Last summer, when housing inspectors combed through a four-bedroom house in South Bend, Indiana, they reportedly found so many code violations — roaches, a collapsing kitchen ceiling, and widespread electrical problems — that the tenant living there on a low-income public housing voucher was relocated.
Yet the ramshackle house in the city of 103,000, located 72 miles east of Chicago, wasn’t vacant for long: 67-year-old David Smith and his six young children soon moved in.
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Then, in late January, on a frigid night in South Bend, fire swept through the two-story clapboard home at 222 N. LaPorte Ave. Smith survived, but all the children — ranging in age from an 11-year-old to a 17-month-old baby — were killed.
The tragedy in a predominantly Black neighborhood shocked the community, raising questions about the property management company’s statement they made repairs before renting to Smith. The fire’s cause is under investigation.
But the deadly blaze also put a spotlight on the nation’s affordable housing crisis, a situation that disproportionately affects Black families. The situation is so dire, experts say, that many people with few resources and even fewer housing options are forced to live in homes that are dilapidated, vermin-infested, and unsafe.
Housing Shortage Forces Tough Choices
“When people can’t afford housing, all the choices are bad,” says Will Fischer, a senior housing policy analyst for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C. think tank.
Desperate to make rent, people “take money away from other basics like food or medicine,” Fischer says. “Or they can double up in overcrowded housing, or some people end up in homes that are substandard and dangerous.”
Last week, as officials in South Bend continued to investigate what caused the North LaPorte Avenue fire, hundreds of residents gathered to mourn and remember the children who died. Authorities identified the siblings as Angel Smith, 11; Demetris Smith, 10; Davida Smith, 9; Deontay Smith, 5; D’Angelo Smith, 4, and Faith Smith, 17 months.
“It’s pretty tough on the family and the community,” says Lynn Coleman, a local activist and community trauma liaison at Memorial Hospital–Beacon Health System. “Now comes the hard part of trying to help [Smith] get his feet on the ground and begin to move forward.”
While lingering questions remain about exactly what happened at the home in the months after the housing inspection, data indicates the tragedy is a symptom of a much larger problem.
The previous tenant at North LaPorte Avenue was a participant in the Housing Choice Voucher program, also known as Section 8. The federally funded subsidy program helps more than 2.3 million families find affordable housing by paying approximately 60% of the participants’ rent directly to the landlord.
The national program is reserved for very low–income families: statistics show more than 60% of voucher recipients have household incomes of less than $15,000 a year. Nearly 80%, however, are extremely low–income families, earning well below a residential area’s median income.
Nearly Half of Sect. 8 Households Are Black
Marsha Parham-Green, South Bend Housing Authority executive director, confirmed that the North LaPorte Avenue house came to the agency’s attention after the previous tenant, concerned about the house’s condition, asked for an inspection.
According to The South Bend Tribune, inspectors examined the house in June 2023 after the complaint. They found extensive health and safety problems — including burned-out or non-working electrical sockets, broken door handles, and a severe roach infestation.
Parham-Green told the housing authority’s board of commissioners that when the property manager, South Bend-based WJM Property Management, missed a 30-day deadline to resolve the problems, her office relocated the tenant, according to the newspaper.
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“We moved that family out, and fortunately, they were not in there when this fire occurred,” Parham-Green said. “We are very proactive about making sure our families are safe.”
There are no indications when or if the repairs were completed, however, before the Smith family moved in. It’s also unclear whether Mr. Smith received housing assistance.
Just after the fire, WJM told The Tribune the previous tenant had been evicted, and that all necessary repairs had been made before Smith and his children took occupancy in December. There were no open work orders at the time of the fire.
The increase in voucher availability doesn’t address the growing shortage of available homes for qualified households.
Still, the tragedy underscores the challenge for Black families, who, according to HUD, make up 12% of all U.S. residential households but are nearly half of all households using Section 8 vouchers.
Earlier this month, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development reported expanding rental assistance and increasing the number of housing vouchers available for low-income households. But the increase in voucher availability doesn’t address the growing shortage of available homes for qualified households.
The Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C., policy center, estimates the U.S. faces a shortage of 7.3 million affordable and available homes for renters with extremely low incomes — up from 6.8 million in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic. A National Low Income Housing Coalition survey put it into sharper focus: it found just 33 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renters.
Black low-income renter households were significantly more likely to occupy inadequate housing than white households.
That crunch, authorities say, has left some families languishing on long waitlists for housing, while others turn to unsafe housing to put a roof over their heads.
According to a report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, Black low-income renter households were significantly more likely to occupy inadequate housing than white households.
In South Bend, the local building inspector’s office did not respond to questions about their most recent inspection of the North LaPorte Avenue property. The SBHA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development did not disclose data on how many landlords leave the program if or when they fail an inspection.
Still, efforts to increase the availability of affordable housing have run into inflationary pressure in the housing market and federal budget changes that have reduced the amount of housing assistance available. Many local communities also have thrown up barriers to affordable housing development through efforts to change zoning laws, and some housing authorities struggle to convince landlords who own higher-quality homes to accept Section 8 vouchers.
In Washington, the House of Representatives is considering a budget that would provide $1.4 billion less than the amount needed to prevent cuts in the number of available vouchers, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
A proposed bill in the Senate is only slightly better since it falls short by roughly $962 million. If Congress keeps funding equal to prior years, inflation will still cause roughly 190,000 fewer families to receive assistance.
Donations to the Smith family can be made by sending a check to Smith Family Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 11565 in South Bend, Indiana, 46634. 1st Source Bank in South Bend is managing the fund and will accept donations until February 29.
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