The Compounded Pain of Contamination and Dislocation
A month after residents of an East Chicago public housing complex learned they’d been living on dangerously polluted land for decades, they were told they’d have to leave their community.
EAST CHICAGO—Until Carmencita Robinson received a letter last July stating that her public housing complex would need to be evacuated due to toxic levels of lead and arsenic in the soil, she’d had no idea she’d been living on contaminated land for nearly a decade.
“I felt betrayed,” she said. “They knew that there was lead, and they misled the families that were there because they continuously accepted our rent and gave us no notice of lead.”
A month later came the second blow. When Mayor Anthony Copeland learned the extent of the damage, he to evacuate the West Calumet Complex and announced plans to demolish it. Residents received Section 8 housing vouchers and were told they had 60 days to secure housing.
