State investments target bioscience growth, Indiana's foreclosure rate spikes and health centers across the state could lose money for medication.

From the television studios at WFYI Public Media, it's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending March 20th, 2026.

Indiana Week in Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

Additional support is provided by ParrRichey.

Indiana needs to increase its skilled workforce to keep up with industry demand and to further grow the state's economy, especially in the life sciences sector.

Caroline Beck reports on a new commitment from the governor to do just that.

Governor Mike Braun.

Announced a $1 billion investment to expand various agriculture and life sciences jobs in central Indiana in the coming.

Decade.

Braun says the commitment will bring.

In over 100,000 jobs over ten years.

He also says the investment will be handed out based on performance.

While no dollars have officially been committed to any business.

Braun says the announcement is meant to signal to global industries to do business in Indiana.

This historic investment will empower region led growth, bring in more jobs with higher wages, and further establish Indiana as a state for cutting edge life sciences.

The IEDC says the.

Investment amounts to about a third of its resources.

Is the bioscience industry the future for Indiana?

It's the first question for our Indiana Week in Review panel.

Political strategist Elise Shrock.

Republican Chris Mitchem.

Samantha Horton, reporter and newscaster at WFYI.

And Niki Kelly, editor in chief at Indiana Capital Chronicle.

I'm Jill Sheridan, managing editor at WFYI.

So, Chris, will this commitment, this $1 billion investment pay off?

I think it will, assuming all plans or all things go according to plan.

I mean, if you look around, whether you like it or not, some of the similar strategies that this plan hopes to do is working in Indiana.

You look at, you know, the 16 tech park in downtown Indianapolis that really has reinvigorated a certain part of that of the city that previously wasn't used very well.

But a lot of startup bioscience companies were behind that.

You look up at fishers with their innovation district.

Again, you have a lot of, bio animal startup companies up there that have since kind of allowed that area to be expanded as well.

So, I think having a mom and pop shop like Eli Lilly in our backyard kind of really gives us a, a head start of that because they already have such big investment in here.

So being able to capitalize on that and be able to attract people like Elanco on the on the West Side of Indianapolis as well, that continues to try and, make proposals to expand that area.

it works.

And I think wanting to continue to invest in similar projects like that, I think this program will really start to show its colors whenever it starts expanding to other areas of the state, and not just central Indiana.

I understand this is considered to be phase one, and this central region is supposed to be leading the effort.

But, ideally, I think the ultimate goal for this would be to have similar efforts in southwest Indiana, northwest Indiana, where you don't hear as many of these agreements come in, but to continue to not isolate those parts of the state and continue to have developments in those parts as well.

Well, Chris makes a good point.

You know, we have been focused on life science, bioscience.

We called it, you know, ten years ago, industry for a long time here in Indiana.

But now we're hearing that IEDC that economic development corporation spending about a third of its budget for this initiative.

that's a lot of money.

It is a lot of money.

And it's the type of spending that we've seen historically where, the state has prioritized funding economic growth.

but I and I don't think economic growth policy is bad policy.

I'm worried that has misaligned urgency because something that we've also talked about is affordability.

And this is a long term project where we're talking about future, subsidies for corporations, where every day families need relief now.

So that is money, that we are prioritizing for corporations that are coming with their own, capabilities to fund themselves, and, and their own financial, well-being.

And we could be investing that money in different ways because who who's going to work in these facilities?

We're going to bring all of these jobs.

Who's going to work there?

Who's going to have the workforce training to step into these roles?

Where are these communities going to be?

I mean, 16 tech, that is a great example.

16 tech has been largely a success because the community has been a huge part of its success.

The community events that are there, the community that has seen it as a space for them.

But the community is also struggling in a lot of different ways.

It's really hard to talk about economic growth for the future when you're asking people to choose between rent and medical bills.

I mean, Niki, we did hear, you know, 100,000 jobs in the next ten years.

Did we get an idea of, you know, how this money will be spent, though, in order to accomplish this?

