Housing fund to get an additional $25M under bill
Rep. Doug Miller, R-Elkhart, speaks about housing before a committee on Jan. 27, 2025. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
House committee members on Monday voted to add an additional $25 million to a revolving loan fund designed to incentivize housing construction. In particular, House Bill 1005 prioritizes funding for rural communities with density-friendly rules, such as multifamily units, and allows the funds to be used for infrastructure improvements.
A homebuilder himself, Rep. Doug Miller said $82 million from the first two rounds of funding had supported the construction of roughly 3,350 units of housing.
'If you look in the context of the total permits on an annual basis for the state of Indiana, those are impressive numbers to bring housing stock to our communities,' said the Elkhart Republican.
Indiana awards communities $51 million in housing infrastructure boost
An additional component of the bill would allow builders to use 'private providers' if a municipality cannot accommodate an inspection request within ten days. Inspections could instead be performed by licensed architects, licensed engineers, certified building officials or certified home inspectors.
'The goal here is to try and take the burden off of (local units of government) without sacrificing quality or effectiveness,' Miller said.
Using a private provider would likely be more expensive, however, since government-employed inspectors have more legal protections than private inspectors. Seven other states allow private providers to perform inspections, Miller added.
The provision would be optional, Miller said, and communities were free to supply homebuilders with approved lists of private providers.
The language about these inspectors gave some pause, including Accelerate Indiana Municipalities, which testified as neutral on the bill. That group testifies on behalf of Indiana cities and towns. West Lafayette Democrat Rep. Chris Campbell was the sole 'no' vote due to this provision but said she was open to changing her vote on the House floor.
Seven other groups testified in favor of the bill, including the state home builder association, architects and medical device manufacturers.
Maggie Shane, on behalf of the Indiana Association of Realtors, reported that the median home price in Indiana had grown to $244,000 while new builds cost closer to $379,000.
'Those are astounding — astonishing, I would say — numbers when it comes to thinking about how attainable is homeownership and will that continue to be the American dream,' Shane said. 'New, single-home construction demand is such that we anticipate between now and 2028 a demand for 143,000 new single-family homes. That is 30% more than the rate we're at right now.'
The bill advanced on an 11-1 vote and will now be heard before the Ways and Means Committee.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Cobb County schools is ‘not going to invest' in storage for cellphones, superintendent says
Georgia lawmakers passed legislation to ban student access to phones during the legislative session. Now, the Cobb County School District says it won't be investing its budget into storage for phones at its schools. Cobb County School Superintendent Chris Ragsdale gave the update to parents, the school board and other community members at a meeting on Thursday. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] 'We will continue to communicate with parents throughout the school year as how that implementation is going to look. I can say that we are not going to invest any money into storage solutions for cellphones. The law allows us to determine what that storage place is going to be. And the storage place is going to be in a student's backpack or purse or pocketbook,' Ragsdale said. RELATED STORIES: A ban on cell phones in Georgia Schools heads to the governor's desk A bill banning cell phones in school for kids in K-8 is one step closer to becoming law Georgia student phone, tablet ban passes House vote, heads to state Senate Ban on student phones in Georgia public schools back up for review in House Education Committee Schools participating in cellphone lock-up pilot program says discipline issues are down The law in question won't take effect until July 2026, giving districts time to come up with new policies and enact them. Policy decisions have a January 2026 deadline, with additional months for implementation. For Cobb County's schools, Ragsdale said the district is going to update the student code of conduct and ensure all students and parents know the new rules. 'We will be making updates to the student code of conduct so that all students will be aware, as will parents, what the punishment would be for that,' Ragsdale said. 'We are certainly going to adhere to the law and follow the law as we always do. But the bottom line is we're going to be focused on having school.' The phone ban passed the legislation as the 'Distraction-free Education Act,' which would block students in kindergarten through eighth grade from having phones out or accessible while in class. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Moran asks federal officials to keep airspace restrictions at D.C. airport in place
