Pubdate: Mon, 01 Apr 2002
Source: Daily Record, The (NC)
Copyright: 2002 East Tennessee Network - R.A.I.D. (Regionalized Access Internet
Contact:  http://www.dunndailyrecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1762
Author: William Raspberry
Alert: It Is Not OK To Evict Granny http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0237.html

'ONE STRIKE' KICKED OUT OF PUBLIC HOUSING

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court has upheld a controversial federal policy 
that allows public housing officials to evict entire families when a family 
member - even a teen-age child - is caught with illegal drugs in or near 
the housing complex. And you know what? I'm glad.

No, I'm not glad that Pearlie Rucker, a 63-year-old great grandmother, was 
threatened with eviction by the Oakland Housing Authority because her adult 
son and her mentally disabled daughter were caught with cocaine in separate 
incidents several blocks from their home.

That was too rough a decision, and I've been told that, following last 
Tuesday's ruling, the OHA is reconsidering.

But I'm glad the housing authorities still have that weapon in their 
arsenal.  You might be, too, if you can get past the awfulness of having 
poor helpless grandmothers tossed out of their homes and remember why the 
rule was introduced in the first place.

It was at a time when drug dealers and gangbangers were turning public 
housing complexes into virtual crime bazaars.  The noncriminal majority of 
residents found their lives turned upside down by neighbors - and 
neighbors' children - who were using and selling drugs, either from 
individual apartments or on the grounds.  What to do about it?

As the law then stood, unless the person in whose name the apartment was 
leased was caught red-handed, he or she had only to plead ignorance to the 
illegal activity.

I had no idea my son was using drugs, no idea my boyfriend and his cousin 
were dealing out of the building, no idea ... of anything.  But soon, 
leaders in the public housing tenant-management move-ment got sick of it, 
and people like the late Kimi Gray of Washington and Bertha Gilkey of St. 
Louis started pressing federal officials to give them the leeway to 
pressure tenants to shape up or face eviction.

One result was sterner screening standards for new tenants.  Another was 
the right to award (with choicer units) residents who kept their places up 
and their children under control.  A third was the so-called "One Strike" 
policy that Pearlie Rucker and others fought all the way to the Supreme 
Court, where they lost last week.

Sign An Agreement

Under "One Strike," tenants have to sign a lease that includes an agreement 
to keep their public housing premises free of drug-related and other 
criminal activity.

The implication is that they know, or should know, what is going on in 
their homes - and if they don't, the threat of being suddenly homeless 
should be enough to pique their curiosity.

Nor would it be enough under the policy simply to move the criminal 
activity outside the apartment - or even just outside the grounds. Drug 
dealing by a member of a resident's household near the complex could still 
result in eviction.

Could. The eviction is permitted but not required, which is why the 
handling of the particular case of Pearlie Rucker seemed unnecessarily 
ham-handed.  A rule requiring proof of knowledge would do nothing to stop 
the descent into chaos that marks so many public housing complexes.

A rule requiring eviction under any and every circumstance of family-member 
involvement with criminality would be just another example of "zero 
tolerance" gone mad.

The inflexibility of crack cocaine enforcement has America's prisons 
bursting at the seams, with very little positive to show for it. People 
have to be free to make judgments based on a totality of circumstances - 
even with a presumption of knowledge.

A Stern Warning

Based on what I've read of the Rucker case and some others in the suit, a 
stern warning would have made a lot more sense than summary eviction.  But 
I understand, too, the fragility of poor communities, and their special 
vulnerability to the predations of a relative handful of miscreants.

There are public housing and other low-income communities where ordinary 
residents dare not enjoy the spring breeze or allow their children to play 
on the grounds because the criminal element has taken over.  It really 
comes down to a choice between a liberal interpretation of the civil 
liberties of those affected by "One Strike" and enforcing at least the 
possibility of a safe community for those willing to live by the rules.

Having seen both the devastation wreaked by the gangbangers and the hopeful 
patience of poor families on the long waiting lists for public housing, I 
choose "One Strike." Sensibly enforced, of course. Grandma Pearlie doesn't 
need to be on the street.
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MAP posted-by: Jackl