Yeah.

I don't see anything technically different.

I mean, the state gets a pot of money every year in tax credits, and and they're basically saying for the next ten years they're going to put aside a third of it, about 100 million a year to target these specific industries.

so there can be a range of projects they're looking for companies to expand or companies to relocate, that kind of thing.

And, you know, and then they're saying that would be about 10,000 jobs.

You know, a year.

So I think it's a pretty realistic goal looking at our past job, growth under IEDC, I do hope they definitely separate out this industry in any of their reporting so we can see, you know, if if it's having an impact and we it doesn't get, you know, lost with, you know, a manufacturer you know increase or something like that.

And we did hear you know, these are supposed to be very high paying jobs.

Samantha, is this, something that's going to really help the state?

I mean, a big thing is obviously it's a skill for the workforce.

It's how do you get the workers and recruiting.

So that's going to be, you know, part of what the partnership with Purdue look like, for example, are are a major ag school here in the state.

you know, what is other things like quality of life.

It's so clear when we talk to people, you know, I know affordability became a conversation point.

That is going to have to be, how do you incentivize workers to want to not only maybe go to school here, but then also stay here or move here from other parts of the country?

So I think it's a big part of it.

I mean, we're seeing the LEAP district up in Lebanon also had, you know, Eli Lilly is invested there.

And so I think we're still waiting to see how does that shake out what what is a final, you know, what does the final product look like there.

You know, how and how easy is it or challenging is it for them to recruit the workforce they need for that?

So I think that's going to also kind of tell us where we might see this investment going.

And I did hear the governor speak of many of the same companies that are already invested in the state.

You know, Lilly, Roche, a lot of these, companies that have already committed to the life science sector, I, I remember being at a summit where some of these leaders and from Purdue and IU were all talking about that.

You know, having to bring people here is a difficult thing to have.

Yeah.

And, you know, God bless Governor Holcomb in the amount of business development he was able to do that.

I think that is universally a, positive from his administration.

But I do think you kind of have the looming IEDC.

What is their role look like?

You know, previously where you see them kind of acting more low key, kind of acting unilaterally for a lot of these projects.

So I think the difference here is it really is a more regional collaboration thing where you are seeing the universities coming.

You're seeing the employers.

Mayor Scott Fadness from fishers, was there at the at the presser presser as well.

So there's a local government aspect to it.

So I think everybody coming together to try to find the best way to utilize these funds is a really good sign that they're still kind of cognizant of the IEDC's reputation, I guess you could say.

But, continuing to try to bring as many people to the table as possible, I think is a really good way to, you know, not only just try to bring in big buildings and big employers to hire people, but also, again, how can we best stretch this money out to address those, you know, quality of life services.

With the transparency and IEDC that he brings up.

Is that a concern?

You know, or is this, you know, a new day, maybe.

concern since IEDC became the IEDC and it will continue to be a concern.

I think there was supposed to be a line down of of foundation.

You know, what's been spent from IEDC.

Capital Chronicle did a great article on that.

that viewers should definitely check out.

but I think Chris brings up a great point about who all is at the table and who we've seen come to the table.

And with these larger decisions, more than ever now, we are seeing every day neighbors showing up at their local municipal meetings, showing up at the statehouse, showing up at zoning, hearings to have a say in these decisions.

And I think you're right, like that type of transparency, bringing everybody to the table to make sure that these inevitable decisions where we have to talk about economic growth, we have to talk about jobs, we need to talk about affordability.

All of these are critical pieces of the conversation, but it has to happen transparently, and it has to happen in a way where everybody gets a say.

Time now for viewer feedback.

Every week we pose an unscientific online poll question.

This week's question should the state dedicate $1 billion to bring bioscience business to India?

Vote yes or no?

The last question posed to viewers should the state be partnering with Turning Point USA?

Answer 6% saying yes and 94% saying no.

If you would like to take part in the poll.

Go to WFYI.org/IWIR and look for the poll.

