South Bend home in fire that killed 6 had recently failed federal safety inspection

SOUTH BEND — The director of South Bend's public housing authority has raised concerns about a house that burned down Sunday, killing five children that day and a sixth child on Friday, because the home had failed a safety inspection just six months before.

The Housing Authority of South Bend had paid for most of a previous tenant's rent at 222 N. LaPorte Ave. through its Housing Choice Voucher program, according to Marsha Parham-Green, HASB's new director. But the property failed a federally mandated safety inspection in July after an inspector found a list of 10 violations, including an "electrical problem throughout the entire home," according to a document The Tribune obtained through a public records request.

Many of the home's outlets failed to work, "and some of them are burnt," a July 19 inspection report says.

Other violations listed by the inspector included a "very heavy roach infestation throughout" the home, a collapsing kitchen ceiling and a broken front-door handle that wouldn't lock. On the second floor, all the electrical outlets didn't work or barely functioned except for those in the bathroom, the inspector wrote. The front porch was reportedly broken, along with a window.

Parham-Green said that when the property manager, South Bend-based WJM Property Management, failed to remediate the issues within 30 days, the housing authority relocated the tenant.

"We moved that family out and fortunately they were not in there when this fire occurred," Parham-Green said during a public meeting of the housing authority's board of commissioners Tuesday. "We are very proactive about making sure our families are safe."

South Bend city officials stress that it's still not clear how or where the house fire began. South Bend Fire Department investigators are working alongside investigators from the Indiana Department of Homeland Security to determine a room of origin and a cause. South Bend police are involved to rule out foul play.

The blaze killed six children, all of them 11 or younger. The oldest child, 11-year-old Angel Smith, was in critical condition in an Indianapolis hospital until she died on Friday. The children's father, David Smith, survived.

More: Catch up with all The Tribune's coverage of the LaPorte Avenue house fire that killed five

Speaking publicly for the first time after the fire in a Facebook video posted by local digital creator Cindy Johnson, the father said he had electrical issues while living in the home. He moved there in late October, he said, about two months after the housing authority says its tenant moved out.

Smith said it seemed as if all of the home's electricity came from two electrical outlets.

"It seems like to me like they didn't have but two electrical outlets running," Smith says in the video.

The owner of WJM Property Management confirmed that the company still manages the property, which is owned by the Harmon Living Trust, according to county records. The owner is based in Dallas, Texas, and owns seven other properties across South Bend, records show.

The WJM owner, who refused to give her name to a reporter who visited the firm's office Wednesday, said the company had made all the necessary repairs to the house before Smith and his children moved in. There were no open work orders at the time of the fire, she said.

The owner placed the blame for the damages cited by the inspector on the low-income tenant whom the housing authority had been assisting.

No one else lived in the property before Smith and his six children moved in, according to the WJM owner.

"Everything was fixed," the WJM owner said. "All the stuff that's coming up, that's the previous tenant and her damage. We fixed her damage. That's why we kicked her out, because she had so much damage."

WJM management "kicked the tenant out" sometime in June, she said, after a walkthrough had revealed significant "cosmetic things that needed to be fixed." Court records show no eviction anytime last year involving that tenant's name, though WJM filed more than 50 evictions in 2023.

When the housing authority last summer failed the property on the basis of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's housing quality standards, WJM refused to take part in the federal remediation process, the owner said. But she says they made the necessary repairs and leased the unit in the private market.

She confirmed that WJM no longer accepts tenants with federally issued housing vouchers, previously known as Section 8 vouchers.

More: New South Bend Housing Authority director's challenge: One in three public housing units is vacant.

Parham-Green said the tenant moved out of her own accord by August because she wasn't comfortable living at the property.

The tenant lived there from November 2019 to August 2023, according to records provided by Parham-Green. She said she couldn't find other evidence that the tenant had been a problem for the property manager.

She said some landlords opt out of the voucher program by refusing to make repairs within a 30-day window and waiting for a local housing authority to relocate a tenant, as it's federally required to do. The tenant at 222 N. LaPorte Ave. used her voucher to move out of South Bend in November, Parham-Green said.

Gerard Ellis, assistant chief of fire prevention, said investigators are aware of the concerns raised by the failed inspection and have been interviewing past tenants. He said it's likely officials will subpoena the housing authority's inspection reports.

"Our investigators will follow every lead," Ellis said, "and it just depends where it takes them."

The Tribune on Thursday filed public records requests for any building permits related to renovations at the home and for a list of fire incident reports since 2019, but has yet to receive the records.

About one in 10 home fires in the U.S. are caused by electrical distribution or lighting equipment, according to a recent analysis by the National Fire Prevention Association. Cooking causes about half of residential fires, while heating equipment is the second most likely cause.

Despite the unsafe conditions identified by the housing authority at the unit, officials with the city of South Bend say they had been unaware of any issues at 222 N. LaPorte Ave. The housing authority didn't share news of the failed inspection.

The property faced no active code violations or complaints through the Rental Safety Verification Program, which was created in 2019 to offer tenants a way to notify the city about unsafe living conditions. The RSVP gives the Department of Neighborhood Health and Housing more power to inspect rental units and levy fines against landlords who fail to meet minimum housing standards required by federal, state and local law.

But aside from occasional random inspections of large apartment complexes, city inspectors will not target individual rental properties until residents make complaints, South Bend Mayor James Mueller said. Inspections are also required of rentals with active code cases and referrals from the St. Joseph County Department of Health.

"We don't have the resources to go to every rental unit in the city of South Bend," Mueller said.

"The majority of landlords are going to do the right thing and not put their tenants in danger," Mueller said. "We're trying to figure out how to identify and put the resources toward those problematic landlords. Oftentimes they're out-of-state landlords."

The city urges tenants to report rental safety concerns by calling 311. Property owners can also sign up for inspections to be issued a certificate of rental safety by the city.

Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Home that burned, killing 6 kids, failed safety inspection in July