Population

Over 54,000 people live in the Promise Neighborhood.

The total population is estimated at 54,487, just above where the population was twelve years ago. There may have been a slight decline in population in the middle of the decade, but the trend has recovered in the years since.

How many residents are experiencing poverty?

Poverty among youth has increased since 2021.

26 percent of the neighborhood is living in poverty. The poverty rate among youth is higher than the overall population, at 37 percent, but it has fallen an estimated 22 points since 2013. Research has shown that poverty rates may have fallen in 2020 as cash assistance was made available through pandemic relief bills. Due to a large margin of error, the difference between overall and youth poverty rate is not statistically significant. Even with the larger margin of error, the trend data shows the youth poverty rates tend to exceed the rest of the population.

Employment

Unemployment rate has fallen but is still twice the Indianapolis average.

Improvement in the unemployment rate follows national trends during this time period as the economy experienced steady growth. The labor force participation rate is the percentage of people aged 16 or older who are employed or seeking work. At 64 percent, this is actually higher than Indianapolis' overall rate of 63.5 percent. Unemployment rates tend to be higher for Black workers. In this neighborhood, the Black-White unemployment rate gap is estimated at six points. Labor force participation tends to be lower for women, who participate in the labor at a rate nine points lower than men in this neighborhood.  

Jobs

There are nearly 10,500 jobs in the neighborhood, and nearly 55 percent pay more than $40,000 per year.

The top sectors are manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, and construction. Waste management, information, and transportation and warehousing are the fastest growing sectors.

Housing cost burdened

An estimated 35 percent are housing cost burdened. Nineteen percent of household spend at least half their income on housing costs.

When a household spends 30% of their income or more on housing costs, they are considered housing cost burdened. While the estimates have declined since 2017, the decline is not large enough to be statistically significant.  

Median housing costs

Both median mortgage and rent payments have gone up drastically since 2010.

Median rent climbed from an estimated $680 in 2010 to $1,005 in 2023, while median mortgage costs for households rose from $676 in 2010 to $1174 in 2023. Rent increases are occurring as many residents are renting more and concurrently home ownership is falling. Rent increases disproportionately impact Black residents, who are more likely than White residents to rent their home.  

Family income

Nearly eight in ten students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which means their family is low-income (below 185 percent of the poverty threshold).

At the beginning of the 2010s, more families were low-income. Unemployment was high after the Great Recession. Since 2013, the share of families that are low-income fell by 10 points. Still, the vast majority of students are from low-income families.    

Violent crime rates

Violent crime fell from 2015 to 2021 but was still much higher than the Indianapolis average of 11.4 violent crimes per 1,000 residents.

In 2016, the violent crime rate (excluding simple assaults) was 39 crimes per 1,000 residents. The crime rate fell by a third since then. Violent crime has fallen in the neighborhood for five consecutive years.  

Juvenile charges

In 2020, there were 38 juvenile charges for every 1,000 youth living in this neighborhood. That has declined since 2010.

Although racial disparities have shown improvement, there continues to be a gap in Black youth. Black youth are charged at 2.1 times the rate of white youth. In 2010, Black youth were charge at 2.8 times the rate of white youth.  

Young children

Children start kindergarten at various ages, but Indiana school corporations are required to provide kindergarten starting at age five.

It is estimated that there are between 3,354 and 4,708 children under age five in the neighborhood, which is a slight decrease from 2022.    

Broadband access

Nearly three-quarts (75 percent) of the neighborhood has access to broadband internet.

The share of households with broadband internet access may have increased between 2017 and 2022. In 2023, an estimated 70.2-80 percent of households have broadband.    

Enrollment

Schools in the neighborhood often have high enrollment of Black and Latino students.

Enrollment by race varies greatly between schools, and several schools in the neighborhood have undergone drastic changes in enrollment since 2018-19, while others have not. Enrollment at Arsenal Tech High School declined since before the pandemic but both Arsneal Tech and KIPP High School saw increases between the 2021-2022 to 2023-2024 school years. Both high schools saw decreases in the 2024-2025 school year. The number of Latino students has increased since 2018-2019 from 921 to 1,359 for Arsenal Tech while KIPP saw an increase in the number of Latino students from 40 in 2021-2022 to 82 in 2024-2025.  

Enrollment increased at middle schools in the neighborhood driven by growth in the number of Black and Latino students. Harshman Middle School had the fastest increase in enrollment, adding 237 students from the 2023-2024 school year to 2024-2025.

Elementaries in the neighborhood have shown mixed increases and decreases in enrollment throughout the years.  KIPP Elementary has seen a yearly increase in students since 2018-2019. Paramount Brookside and Gregg School 15 Elementary have both seen a slight decrease from the 2023-2024 school year, but has overall seen a steady enrollment since 2018-2019.  Brookside 54 and Lowell School 51 have seen inconsistent enrollemnts over the past 5 school years.

English language learners

 The percentage of English language learners increased from 2018-19 to 2022-23 across most of the neighborhood schools.

Before the pandemic, Brookside School 54 had 11 percent of students that were English language learners. That has increased to nearly half of students in the 2024-2025 school year. Arsenal Technical High School has the highest rate of English language learners of all schools in the neighborhood.      

Attendance rates

Chronic absenteeism spiked in 2020-21 relative to 2019-20, likely due to the Covid pandemic and the associated changes in schooling.

The State of Indiana defines chronic absenteeism as the share of students who miss 10 or more days of school. Neighborhood school chronic absentee rates increased over 20% in most schools, sometimes reaching rates over 70% in 2020-21. The most impacted schools include Arsenal Tech, Thomas D Gregg, Brookside School, Urban ACT, and Kipp Legacy High.    

Math proficiency

Both the number and percentage of students passing the math ILEARN exam in grades 3-8 within the neighborhood dropped substantially from 2018-19 to 2022-23, except for Grade 5.

Grades 7 and 8 had the lowest passing rates in 2022-23.    

English proficiency

Both the number and percentage of students passing the ELA ILEARN exam in grades 3-8 within the neighborhood dropped substantially from 2018-19 to 2022-23.

Grades 3 and 7 had the lowest passing rates in 2021-22.    

Mobility Rates

Brookside School 54 and Washington Irving had the highest rates of students leaving or entering during the school year.

   

Graduation rates

Graduation rates vary widely overall between high schools within and near the neighborhood, with some schools seeing marked decreases in graduation rates from 2019 to 2022, likely due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

High school graduation rates also vary by race, with racial disparities seen in some schools, but not as much in others. Differences in graduation rates among races should be understood as the effect of socioeconomic inequality.