Foreclosure rates have continued a gradual upward trend that began last year, according to new property data.

Zak Cassel has more on Indiana's February foreclosure ranking from real estate data firm ATTOM.

Indiana has the worst foreclosure filing rate of all states, according to ATTOM one in nearly 1600 housing units.

South Carolina and Florida have the next highest rates.

Amy Nelson is with the Fair Housing Center of central Indiana.

She says more foreclosures limit the opportunity for local families to build generational wealth.

Far too often when these homes end up going into foreclosure, they end up being purchased by out-of-state investors, who then flip them into expensive rentals.

Indianapolis ranks third and Evansville fourth in foreclosure filings out of all metropolitan areas across the country, with more than 200,000 residents.

Elise, what do you think this trend tells us about housing affordable housing in Indiana?

Well, it's not good.

and I think this is, again, just another harbinger of where everyday folks are at with their ability to live.

And, unfortunately, not thrive in Indiana.

and if we're seeing foreclosure rates of folks who are actually homeowners, what does this say about folks who are renting and who are living in the margins?

in addition to this statistic, we also saw earlier this year the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority's report, again, another article from Capital Chronicle.

You guys are killing it.

about rural homelessness.

It is up over 16%.

And these are areas that, it is harder to get resources, resources.

barriers to resources are much higher.

much more spread out.

and I worry about, not just the fact that we are in a, in systems that aren't equipped to handle this increase.

whether it's foreclosures or, increases in homelessness, that we have a real mindset shift that we're going to have to get over to change policy.

Because right now at the state House, we are dealing with a mindset where the predominant, approach is we're going to criminalize homelessness with underpinnings of racist and classes, policy.

It's going to take a lot to get from that extreme to how do we move towards real like housing fixes, like there has to be a fix.

Like if we can't just obsess over Indianapolis and let the rest of the state languish, the rest of the state where the majority of these legislators represent.

so there has to be a mindset shift.

There has to be, a real change in how we address these policies and who we're paying attention to.

When, she mentions legislation or asks us all legislation, this we are this year for, trying to reduce regulations around housing and the governor pointing to property taxes that may help some home owners.

Are these things going to make an impact when we're considering these foreclosure rates?

Yeah, you need a little bit of everything, because even in the in the actual study, it says, you know, increased mortgage rates alone aren't the reason why this is happening.

It really is.

Goes back to that affordability conversation we've been having for seemingly a couple of years now.

And at the state House, that there obviously was a silver bullet that somebody could pass and just immediately make all these affordability crisis go away.

They'd probably they'd probably do it.

But, you know, you're seeing incremental steps.

And I think House Bill 1001 was the bill you were referring to is a really good example of how working through the process can help expose where some of the gaps are as to where maybe more collaboration has to happen.

A really good example with that bill was it went through the entire first half of session with some pretty strict local regulation control of you need to make sure you're not stopping duplexes and single family housing from going on areas that are already zoned for residential or zoned next to mass transit, places where lower income folks are more likely to be.

It went through the first half of the house, and then the second half is when you saw a lot of mayors, a lot of local government folks come out of the woodwork and being like, actually, we don't want to kind of do a full audit of our current housing situations because we like the way our communities work now.

So much to the point.

So that that bill ended up getting amended to where all these provisions were opt out.

All you needed to do was passed an ordinance and say we'd rather not match what the state feels.

Are these best practice standards and go with ours.

And that still experienced a lot of pushback from local governments to the point where they just took all of that out.

And House Bill 1001 still has a lot of really good provisions in there to help try to drive down the cost of affordable housing.

But I think that example right there was something that I think a lot of statehouse folks hadn't thought about before was the collaboration between the state government and local government of really trying to make sure that these costs that are associated with regulation and local government regulation.

How can we work together to best drive those down?

And it might be a tougher conversation than a lot of people thought it would be.

It brings up a good point, Niki, about local, municipalities.

We reached out to a number who didn't necessarily want to comment because that's not necessarily in their purview.

what should we consider when we're looking at foreclosure rates, not just in Indianapolis?

