Haughville (Indianapolis, Indiana)

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Haughville is a working class neighborhood west of downtown Indianapolis. Its borders are roughly White River to the east, Tibbs Avenue to the west, Sixteenth Street to the north and Michigan Street to the south. It suffers from a high crime rate and low property values. It is inhabited mostly by African Americans. It is considered one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the city, also has one of the highest violent crime rates in the city.

Since 1992, Haughville has been a member of Indianapolis's Weed and Seed initiative, a federal program that targets high crime areas in Indianapolis and attempts to lower the amount of crime. It was actually the first neighborhood in Indianapolis to be stamped with this title.

As of the census of 2000, there were an estimated 8,000 people, 3,146 households, and 1,964 families residing in the CDP. The racial makeup of the CDP was 23.09% White, 61.13% African American, 0.15% Native American, 0.40% Asian, 4.45% from other races, and 1.68% from two or more races. 9.10% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

Of the Adult Population (25 and older) 40.7% do not have a High School diploma. This leads to the overall neighborhood's per capita being $12,545 and an average household income of only $25,312, making the entire neighborhood well below the average per capita and household income of Indianapolis. Unemployment plagues 16% of Haughville's population, while a third of the entire neighborhood is below the poverty line. 40% of the population are renting their household, and 66.0% of them have lived 5 years or less in the area.

Beginning since the 1970s, Haughville was one of the first neighborhoods in Indianapolis to experience a downward trend into poverty, crime, and urban blight. Many of the neighborhood's businesses began to close down as the neighborhood's population began to dwindle down and property values began to sink to new lows. Schools in and around the area began to close down and decay. During the 1980s, Haughville became one of the main focal points of crack cocaine and gang violence. The Gangster Disciples and other gangs from the Chicago area began to make their way into the area and jump-start the drug trade that has long been associated with the area. Crime was especially abundant in Concord Village, a former housing project located in the southwestern area of the neighborhood. By the 1990s, Haughville had the reputation of being one of the worst slums in the city, and a stamp for urban decay and crime, along with Fall Creek Place. The government eventually started to fund programs in the area to try to reverse the problems, starting with the federal program called the Weed and Seed organization (which eventually is now in several locations across the Indianapolis area). Hope IV funded millions of dollars to help reverse the crime in the eventually un-reversible and now demolished Concord Village. During the mid 1990s, homicides in Haughville for a span of 3-5 years, averaged around 15 per year (in an area with only 8,000 residents). However police efforts cut down homicides in 1997, where homicides went from 13 in 1996 to just 1 in 1997. In recent times, Haughville has had a mixed-bag of problems. Though crime is lower than it was in the 90s, it is still has one of the highest crime rates in Indianapolis. However the city has done a great job in starting to reverse urban blight, in addition to adding extra police patrols around the area. In addition, neighborhood figures have established many after-school programs and camps to help keep children off of the streets in efforts to keep them from being lured into the streets. Places such as Municipal Gardens offer as a safe-haven for children trying to keep away from crime.