Hanna Commons Creates Housing for Our Neighbors, Human and Avian

By Danielle Ridgway

Senior Grants Manager of Keep Indianapolis Beautiful Initiative, Inc.

At Hanna Commons, a staff member’s shirt proclaims that “Housing Is a Human Right.”

The affordable housing complex in south Indianapolis takes a simple approach to chronic homelessness: first give people a place to live. Residents can then work on other areas of their lives, taking advantage of onsite health, counseling, and employment services.

But today, housing is for birds, too. Sixteen residents, nearly a third of the people who call Hanna Commons home, have joined Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, Inc. (KIB) to build nest boxes and learn about the birds that live nearby.

Imagining a Park

About six months after opening, Hanna Commons reached out to KIB about transforming the entrance to their space into a park. They had heard of the nonprofit’s AES Indiana Project GreenSpace program, which helps turn vacant and underused lots into functional, beautiful, resilient, and distinctive spaces.

“The resident council’s vision is to transform the small, wooded area in front of Hanna into a serene shade park, a green sanctuary where residents can connect with nature,” wrote Matthew Miller, Community Partnership Manager of Hanna Commons. He described a “lush, low-maintenance landscape that invites a variety of birds, pollinators, and other wildlife.”

A significant goal was access to nature and its health benefits, complementing the formal healthcare services inside. Watching birds can involve soft fascination, a type of effortless attention that restores our ability to focus. It also helps people slow down, disconnect from daily stressors, and feel like part of something larger than themselves.

“This is a space that is special to our residents,” wrote Matthew. “One thing many of the residents say is that they are thankful to have a home but enjoy spending time outdoors, because it was all they knew for years.”

Residents’ affinity for nature is reflected in a mural on the Hanna Commons building, created with local artists through the Indy Arts Council around the same time as the KIB GreenSpace. The two-story artwork, titled “Creating Home,” features hummingbirds, butterflies, and flowering dogwoods as symbols of transformation and resilience.

With KIB, the park project would create a place to rest, grieve lost loved ones, and find hope. It would also be a source of pride, allowing residents to take ownership of their new home, care for nature, and contribute to a neighborhood that wasn’t so sure about them.

Homes for Birds

Shiel Sexton, a local construction company, agreed to send out more than 150 volunteers to help KIB construct much of the park in October 2025. But Kelly Cook, director of the GreenSpace program, was concerned about the lag time between the park design and the big day of service—nearly eight months.

“We asked residents what types of activities they would be interested in doing with KIB,” said Kelly. “This led to a birdhouse building and painting workshop.”

Kelly led bird identification over the month leading up to the June workshop to establish which species were on site. Most of the boxes were for bluebirds, symbols of happiness, hope, and renewal.

Residents had the choice to put the birdhouses in the GreenSpace or keep them. Everyone wanted to save them for the yards of their future homes.

Inviting Nature In

For birds, the struggle isn’t so much housing as a larger loss of habitat—food, nesting sites, space to raise young. With Hanna Commons, the key to increasing habitat was in native plants.

Much of KIB’s focus on native plants was inspired by conservationist and entomologist Doug Tallamy, who argued that parks and nature preserves are “too small and too isolated to support biodiversity on their own.” He proposed that anyone with a patch of land could plant native plants, and together these patches of land—oases of habitat for anything with wings—could become a Homegrown National Park.

Hanna Commons had a patch of land. But despite mature trees and plenty of other vegetation, resources were few. The shrubs were largely invasive, inedible to most of the native insects that form the base of our food web. Honeysuckle berries provided sugar but little nutrition for migrating birds.

To prepare the site, KIB removed unhealthy and invasive trees and shrubs and brush-mowed the nearly four-foot-tall grasses. A rigorous habitat management plan was implemented. Residents and the maintenance staff of Hanna Commons put in a huge effort to assist.

The community had worked closely with a landscape architect for the overall park design, but Kelly developed the native plant palette herself, with input from KIB’s team of certified arborists. The Hanna Commons plan included sun-loving and shade-loving perennials and a diverse mix of more than 80 native trees in and around the GreenSpace. A 2025 Birdathon grant allowed Kelly to grow 900 native perennial plugs at the KIB native plant nursery specifically for the project.

She chose plants with an eye toward ecological value, site conditions, and seasonal interest. The stem fibers of Swamp Milkweed will serve as excellent nesting material. Hummingbirds will find nectar from Foxglove Beardtongue. Serviceberries will feed dozens of bird species in early summer, and the fruit of flowering Dogwoods will support cardinals, bluebirds, and Dark-eyed Juncos in winter. Oaks and willows will provide feasts of caterpillars for baby birds.

“It turned out even better than I could have imagined,” said resident Suzy Beguhn, who helps care for the space. “Some of the residents were brought to tears when all the trees and plants went in. They were overwhelmed by how great it was.”

A Gift to the Community

KIB continues to support Hanna Commons, helping plan workdays, providing education and supplies, and leading them through next steps. Residents take stewardship seriously. They’ve asked about maintenance techniques, plant species, composting, birdfeeders, and more.

“We put pictures and instructions inside the building on what each month’s goals should be,” said Turtuel Marchbanks, another resident on the GreenSpace team. “We’re hoping to put [up] birds’ houses that attract [native] species, something else to add as giving back to the larger community.”