Community connections: How Indianapolis partnered up when the Haitians came 

City-led programs

Programs like IWC, the city’s Neighborhood Advocates, and a partnership that forms the International Learning Academy all help immigrants connect to services.

Established in 2006, the city’s Immigrant Welcome Center (IWC) started with 12 “natural helpers,” people based in the immigrant community who speak the language, and now has 73. In 2023, IWC served 7,412 immigrants from 37 different countries, including Haiti. Its free services include adult English classes, workshops about culture and bias, a multilingual helpline and a resources database.

The number of Haitian clients at IWC surged between 2023 and 2024, increasing by nearly threefold. Overall, almost twice as many Haitians accessed the organization’s services, while calls to its helpline jumped by nearly 40%. IWC did not disclose exact figures due to confidentiality but confirmed the sharp rise in demand by Haitians.

“I think you first need to stabilize the family,” said Sergio Roldan, IWC’s Natural Helpers and Immigrant Support program manager. “Help them create a plan of action, and then the idea is for them to become self-sufficient, independent, for them to make their own decisions.” 

Ruth Morales, director of the Indianapolis Office of International and Latino Affairs (OILA), said she is always building relationships with municipalities across the nation, asking them, “How have you been serving your diverse communities?” 

Her department has partnered with IWC to create the International Learning Academy, which uses immigrants to liaise with their communities. Three women of Haitian descent are part of the second-year’s 15-member cohort.As the number of immigrants grew, Indianapolis expanded a Neighborhood Advocates program to serve all districts, including those with heavy concentrations of immigrants. The 10 advocates also help manage residents’ day-to-day needs and connect them with government services. They spend their days and evenings at a host of activities, answering questions of high need among immigrants such as helping locals get a driver’s license or register a child for school.

Within agencies, officials also took steps to address specific needs of immigrants. Bernard-Tucker’s 2024 pilot, for example, targeted Haitian and Burmese communities in need of mental health support. Called “Behavioral Health Cultural Equity,” the pilot project launched with the Haitian Association of Indiana (HAI) and the Mental Health Association in Indiana aimed to train 10 – 15 Haitian coaches. The goal was to ensure the community has counselors who understand their culture.

“It takes more than just food and housing,” Bernard-Tucker said. “Perhaps, understanding [Haitian immigrants] are going through some mental health issues that need to be addressed. Because, if they’re not addressed, they might lead to something bigger.”

Culturally-specific nonprofits 

Back when there were no more than a few dozen Haitian families in Indianapolis, HAI formed in 2008 as a cultural group mainly. But as the number of Haitians grew, so has its mission and direct services. Many others, from Dieudonne Foundation to Laundry & More, now dot the map of immigrant-led resource groups. And still, more are forming as the population and needs evolve.

One is the group that Lavache helped officially incorporate as a nonprofit – POH. It formed in 2024 in part because colleagues in government suggested it to its founders, four Haitian women who were consistently helping Haitians find answers through city agencies, other nonprofits and their networks. 

“This is how we pool our resources — so we’re not turning the community away,” said Farah Celestin Chery, one of the founders, who volunteers as the senior director of donor services. 

“Whenever the community would approach any of us,” Celestin said, “If I can’t do it, I know Dafney could or maybe Jenny [Menelas], one of Indy’s Neighborhood Advocates.” 

D.J., the Haitian resident whose name is changed for privacy reasons, said POH was a godsend when he first arrived in Indianapolis in 2021 from South America. When he and his wife came with their first-born in tow, someone told them they could get baby formula. So they applied for WIC, the federally-funded program for low-income families and health insurance through the local Indiana Department of Health. Someone there referred him to Lavache for other support, such as obtaining food stamps, since she spoke his language.

From then on, D.J. said, having someone who spoke Kreyol opened new doors to him — both citywide and within the burgeoning Haitian community. Lavache invited him to Nan Lakou Indiana, a Facebook group for Haitians that served as a bulletin board for job listings, events, announcements and other connections. Through that group, D.J. met a Florida-based lawyer who helped him apply for his initial Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and his wife learned about professional healthcare certification options. Lavache also added him to a local WhatsApp group for more instant communications, a channel that helps members feel a sense of belonging.

“Something like this should be in every community,” D.J. said of POH. “Every nationality has their community. It’s important for people to find their own in every area… They should always keep a group like that going.”

Job placement contacts 

Indianapolis has long-needed labor for service, manufacturing and skilled trades. In recent years, as the city strives to become an economic powerhouse, its need for new workers has increased. 

