St. Joseph County continues to tackle lead problems
Wednesday, the St. Joseph County Board of Health followed through with its action plan created last month in the hopes of keeping homes in South Bend safe.
“There are steps that we can take about living in homes that do have lead,” said Heidi Beidinger, St. Joseph County Health board member.
Living with lead is a scary reality for quite a few homes in the city.
But relief has been in the works for a while, according to the St. Joseph County Board of Health.
“We’re still very much in the process implementation phase, the good news is, there’s so much energy in our community to get behind this problems,” said Beidinger.
The process was reevaluated during Wednesday’s meeting.
Members pledged to focus on monitoring the 10-point action plan’s progress.
A handful of community leaders sat in on that meeting and thanked the board for its commitment to finding solutions.
“We continued to be encouraged by the work that’s happening here,” said Kathy Schuth, Executive Director of the Near Northwest Neighborhood Association.
Schuth has been a vocal advocate for this cause because her neighbors are feeling the impact of living with this problem.
“The rates reminded us of what a strong issue it is, and if we’re not constantly working on it on very strong ways then it creeps back on us on ways that impact the community,” she said.
Her neighborhood association is very intentional about community awareness.
They have hosted many informational events and offered lead testing in inclusive ways for people in her community.
“Events where it’s convenient, it’s in the neighborhood and you have a neighbor inviting you into the process,” she said.