Make wishtv.com your home page

Circle Up Indy’s Rising Evolution aims to build community investment

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Circle Up Indy is moving forward with what it calls a history-making move, taking on a unique approach to build community and wealth in one of Indy’s historically Black communities.

Organizers say when you talk about community investment the most important word in that phrase is community. The Rising Evolution initiative is asking the community to feed into it, since they will be the ones benefiting from the housing and job access with a broader goal of building the neighborhood economic base.

Many areas around Martindale Brightwood still bear the marks of community disinvestment, but for hundreds this is home.

“Our community is constantly underestimated. They don’t feel that we believe we want to invest in our community,” said James Wilson, CEO of Circle Up Indy.

It’s where Wilson grew up, and it’s here he’s looking to bring back some investment to the tune of $4 million. He and his team recently unveiled a multi-prong plan called Rising Evolution.

“Rising Evolution is way more than simply just providing affordable housing. We created what a call a 360 equal effect of development. It’s when we invest dollars back into ourselves and start to build opportunities in self-sustainability,” Wilson said.

He says the plan will be done in phases, and is contingent on the amount of community investment. Wilson says $1 million of funding will go to land acquisition.

“Behind us is the beginning of our first container home. We’re going to start off with container homes and move into the 3-D,” Wilson said.

As financial goals are reached, they’ll be able to start the 3-D and container home development. From there, they’ll move to construction training, and paid education, and ultimately, job placement. While the community will lead the efforts, he’s calling on corporate support.

“They wrote a commitment letter a few years ago when we were down there protesting. Saying what they want to do to get involved. I’m challenging you to get involved,” Wilson said.