On June 26 over 50 residents of East Chicago gathered at a meeting hosted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development the Environmental Protection Agency to have their voices heard about the proposed demolition of the local West Calumet Housing Complex in East Chicago due to its contamination with lead and other toxic chemicals.
The meeting took place next to the housing complex at the old Carrie Gosch Elementary School, which was also evacuated last year due to contamination. While residents delivered well-prepared questions and critiques, officials were silent and disinterested. They delivered no answers at this sham of a meeting.
The West Calumet Housing Complex was a public housing complex built in the early 1970s. In 2016, residents were told they needed to leave because of high levels of lead and other toxic substances in the building and its surrounding soil.
East Chicago is a primarily black and Latino community, with most residents at the meeting being Black. Meanwhile, the officials speaking at the meeting were all white.
The meeting was supposedly meant to elicit public comments on a recent report by HUD that demolition of the West Calumet Housing Complex would “have no significant impact on the human environment.” Comments were limited to three minutes, and officials were well prepared to cut off speakers if they exceeded that limit. All comments were supposed to be limited solely to the report, excluding the many issues intertwined with any demolition. Residents who were unsatisfied with the report’s findings quickly realized they would receive no answers from the officials at the meeting, and were only promised to have their questions answered later.
Over 20 residents asked questions at the meeting, all of which were critical of the process. Many comments were focused on the specifics of the demolition and its safety, while others placed the demolition into a wider context of neglect and exploitation of the community. Multiple lifelong residents spoke of how lead and other toxins had contributed to health problems.
In addition to the demolition, many comments directed to HUD expressed concern that residents were forced out of the West Calumet Housing Complex only to move to other houses in the area with high levels of lead. Others were concerned that former residents had been relocated to neighborhoods in Chicago that could be dangerous for young men.
In general, the community felt excluded and alienated from the planning process. Even during the meeting, officials were called out for eye-rolling when residents were talking. One woman said the entire meeting was another example of the environmental racism that residents have faced. After over an hour of comments, Jim Cunningham, the Deputy Regional Administrator for HUD, was forced to promise that he’d respond to demands for another meeting before the comment period ended on July 6.
Tara Adams, a former resident of the West Calumet Housing Complex, was forced to move out due to lead and described the moving process as horrible. She had lived in the complex for 10 years and is concerned how exposure to lead will affect her children. Alyssa, her youngest daughter, is going to be starting at a new school this fall and she is uncomfortable having to start all over in a new place. Adams believes all this could have been avoided if officials looked out more for her community. Despite her new residence, Adams still makes it to as many community meetings in East Chicago as she can.
Northwest Indiana has a long history of heavy industry, being a major center for the US steel industry and other manufacturing firms. While the profits from these industries were immense, those left the area and today residents are instead left with its toxic byproducts.
Toxic pollution in East Chicago isn’t a new discovery. EPA documents dating back the 1980s show the soil around the West Calumet Housing Complex had dangerously high levels of lead. Residents and activists say that officials ignored these warnings for years, leaving the working-class people of color in the area to live and work in dangerously toxic environments.
Larry Davis, who has been involved in activism against toxic waste dumping since the 1980s, commented during the meeting that HUD and the EPA did not do their due diligence with regards to the planned demolition West Calumet Housing Complex. He described the three-mile radius around the neighborhood as having at least a dozen sites that are or should be superfund sites.
East Chicago residents and their allies are organizing for their community. Groups such as the East Chicago/Calumet Community Advisory Group, Calumet Lives Matter, and the Community Strategy Group – East Chicago had a presence at the meeting and expressed their concerns. HUD and the EPA may have meant for the meeting to just be a formality before the demolition, but residents made it into a venue to attack continued mistreatment of their community. While governments and corporations try to ignore the crisis in East Chicago, the community continues the fight.
