The city of South Bend and Housing Authority share vision to rebuild affordable housing

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The city of South Bend and the South Bend Housing Authority are partnering up to hopefully bring more affordable housing back to South Bend with the redevelopment of two former public housing sites.

The city and Housing Authority hosted a visionary meeting Thursday evening at the Salvation Army Kroc Center to discuss possible redevelopment plans for the shutdown Rabbi Shulman Apartments and now demolished Monroe Circle public housing sites.

The Executive Director of the South Bend Housing Authority, Marsha Parham-Green, says Rabbi Shulman Apartments once had 127 public housing units before being vacated due to poor maintenance and unsafe living conditions. The Monroe Circle had about 90 townhome units right next door to the apartments but were torn down in 2023.

At the planning meeting, the city and Housing Authority exampled possible plans for the sites, saying this meeting was about receiving feedback from the public to decide what the next steps should be. Parham-Green explained part of the plan will be allowing the displaced residents of the former sites to have first choice to return when the new units are built.

“We want them to come back to the community that they left, that they were pretty much forced to leave, and we want to welcome them back with open arms, including our residents that relocated to other properties owned by the Housing Authority. We want them to go back home in that block of Western Avenue where they lived for many, many years,” said Parham-Green.

While some community members in attendance of the meeting were hesitant to parts of the plan and provided lots of feedback, the city and Housing Authority says they will do everything they can to make the plan come to life. They say they will take the feedback from Thursday’s meeting to direct their next steps after receiving funding.

“We will be releasing our RFP shortly for developers to have the opportunity to bid on this development project to bring those finances to the table as we continue to apply for other grants and other funding sources so that we can make this happen hopefully in late 2026, early 2027,” said Parham-Green.