This also took a look at Evansville as well in some other areas.

I think you have to consider everything.

Nothing's in a vacuum.

you have to look at the property taxes.

You have to look at utility bills, which we've been talking about now for a while, and how they have gone up.

you know, along with the actual rent prices, inflation for food, you know, it's everything.

And at least this past session, you know, Republicans started talking about affordability before they wouldn't even kind of broach the topic, right, or admit that people were struggling in Indiana.

but yeah, I mean, I think, I think there is work being done in all those individual areas, but so far we're not seeing any, any real progress.

I mean, we've heard this from the centers, like the Fair Housing Center and Amy Nelson, you know, warning about this trend happening here in Indiana.

is this something that we're seeing more and more of?

And also, you know, considering that some times out of state landlords buy up these properties and that just continues the problem?

Yeah, I mean, I think the session obviously during this session, lawmakers are recognizing we have a housing issue here.

Like it's whether it's a shortage in some areas or, you know, just affordability.

It's this is the reality that we're in.

And it's on top of that.

You know we talked about other issues.

You know, utilities is a major one that's eating into people's paychecks more.

I mean, right now with federal policies too, we have gas prices up.

You know, there's so many things that are affecting how people are having to choose to spend money.

And then at the same time, what federal what what assistance programs are out there.

And that's limited.

Even so, there's I think a lot of things have to be juggled, and people are really having to decide where their money goes.

And that's making tough calls.

And that's why we're possibly seeing some of these foreclosures happening.

Well, Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration could end Medicaid drug reimbursement for qualified health centers across the state.

As Ben Thorp reports, health centers say the change could cost them millions and lead to a weakened health safety net.

The proposed change would eliminate the ability of health centers to claim drug discounts through a federal program that provides medicines to low income and uninsured populations.

Instead, the state plans to claim those rebates for itself.

Allen Witchey is the president and CEO of the nonprofit Damien Center, which saves about $5 million under the program.

He says it allows them to provide medicine free or at a reduced cost.

By doing this, they will reverse that and there will be less options for Hoosiers to get their medications.

Less options for Hoosiers to get medical care.

And it will likely lead to far more people accessing emergency care.

State officials argue the change will save the state money.

A spokesperson for the FSSA did not respond to a request for comment.

So, Niki, does this change make sense for Indiana's health care system?

Well, I mean, I think it just depends his perspective here and.

Right.

I mean, FSSA is trying to deal with a budget and, and the limited appropriation, they're trying to lower Medicaid costs.

And so for them, that's a $63 million savings, right?

Like that's like short term immediate gratification savings.

But there obviously is a cost on the other end.

And I think they're hoping it won't be as bad as people are saying.

And we are hearing, you know from not just Damien Center here in Indianapolis, but a number of health centers around the state that are saying this will cost them millions.

And the health safety net is already at risk.

Would you say Samantha?

Yeah.

I mean, it's one of the things of the medications of preventative care.

That's the idea.

And so the concerns being will you see more people putting off care or not, you know, not going without medication that leads into the emergency rooms, which is already, you know, dealing with its own costs.

And that's even more expensive for hospitals to take on that cost and for the people seeking the care.

So I think it is going to be a thing that we're going to see.

I don't know the timeline, but it is definitely out there of, you know, when we try to prevent things.

I think Damien, center, got brought up.

I think of, you know, HIV and the Prep, is incredibly expensive.

That's something that you could look at as a preventive public like health thing, too.

Like, you know, we had Austin Indiana with the HIV outbreak.

And so that, you know, some of these medications can also not only just help the individual, but help the community.

And when we are, you know, thinking about that and thinking about this change, the FSSA is taking public comment right now, but there will be no hearing and this is likely to pass.

Right.

And that's unfortunate.

because there are so many folks who are impacted by this, they deserve a voice in this process because of the impact.

and the state, again, you know, I feel like the legislature has been studying, costs of health care.

but they've largely focused on the system, hospitals, and how not what everyday folks are actually paying day to day.

