A report exposes that for decades, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) field office in Indiana withheld information about unsafe environmental conditions and failed to comply with environmental assessments in the West Calumet Housing Complex, causing lead poisoning in children. The apartment complex, developed atop a former lead smelting facility in 1972, is one of more than 18,000 federally funded housing developments near potentially toxic sites. “HUD will continue its work with EPA to improve information sharing and to jointly evaluate the proximity of other HUD-assisted housing to contaminated sites, and will publicly release its analysis this year,” stated Meaghan Lynch, HUD spokeswoman.