FortifyLife Needs Map — Northeast Indiana

About this map

This map shows indicators of community need for every census tract across ten Northeast Indiana counties — Allen, DeKalb, Elkhart, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Marshall, Noble, St. Joseph, Steuben, and Whitley. It exists to help neighbors, service providers, community partners, and funders see where need concentrates and where help is thin.

Data sources, layer by layer

Layer	What it measures	Source
Below poverty	Share of people living below the federal poverty line (universe: population for whom poverty status is determined)	ACS 5-year, table B17001
Children under 5 in poverty	Share of children under age 5 living below the poverty line (B17001 age rows, male + female)	ACS 5-year, table B17001
Seniors 65+ in poverty	Share of adults 65 and older living below the poverty line (B17001 age rows) — a proxy for senior-support need	ACS 5-year, table B17001
Households receiving SNAP	Share of households that received Food Stamps/SNAP in the past 12 months	ACS 5-year, table B22010
Unemployment	Unemployed share of the civilian labor force (age 16+)	ACS 5-year, table B23025
No vehicle	Share of households (owners + renters) with no vehicle available — a core rural-access barrier	ACS 5-year, table B25044
Depression	Adults ever diagnosed with depression (modeled estimate)	CDC PLACES
Frequent mental distress	Adults reporting 14+ days of poor mental health in the past month (modeled)	CDC PLACES
Uninsured (18–64)	Adults aged 18–64 without health insurance (modeled)	CDC PLACES
No routine checkup	Adults without a routine medical checkup in the past year (modeled)	CDC PLACES

How the data reaches this map

Economic and household indicators are American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, retrieved through the Census Reporter API. Health indicators come from CDC PLACES, which produces modeled small-area estimates from the BRFSS survey — appropriate for comparing areas, not for exact counts. Tract boundaries are the Census Bureau's 2023 cartographic boundary files. Data is refreshed when new annual vintages are released.

Reading the map honestly

Small places, real uncertainty. Rural census tracts have small populations, so ACS estimates carry meaningful margins of error. Treat small differences between neighboring tracts as noise, not signal.
Colors are regional comparisons. Shades are 5 quantile bins computed within this 10-county region — a dark tract is high for Northeast Indiana, not necessarily nationally.
Modeled ≠ surveyed. PLACES health values are statistical estimates, marked "(modeled)" wherever they appear.
Gray means no data, never zero.
Every tract links to its full Census Reporter profile, including margins of error.

Who we are

FortifyLife is a social-services nonprofit in Auburn, Indiana walking alongside neighbors as they move from crisis to stability. This map is part of the Fortify platform and supports service planning across the region. Questions or data to contribute? We'd love to hear from you.