And that's where the relief is needed.

And this is not going to help.

all new electric powered wheelchairs capable of travel over all types of terrain will be available to visitors with limited mobility at all state parks, free of cost.

Samantha Horton reports.

Jeremy Warriner uses a controller with a joystick to guide the heavy duty wheels of the accessible truck chair on its inaugural ride.

The continuous spans of tread help navigate off road environments, and each charge can last up to eight hours and is one of 45 new chairs going to state parks, with all having at least one.

Warriner says he used to backpack before cart incident 20 years ago that left him in a wheelchair.

Many of us tell ourselves these lies when we acquire disabilities that we're not going to be able to do those things again.

But as technology improves and we maintain our health, all of these things open back up.

Officials say park staff will be trained on how to upkeep the chairs and track usage at each park.

So, Samantha, is this move making parts more parks more accessible?

I mean, yeah, I mean, each state park will have at least one of these chairs.

So idea is, you know, we heard from one individual there, you know, Jeremy, who talked about how he's now excited that it wasn't he couldn't do.

And also, I think what's cool about the chairs that wasn't in a story right there right away, but online was it also has like a fishing pole holder and a gun holder too.

So the idea is like it's not just about getting on the trail, but also being able to like do recreational activities.

So I think the highlight was the pandemic really got people more wanting to get outdoors.

But at the same time, there are barriers for some and this is trying to reduce this barrier.

So it came though from a grant from the Lilly Foundation.

it was part of a $50 million grant.

So that's we have to keep that in mind of how this was funded.

Yeah.

It, you know, obviously the state, did not fund this initiative, but it still is.

Puts us on the track to making things more.

Yeah.

I mean, the state's going to cover obviously maintenance costs and like continued of having the program.

But yeah thanks to Lilly for starting it up.

Obviously with Indiana's budget, tighten them.

You know they wouldn't be able to fund something like this.

And I just know that we got a lot of reaction from our story.

I think, readers and we were just excited to see kind of a cool, non scandalous, frustrating story to read.

And so it it's.

Front facing right.

It's not you know we're investing in our Wi-Fi infrastructure road infrastructure something like that.

It's something that I think is actually going to help a lot of people that typically might not have the opportunity to do something like.

That, something tangible, I know.

So something positive in the media landscape today is, yeah, it's always something.

But at the same time, you know, we are seeing cuts to accessibility or inclusion programs for, you know, parks and trails and trails specifically as capital Chronical.

Yeah.

And this is a great testament to why they are needed.

Everyone deserves the opportunity to be outside, to experience our incredible parks.

this is I think March 1990 is the anniversary anniversary of the Capitol crawl.

when, disability, rights, activists, staged the protest that led to the expedited passage of the, Disabilities Act.

Yeah.

so, you know, it was a poignant month to be reminded of what this type of, work can do and why it's important.

Well, so IU coach Curt Cignetti was selected to drive the pace car for this year's 500 race.

real quick around, if you were going to select Niki just no idea whats wrong with Curt Cignetti?

I. Yeah.

I'll say I really tried, but I think just with his national stardom now, he's got to be the right choice.

But with this new contract, maybe he can buy his own pace car.

What do you think, Elise?

I don't know, maybe John Green.

I know thatll be awesome.

I hope to see in the future Tamika Catchings, I be really want to see that in another year.

We want Cignetti should do it this year, for sure.

Well, that's Indiana Week in review for this week.

Our panel has been political strategist Elise Shrock, Republican Chris Mitchem.

Samantha Horton, WFYI reporter and newscaster.

And Niki Kelly, editor in chief of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

You can always find Indiana Week in Reviews podcast and episodes at WFYI.org/IWIR, or on the PBS app.

I'm Jill Sheridan, managing editor at WFYI.

Join us next time, because a lot can happen in an Indiana week.

The views expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Week in Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

Additional support is provided by ParrRichey.