Among Haitians in Indy, a commonly-known job placement firm is the Haitian-owned Jaspen Group, which recently expanded into Kentucky. As Jaspen’s founders watched the Haitian population grow, their business plan was focused on helping Haitian immigrants get mostly blue-collar jobs. In 2023 alone, Jaspen filled about 4,000 jobs in Indiana, according to CEO Moise Dugé. 

In 2022, Indiana unveiled plans for a hard-tech corridor – a project to create a commercial hub stretching 65 miles, from West Lafayette, home of Purdue University’s flagship campus, to Indianapolis. The plan to develop hardware components for industries such as semiconductor and bio-pharma manufacturing requires a large and specially-trained workforce. 

One training partner is Goodwill, whose local Excel Center has targeted non-traditional students and communities of color for job preparation since 2010. Brochures in Spanish and word-of-mouth have been successful in reaching trainees from immigrant backgrounds, a Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana spokesperson said. She was unaware, however, if she had any students of Haitian ethnicity. 

Some in the Haitian community, like Lavache, have never heard of the hard-tech project or the employment training. 

Challenges beyond support services for immigrants persist

Government officials say they were not shy about borrowing or sharing projects with other cities. Some of the collaborations are similar to established approaches seen in older immigrant-heavy places such as South Florida and New York. Several said they recognize certain challenges are going unaddressed even as they make some headway. 

Roldan, of IWC, said finding employment assistance is the most critical need because stability comes once employment is secured. Too often, some people here legally are unable to find work.

“There needs to be a statewide program or a nationwide program, to get people to work,” he said.

Haitians still fall through the cracks

Veterans service providers say such misses may be due less to using a specific model and more to America’s larger view of Haitian migrants, whose specific cultural and language needs often go unrecognized or insufficiently funded.

Elsie Saint Louis, executive director and CEO of Haitian Americans United for Progress (HAUP) in New York, noticed the gap when she visited Indy last December to meet with Haitian counterparts. Compared to other groups that arrived in the U.S. at the same time as Haitians, the latter don’t have those services that may be available specifically for asylees or refugees.

“We are left to take care of our own,’” Saint Louis said.

“[In] the Far Eastside, I’m looking at how the Haitians were living,” she explained. “They’re living in shanty towns… How do you let that happen?”

Nebulous future for funding

In interviews with Indianapolis government departments, officials expressed heartfelt concern and shared efforts to create meaningful projects responsive to immigrant needs. Yet, the city’s budget, the main purse for many of the programs, does not include much to address the immigrant influx. Even as the Trump administration orders mass deportations and enacts other anti-immigrant policies, critics say the Mayor has been too silent for a Democratic city in a red state.

In the $1.65 billion budget, there was no line item for immigrant specific services. Neither OILA’s International Learning Academy nor its partnership with IWC had allocations mentioned specifically in the budget. Instead, under the OILA section, the objective for the department was stated: “Create and foster relationships with diverse local communities.”

Messages and calls left with the Mayor’s Office asking about funding for immigrant programs and his support of immigrants in Indianapolis since the Trump administration took office were not returned. 

Cultural progress far off  

Stories in which Haitians are ignored, bullied, harassed or discriminated against show there’s much work to be done to improve relations between some Indianapolis residents and the city’s newcomers. The same is true of places beyond Indianapolis, like Springfield, Ohio, that have become race-fuelled, cultural flashpoints.

Such gaps chip away at their quality of life, the way newcomers like D.J. tell it.

Since arriving in Indianapolis from Chile, D.J. and his wife have begun “moving up.” He works two jobs — as an electronic door installer full-time and a warehouse worker on weekends. His wife works at the warehouse part time also, while attending school to become an LPN. They stopped applying for food stamps and other public assistance and bought a house. They have a second child now. 

Yet, while the couple is rising upward economically and finding other Haitians to form communal bonds, their day-to-day interactions are far from the “Hoosier Hospitality” some experience. 

“It’s not just the money,” said D.J. “I love being in a place where I have a sense of community.”

At work, the group of mostly white on the day shift and the mostly Haitian night crew do not exchange pleasantries. At home, in the mostly white neighborhood he moved into, no one has come by to invite them to a function or say hello. Early morning joggers don’t wave at him like they do to each other. 

“I’d like someone to wave to me too, some time,” he said, with a laugh.

Though he had racist encounters in Chile, the racial divide he is experiencing now is extremely jarring. He now worries about his children growing up Black in such a racially divided place. He might leave the U.S., a move acquaintances of his are already exploring.

“I might leave to save my kids.”