Fed Up With Red Tape, an Indiana Town Tries a New Housing Strategy

In Lawrence, Indiana—where one in two renters is paying more than 30% of their income just to keep a roof over their head—the housing crisis isn’t abstract. It’s immediate and personal. And now, a newly formed group of local advocates is stepping up to find practical solutions that don’t require waiting years or navigating layers of government bureaucracy.

Mayor Deb Whitfield announced the creation of the Housing Ready Task Force during her April State of the City address, citing a need for “more housing of all types” and a “more progressive approach” to solving local affordability challenges.

Rather than focus on massive state or federal programs, the task force will take a distinctly local route—looking at what can be done within the city’s control, right now.

Getting Proactive, Not Just Reactive

The task force, which held its first meeting in May, is made up of local experts and advocates who will meet weekly to brainstorm and recommend immediate actions the city can take.

Among them is Alison Cole, who brings more than three decades of experience in affordable housing policy. She believes Lawrence is the right kind of place to try bold, practical ideas.

“We might be just the right size and mix of demographics,” Cole said, “that we become that experiment to see what works.” The city of Lawrence, with a population around 50,000, sits between a sizable metro and a small town. That middle ground could give it the agility to move faster than larger cities weighed down by red tape.

Local Tools, Local Control

Task force members say possible recommendations could include support for senior homeowners in need of repairs—an often-overlooked solution to keeping people housed affordably. Other ideas could tackle zoning and permitting rules that prevent smaller or more flexible housing types from being built.

But there’s a complication: Lawrence doesn’t currently have full zoning authority. Instead, zoning decisions go through the Indianapolis Metropolitan Development Commission. Perron, who is coordinating the task force through the mayor’s office, said the city is negotiating with Indianapolis to gain full zoning control—a move that could unlock faster progress on housing reforms.

“The real issue is a lack of housing,” said Perron. “How do we create the environment where more housing can be available for the citizens of our community?”

To help answer that question, the task force is turning to Strong Towns’ Housing Ready framework, which encourages cities to take a bottom-up approach to housing reform—without relying on top-down master plans or massive subsidies. The framework provides a checklist of practical, locally actionable reforms, such as:

Ending minimum parking requirements that make housing more expensive and harder to build
Allowing backyard cottages and accessory dwelling units (ADUs)
Allowing small multifamily homes—like duplexes and fourplexes—in residential zones
Streamlining permitting for small-scale infill development.

Big housing fixes can start small. The Housing-Ready City Toolkit shows how local leaders can unlock more homes using the tools they already have.