How to Stop Poisoning Children The U.S. government long knew about lead poisoning in a public housing complex in Indiana and it did nothing—an all-too-familiar combination of federal apathy and structural racism. Joshua Lott/Getty Images Nayesa Walker watches as her son plays on a tricycle at the West Calumet Housing Complex in East Chicago, Indiana, in 2016. The soil at the complex has been found to contain high levels of lead and arsenic. Residents of the West Calumet Housing Complex in East Chicago, Indiana, have been poisoned for decades. The federal government built the public housing complex in 1972 on land that had formerly housed a lead smelting plant. Then it let scores of children grow up around an element linked to cognitive disability, developmental disorders, and more.