Minding the (housing) gap - Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences

Each summer, Notre Dame’s Center for Civic Innovation (CCI), part of the College of Engineering, operates an internship program in partnership with local governments and organizations in South Bend and Elkhart aimed at understanding and addressing some of the region’s most pressing issues, from clean air, water and soil to food security and affordable housing.

This year — in a new collaboration with Notre Dame’s Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate (FIRE) with additional financial support from the Judd A. Leighton Foundation and enFocus — four CCI interns assisted the city of South Bend to develop infill housing in areas where social and economic factors and past public policy have contributed to a lack of safe, affordable housing options and unfavorable conditions for new investment.

Notre Dame civil engineering student Angelique Mbabazi stands near the intersection of Dayton and Carroll streets in South Bend, where the community development organization 466 Works, in partnership with the city of South Bend, has constructed several affordable homes in recent years. Mbabazi interned with the Center for Civic Innovation to assist the city of South Bend in developing infill housing.

Infill housing, which refers to new housing constructed on vacant or undeveloped land within an established urban community, has important access to existing services and infrastructure, such as streets, sidewalks, parks, sewers, bike and walking paths, police and fire services and public transportation.

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— Erin Blasko, ND Media Relations

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