It's been great. The neighborhood is really friendly."

That multi-generational history is clear looking at Campbell's across-the-street neighbors. That's where Hobart Phillips lives, a 101-year-old who has lived in the neighborhood since he was six or seven. He lives with his granddaughter Alesha Holder, who has lived in Norwood all 57 years of her life. 

Holder's extended family lives up and down Norwood's streets. From her flower-patterned couch in her screened-in front porch, Holder can point to houses of aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings. 

Even the neighbors who aren't blood-related, Holder said "we are kin." So when people moved into the two new homes across the street, Holder quickly welcomed them into the Norwood family, she said.

"I love it," Holder said of the development plan. "I think it's beautiful to not have all the houses vacant."

Building 'respect and pride'

Holder said she doesn't even remember any noise from construction. And any thought that the new homes might change the culture of the neighborhood "never crossed my mind," Holder said. 

It helps, Holder said, that the second new house, next door to Campbell, was bought by the granddaughter of Brenda McAtee, Norwood Neighborhood Association president. 

McAtee has lived in Norwood for about 52 years and is one of the key maternal figures in the neighborhood. The 69-year-old said she personally knows all but about 10 households in the neighborhood, and if something is happening in the neighborhood, odds are McAtee knows about it.

Even before she became neighborhood president in 2006, McAtee wrote letters to the city asking, "Where are the funds? Norwood pays taxes too." 

Beautifying the neighborhood, clearing out trash and broken-down homes and replacing them with new homes, has gotten neighbors old and young excited about what's brewing in Norwood, McAtee said.

"What we're trying to do is build up the neighborhood, so people have respect and pride in where they live," McAtee said. "We want people to feel safe and just live, to have something nice for their children to look forward to in the future."

People looking to own an affordable home from SEND can apply at www.sendcdc.org/homeowner. For more information on INHP resources, go to www.inhp.org/get-started.

Contact IndyStar Pulliam Fellow Clare Proctor at ceproctor@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @ceproctor23.