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran demanded commitments from federal officials during hearings Thursday to keep airspace safe at Reagan Washington National Airport, the site of a deadly collision in January. (Kansas Reflector screen capture of U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran's YouTube channel) TOPEKA — U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran pressed federal officials Wednesday on how they intend to ensure safety at the Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C., in the wake of a January crash between a passenger plane from Wichita and an Army helicopter that left no survivors. Moran, a Kansas Republican, questioned U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Federal Aviation Administration administrator nominee Bryan Bedford at separate committee hearings Wednesday on whether they would commit to keeping in place restrictions on non-essential helicopter flights around the D.C. airport. 'It's my understanding, from information from the Army, that since Jan. 29, seven flights have taken off and landed at the Pentagon,' Moran said to Hegseth. 'Six of those flights occurred during periods of high volume at DCA. One of those aircraft caused two different commercial flights to abort landing on May 1, and since this latest incident, I understand that all flights have been halted.' Since the January crash, Moran has pushed for aviation reforms, introducing legislation that mandates in busy airspace the use of Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast, or ADS-B, which automatically transmits an aircraft's location to nearby pilots once per second. The legislation also removes the possibility for pilots to opt out of using ADS-B. Moran introduced that legislation after close calls at the same airport where the crash took place. The Pentagon, which is less than two miles away from Reagan National as the crow flies, halted military helicopter flights near the airport. The legislation has been in a committee awaiting action since it was introduced in early May. Moran wants the flight restrictions in place until the FAA can come up with a safe route, if there is one. Hegseth, in response, said no authorization for VIP or convenience flights exists in that area. 'You have our assurance that I'm working with (Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy) very closely to make sure that the only flights that would be — even in a modified path — would be those that are necessary and are authorized,' Hegseth said. Moran sits on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, where he questioned Hegseth, and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, where he requested a commitment from Bedford to maintain safety restrictions. 'My understanding is the FAA is supreme when it comes to the control of the airspace,' Bedford said. 'But we want to be good partners with the Department of Defense, and we have protocols on how to do that — multiple protocols, as I understand.' The FAA creates military operating areas, which include restricted and prohibited spaces, and line of fire space and alert zones, and determines the airspace classifications around airports. The busiest airports, like Reagan, are Class B airspace. Bedford said the FAA can accommodate the U.S. Department of Defense's needs, but he added, 'we can't have this mixed-use traffic in Class B airspace.'
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump's Military Crackdown Is Starting To Dent His Poll Numbers
As Donald Trump launched his militarized crackdown in Los Angeles, the president and many of his advisers were convinced that deploying troops to the streets of a major American city would be good politics for them. They maintain, three people familiar with the matter say, that immigration was one of Trump's strongest issues, that it helped get him back in the White House, and that his mass deportation program has polled well since the 2024 campaign. No matter the pushback to Trump sending in the troops (likely illegally) from Democrats, the media, or protesters, the administration's brain trust saw this as a winner for them — and something they wish to replicate. 'If it works out well in L.A., expect it everywhere,' a Trump administration official said of the president's desire for militarized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across the nation. (This official and the other three sources spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations.) But just days into Trump's deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to quell anti-ICE protests in L.A., new public polling suggests that Trump's recent deportation operations, and his decision to use the military against his domestic enemies, are not boosting his approval ratings. In fact, Trump's latest power grab is tanking his latest numbers. Trump's general platform of federal immigration crackdowns polled well in the build-up to his election and second term; 2024 polling showed Trump's calls for grand-scale deportations of undocumented immigrants enjoyed majority support. (However, that majority support diminished when voters were pressed on specific policies and methods.) In April of last year — to the alarm of Democratic operatives and Biden officials — a Harris Poll survey showed 42 percent of Democrats warming up to the idea. According to a polling analysis by data journalist G. Elliott Morris, Trump entered office with a strong positive approval rating on immigration. But those ratings peaked in February at