South Bend Housing Authority in need of new director

 

SOUTH BEND, Ind.-- The South Bend Housing Authority is in need of a new executive director. ABC57 confirmed Lamberg is no longer with the housing authority, but otherwise, we were given no comment.  

I was able to talk with tenants-- who say the new director will be inheriting a lot of problems, just like Lamberg did.

But they also said they're still seeing FBI workers in South Bend Housing Authority properties.

“They don’t do much maintenance, at all,” tenant Dakota Crawford said. “I’ve been here 6 years and haven’t had any maintenance done in my house.”

South Bend Housing Authority tenants are fed up with what they call a lack of maintenance in their homes.

“We don’t have a good quality of life, we don’t have that,” Crawford said. “We get harassed about every little thing that we do, and assumptions made about us without questions being asked.”

“They belittle people, how they harass people,” said tenant Lashonda Wright. “I mean, like I said, very unprofessional. It’s poor, like, extremely poor. It’s sad to say it. We are here for help, and they treat us like we’re just nobodies.”

“Everything from mice, roaches, bedbugs,” Rodney Gadson, president and CEO of the South Bend Tenant Association, said, “now I've been inside here, so I'm telling you what I have witnessed myself.”

The housing authority confirmed its director, Dr. Catherine Lamberg, is out.

“Where’s the exit strategy?” Gadson said.  

Now, a new director is needed.

“I’d like them to be more attentive to the people who are in their residences,” Crawford said. “Give us the quality of housing they say that HUD is going to provide for us.”

“I would like to see someone that comes out to listen to their community,” Wright said. “Someone that hears our voices, and what matters to us.”

“Housing advocates like myself would like to have had a better relationship,” Gadson said. “Now here’s the thing going forward. When we get a new director, and hopefully a deputy too, we want to work with them.”

Lamberg inherited a corrupt housing authority shortly after the board of commissioners voted unanimously to terminate former director Tonya Robinson back in 2019.

Robinson was suspended at the time after three properties were raided by FBI officials, which later led to robinson and four others getting slapped with federal charges for allegedly stealing nearly $6 million from the housing authority.

But some say the FBI might still be digging in.

“Tenants themselves say that they’ve been taking pictures around laurel court, they’ve been taking pictures over here, they’ve been taking pictures over here, so they’re here for a reason. So something is definitely going on. It could be some type of investigation on the staff itself or the process itself, who knows,” he said.

Gadson said not only does he want to see a deputy director alongside the new director, but he also wants to see the housing authority's board of commissioners totally replaced.