Clarissa Jacobs first noticed her children’s breathing problems when they had trouble participating in school sports.
Her son played football, her daughter was part of the basketball and cheer teams. But after moving into the Himbola Manor apartment complex, they were having trouble breathing, an issue their pediatrician said could be associated with the mold Jacobs noticed in their apartment.
For years, residents of the Section-8 apartment complex have complained about mold in their homes leading to health problems, especially among children and those with pre-existing health conditions. But until recently, there was little being done to protect them. Statewide, there are few protective measures for low-income renters to defend against this health threat.
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As a result, many are facing the choice between poor health or homelessness.
A humid climate, and weather events such as hurricanes and floods, make mold common in Louisiana. Living with it in your home, however, is much more problematic, medical experts say.
“We are currently breathing mold right now. It’s in every breath we take down here,” said Dr. John Carlson, a New Orleans-based pediatrician who focuses on allergies and immunology. “What you’re worried about are these more intensive exposures.”
Those intensive exposures, such as living in an apartment with persistent mold, can lead to respiratory issues that, in some cases, can become chronic. Former residents of Himbola have told The Advocate/The Current that their children continue to experience respiratory problems years after moving out.
Exactly how common those long-term impacts are is poorly studied, Carlson said.
Most symptoms subside once mold is removed or residents move out — if they can move out. In Lafayette, an extremely limited stock of affordable housing means many low-income residents have few options.
Research on low-income communities’ exposure to mold and the health impacts it creates is limited. “We see this particular lack of investment when you’re dealing with rural communities and areas that are poorer,” Carlson said.
But the research that exists suggests a strong connection between poverty and bad indoor air quality, including mold spores.
A 2019 study by the Section of Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology (SEET) at the Louisiana Department of Health investigated unusually high numbers of asthma-related emergency department visits in several poor, majority-Black ZIP codes in East Baton Rouge. Researchers found that they were likely related, at least in part, to poor indoor air quality, which can be caused by mold.
Children are especially vulnerable because they spend most of their time inside. And from the early days of the pandemic, kids tended to be home and inside for longer durations. When Jacobs’ children contracted COVID-19, she said it took them much longer to get better, which she attributed to rampant mold and their pre-existing health issues as a result of it.
It’s not uncommon for physicians to write letters to landlords on behalf of patients experiencing adverse health effects from mold exposure, Carlson said. “I found property owners to be really responsive,” he added.
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If landlords are not responsive, however, there’s little recourse for renters, especially those who are unable to move out due to market conditions, for example.
In Lafayette Parish, there are no specific rules related to the presence of mold in rental housing. The city also doesn’t have a certified mold inspector on its staff to confirm the presence of mold during an inspection. None of the city inspection reports of Himbola Manor make note of the presence of mold, despite numerous complaints from residents about that specific issue. They do, however, note code violations related to the sanitary condition of surfaces, which may include mold.
Cost may be a key reason local government entities do not perform mold inspections, said Monique Blossom, director of policy and communications at the Louisiana Fair Housing Center. “Mold inspections are incredibly expensive and only certain inspection companies do them,” Blossom said.
State law isn’t much help to those tenants either. “At the state level, there’s virtually no protections for tenants in this situation,” Blossom pointed out. “State law is heavily in favor of landlords over tenants, and so we have a lot of tenants across the state that have problems with habitability and have very little legal recourse or rights.”
While New Orleans, where the Fair Housing Center is based, has a Healthy Homes program that offers tenants some protection, the program is complaint-based and only residents who are current on their rent qualify, posing a challenge for some with very limited income.
The Center advocated for a more proactive approach as the program was designed. Blossom pointed to standard restaurant inspection programs for comparison. “We want to make sure that certain buildings and certain uses of buildings, we’re requiring them to follow health and safety standards,” she said. “Why should that not be the same for the places where people live?”
The fact that the affordable housing stock is constrained shouldn’t serve as an excuse either, Blossom noted. “Tenants in the state of Louisiana really do deserve protections, because nobody should be living in unhealthy and unsafe housing, much less being stuck there if there aren’t other affordable options available.”
SEET, the LDH program, is currently working on an extension of its Bringing Respiratory Health Equity for Asthmatics Through Healthier Environments (BREATHE) program, with the help of $1 million federal grant. The BREATHE program will focus on Bossier, Caddo, Calcasieu, East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, Rapides and Orleans Parishes, but residents from across the state can apply.
Through the program, residents who have issues with indoor air quality can receive tips on how to improve it, as well as some remediation assistance. Mold removal, however, would go beyond the program’s funding capacity, according to Shannon Soileau, environmental health section chief at LDH.
There aren’t enough programs that help low-income renters who can’t afford remediation themselves and whose landlords aren’t cooperative in fixing mold issues, she said. “That’s certainly something that’s lacking,” Soileau said of protections for tenants and accessible remediation strategies.
Clarissa Jacobs and her children spent several months bouncing around temporary housing solutions after being evicted from Himbola Manor, something she considers a result of her complaints to property management and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, who pays the property owner for housing low-income tenants.
After staying at a motel on the Evangeline Thruway for a while, Jacobs moved the family to the Salvation Army shelter in Beaumont. “I was searching for shelters and out here in Lafayette and you don’t have many openings.” After a week at the shelter, they were able to stay with her son’s former little league coach and eventually found a home on the Northside. Since moving in, Jacobs said her children haven’t used their nebulizers.