The affordability of housing in Bloomington, or rather, its increasing unaffordability, has been an issue for more than a decade. Indiana University has grown its enrollment without growing even its first-year-student housing stock, per a recent story in the Herald-Times. Interest rates have been relatively high, and only now are starting to come down; supply has been low; in this area, new housing that's not student-oriented apartment complexes have been difficult to build. But so much of that type of housing has opened as of this school year that the market may be cooling off. 

On all this we get the perspective of a long-time professional in the local real-estate market. Tracee Lutes is a Broker Owner at Remax/Acclaimed Properties of Bloomington and Bedford. We get into the state of the market, as well as the challenges of developing single-family housing locally. And we discuss the Bloomington Housing Authority and the Summit Hill Community Land Trust, both of whose boards she serves on.

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Although we hope to have a representative from the City Commission on the Status of Women, we're talking today about the separate, seven-member Monroe County Women's Commission. Where the city commission has a budget to throw events like the annual Women's History Month luncheon, the county's focuses more on policy. Our guest today is the chair of the county women's commission, Susan Hingle. We talk with her about the research they do, their outreach efforts, and their advocacy in the design of the new county justice complex.

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It's another round of questions for Anna Killion-Hanson about the city Housing & Neighborhood Development, which she directs. She tackles questions like what's happening now in the Hopewell development where the hospital used to be, good advice for tenants new to town, like how a tenant with a complaint about a habitability issue should proceed, and how the Redevelopment Commission (which HAND oversees) works.

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Our topic today is emergency winter sheltering, the last resort for Bloomingtonians with no place to call home when it is most dangerous outside. For years there was a coordinated effort among local churches called the Interfaith Winter Shelter, but...well, it ended. We talk about why, and what's required to replace it, with the leadership team of the organization that has picked up the baton. 

Caleb Hoagland and Dan Caldwell run the Bloomington Severe Winter Emergency Shelter, called B-SWERS for short. The shelter provides beds in extreme cold weather at downtown churches, on a shoestring budget with virtually all volunteers. But it's already being recognized for its effort: last month, the city/county human rights commission awarded B-SWERS the 2025 Human Rights Award. 

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Our guest today is a Nurse Practitioner who specializes in OBGYN, and works for IU Health as the Regional Director for Advance Practice Providers. But Danielle Benedek is also a co-founder of the Riley Physician's Medical Child Abuse Clinic, hosted at the Bloomington branch of the nonprofit child advocacy center known as Susie's Place. We talk with her about the clinic, which is a safe, unified and effective place for child victims of abuse to be cared for while their cases work their way through the justice system. For her work, the city Commission on the Status of Women named Benedek the 2025 Woman of the Year. 

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There are almost a thousand agencies around the country called "community action programs", whose mandates are to reduce the extent and impact of poverty in a given area, and date to the 1960s War on Poverty launched by the administration of LBJ. Our guest today, Eddy Riou, is the executive director of SCCAP ("skap"), the South Central Community Action Program, which is based in Bloomington. He lays out all the programs that they manage, involving Head Start, weatherization, housing choice vouchers, energy assistance, and many others. SCCAP is the local operator of state and federal programs designed to meet the specific needs of low-income individuals and families. It also advocates for and represents the interests of people with low incomes, helps them to represent themselves, and coordinates with other agencies in the same sector.

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Any roads outside Bloomington, Ellettsville or Stinesville are the jurisdiction of Monroe County. Today, we talk to the County Highway Department about how they manage the condition of more than 700 miles of roads.Our guests today are Lisa Ridge, the Highway Dept. director, and her deputy, Toby Turner, the Highway Superintendent. They talk about what it takes to maintain a roadway properly (hint: it's not just about paving), how they deal with water, and how it all gets funded. It's a crash course on roads -- no wait, that's probably the wrong metaphor -- call it a quick start guide to your county roads network. 

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The 812 is back after an extended summer break with a new season!

Our premiere guest of season 4 is a fellow traveler. He too started a local government reporting series...and he just finished high school. 

Rafiul Shefar graduated at the beginning of this month from Harmony School, an independent K-12 school in Bloomington. Harmony students have to do a senior project. He wanted to better understand US government, which led him to the Youth Radio program at community radio station WFHB. Over the summer, he produced an eight-part series taking a deep dive into the state legislature, interviewing experts on issues taken up by the Indiana statehouse, and called it "government.exe". 

But if you're expecting an amateur production full of stumbles and hesitation, you're in for a big surprise. Rafiul (his "last" name) books knowledgeable guests, asks incisive questions and is a good listener. And Rafiul's non-American identity -- he came to the US for high school from his native Bangladesh, where autocracy is the rule -- gives American listeners a fresh perspective on our democracy. The show aired between June and August on WFHB, and is available on their website.

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Shelli Yoder returns to The 812, now as the Indiana Senate minority leader (a title she got unexpectedly the day after she was last here in December). Whatever plans she mentioned then for this legislative session were upended by the behemoth changes wrought by Senate Bill 1. Localities around the state are still reeling from the impact of the tax cuts in SB1; we talk about how it will affect Bloomington, Monroe County, and the school corporations. Sen. Yoder also talks about the state's new work requirements in Medicaid, and the looming threat of universal choice vouchers to public school systems in the state.

This is our last episode for Season 3 which began in January. The 812's schedule roughly follows that of the Bloomington City Council, which just had its last meeting Wednesday, June 4, before its summer recess. The show will resume with Season 4 in mid-July, after Council resumes its regular sessions.

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On June 27, the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre will host a screening of the original, uncut, 1954 Toho Studios film Gojira, in Japanese with English subtitles. There will be a special presentation before the film, and a Q&A panel discussion afterwards. That'll be followed by original Japanese cuts of two more Godzilla films the next two nights, rarely if ever seen by American audiences -- and the differences are dramatic.

The mad genius behind Godzilla Weekend is Beth Bredlau, a graduate student in the Art History Department at IU, who specializes in "Godzilla Studies." We talk with her about the cultural significance of the famed movie beast in the 21st century, and the proclamation from Mayor Thomson declaring June 27 Godzilla Day in Bloomington. 

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