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Some East Chicago residents who live on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund site have been ordered by the city to move because of the lead and arsenic contamination in their neighborhoods. Residents have been given vouchers to help them move, but Professor Florence Wagman Roisman says they are not enough to help those impacted find suitable places to live. She talked about the inadequacy of the voucher system for a story by Indiana Public Broadcasting that was broadcast on WFYI.

Landlords aren’t required to accept vouchers, Professor Roisman said, making it difficult for residents to move where they would like. Many of the families impacted by the lead and arsenic contamination have large families and need homes with multiple bedrooms, which are difficult for renters utilizing the vouchers to secure.

“It’s making it impossible for people of color — for the most part, low-income people of color — to live any place except in a neighborhood that’s been labeled, ‘this is for low-income people of color,’” Professor Roisman says in the story. “And those neighborhoods are starved of resources.”

Professor Roisman is the William F. Harvey Professor of Law and an expert on housing law. She received the David B. Bryson Award from the National Housing Law Project and the Housing Justice Network in December 2015. Professor Roisman also was honored with the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award in November 2015 for her teaching and for being an inspiration to her students.