a high of +11.3 percent. Now, for the second time since April, Morris' polling average shows Trump's immigration approval rating in the negatives. It appears the militarized incursion into Los Angeles is not playing well with the public at large. A recent YouGov survey shows 47 percent of American adults disapprove of Trump ordering the Marines to L.A., compared to 34 percent who support it. In the same poll, 45 percent disapprove of the president's use of National Guard troops, with 38 percent of respondents backing it. This aligns with a Wednesday Quinnipiac poll that found 54 percent of respondents disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration, and that 56 percent disapprove of his handling of deportations. (This is a markedly negative turn from an April Quinnipiac poll that found only 50 percent of respondents disapproved of his handling of immigration issues.) Similarly, a Thursday AP/NORC poll found that 53 percent disapproved of Trump's handling of immigration, compared to 46 percent who approve. A text survey conducted by The Washington Post and George Mason University's Schar School found that the public rated Trump's immigration and deportation policies 'negatively by a 15 percentage-point margin, 52 percent to 37 percent.' A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday shows a stark disconnect between the public's general approval for strong action to restore order, and disapproval of what Trump is doing in Southern California. It found that 48 percent of respondents theoretically agree with the statement that the president should 'deploy the military to bring order to the streets.' But only 38 percent of respondents actually approved of how the president is responding to protests in Los Angeles. Those numbers are likely to continue trending downward as the Trump administration continues to behave badly in L.A. On Thursday — during a press conference in which Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declared her department would be staying in Los Angeles to 'liberate this city from the socialist and burdensome leadership' of Democrats — Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was tackled to the ground and handcuffed by FBI agents when he attempted to ask a question of Noem. Video of Padilla's detention quickly went viral on social media. After being released without charges, the senator told reporters that 'if this is how DHS responds to a senator with a question you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California.' Without a doubt the videos and stories of teenagers, pregnant women, and everyday working people being chased and detained by ICE is reaffirming what polling and surveys have long showed to be true: Americans generally believe that undocumented migrants with criminal records should be deported, but they are generally put off by indiscriminate immigration raids and deportations that disregard the circumstances of the individual. There's a silver lining, perhaps, for Trump and his party in some of this data. Democrats in Congress are also wildly unpopular, driven by dissatisfaction from their own liberal voters. 'The public supports keeping America safe and secure, and they don't like the concept of people here illegally — the issue is how it's administered,' says Frank Luntz, a longtime pollster and a conservative Trump critic. 'They have an agenda the American people support; their problem is the way they execute it and articulate it.' Voters do want immigration laws enforced, he says, but they 'don't want senators beaten up at press conferences. This has been the challenge of the Trump administration from the beginning,' Luntz adds, 'because they think they are on the right track, but the way it's being administered right now, they're not.' Even the president himself — who wrote on Thursday that 'all' undocumented people 'have to go home' — seems to be oscillating on the issue, at least from a public-relations standpoint. Earlier in the day Trump posted on Truth Social that 'farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them. This is not good,' Trump wrote. 'We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!' For the time being, however, the Trump administration is barreling ahead on its vision of his very American police state. 'In November, the American people resoundingly rejected the Democrat vision for immigration — open borders and millions of unvetted illegal aliens — and endorsed President Trump's vision for immigration — deportations and enforced immigration law,' White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Rolling Stone. 'President Trump is keeping his promise to the American people and violent left-wing rioters won't stop that.' Asked about the recent slate of negative polls for Trump on immigration, John McLaughlin, a top Trump pollster, simply replies: 'You mean the fake polls?' He points to rosy results for Trump in his own surveys and conservative-leaning polls: 'We did a national poll for Club for Growth yesterday among 1,000 likely voters and Trump's approval was 53-44 Rasmussen Reports poll today is 53-45,' McLaughlin says. More from Rolling Stone Kim Gordon Has Words for Donald Trump on Re-Recorded 'Bye Bye 25!' Trump Calls on Iran to Agree to Nuclear Deal 'Before There Is Nothing Left' Is Trump's Troop Deployment to Los Angeles Illegal? Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence