Pubdate: Sun, 07 May 2006
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2006 The Tribune Co.
Contact: http://www.tbo.com/news/opinion/submissionform.htm
Website: http://www.tampatrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446
Author: John W. Allman

BURTON FIGHTS POLICY, PEOPLE WHO TOOK HER FROM HER HOME

TAMPA - Connie Burton raises her arms and shimmies in her seat.

She couldn't be happier. She has just learned how much she has cost
the Tampa Housing Authority in legal fees.

"That was their choice," she said, sitting in a shaded thicket on
Virginia Avenue, across the street from Robles Park Village, the
public housing property where she lived from 1987 to 2005, the last
six of those spent battling eviction. "I'm a reasonable person."

A reasonable person might have thrown in the towel. Not Burton. She
chose to fight, and keep fighting.

The housing authority has spent $472,000 defending not only its right
to evict her, but also the legality of the federal policy used to
discipline millions of public housing residents nationwide. For each
legal decision against her, Burton has filed an appeal. It hasn't cost
her a dime except gas money.

The money the housing authority has spent likely would have gone
toward public programs designed to help other housing residents in
Tampa, the same people whom Burton claims she is trying to empower.

Is she taking a stand or belaboring a long-moot point? Does anyone
care anymore?

At times, during a series of conversations with Burton, 50, who left
Robles Park last year and splits her time staying with friends in
Tampa and St. Petersburg, she seems more interested in muddying the
name of Tampa's head housing honcho than advancing the rights of other
low-income residents.

The same could be said of Jerome Ryans, president and chief executive
director of Tampa's authority.

When he talks about Burton, he talks. And talks. What he says sounds
like an admonition. She refused to go along. She chose to take a
different path.

Although he says he is concerned about the amount of money spent, he
fervently defends the need to spend it. He says officials at the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development have urged him to pursue
the case, even though those same officials have refused to pony up
even a portion of the cost.

Two strong personalities. No clear victor. No end in
sight.

"If she had worked with us   we wouldn't have this problem," Ryans
said during a recent interview. "Connie could be in public housing
today, but she chose to go a different route."

No Deal

Burton's troubles are well-documented.

In April 1999, her son Narada, then 19, was arrested during a federal
sting at Robles Park, charged with possession of marijuana and intent
to distribute within 1,000 feet of a school, convicted and sent to
prison.

Burton said she did not know he was involved in drugs. The authority
pushed to evict, however, using a federal policy called "One Strike
and You're Out," designed to target violent criminals and drug
dealers, as well as residents whose family or friends break the law
while on housing property.

One Strike's most controversial aspect is also the heart of Burton's
case. Leaseholders can be evicted by proxy if someone connected to
them or their unit is caught or arrested with drugs or committing a
crime on housing property.

There are loopholes. One Strike doesn't necessarily mean "one strike,"
and many residents receive a second chance. Several other tenants
whose sons also were arrested in the April 1999 sting, and who also
faced eviction, chose to settle. They agreed to stipulations,
including barring their children from living with them in public
housing or entering their apartments within three years of a
drug-related conviction.

Not Burton. She stayed defiant, convinced she was being singled out,
targeted by a policy that isn't legal and persecuted by Ryans because
of her criticism of him on radio and in person. She alleged that the
authority had forced her to put her son on the lease before his
arrest. The authority has denied that claim.

"People who have been arrested and went to jail, those individuals are
still here," she said, pointing at Robles Park as passers-by stop to
say hello or wave. "I was put out by virtue of somebody else's action."

Naturally, the other side sees it another way.

"We're not going to let anyone come to our property and sell dope. We
would go after any family like that," said Wence Cunningham, Tampa's
director of public housing. "She didn't try to trespass him. If it was
a one-time deal, she got him off the property and dealt with him like
we talked about, it would be a different story."

The Fight

Burton filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of
HUD's One Strike policy. A U.S. district judge ruled in 2000 that it
was constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed.

Burton complained to HUD about the Tampa office. A November 2000 reply
from the agency's Miami office curtly dismissed her claims and
suggested she wanted special treatment. Burton had been Robles Park's
resident council president for years and was well-regarded for being
vocal and getting things done.

"Tenant leaders must not be given favorable treatment and must conform
to the same standards as all other residents," wrote Karen
Cato-Turner, director of HUD's Florida office in Miami.

The housing authority took Burton toHillsborough County Court in 2002
to secure an eviction, but a jury verdict in favor of the authority
was tossed by a judge because of a sleeping juror. A second trial was
scheduled.

Amid mounting bills and intense publicity, the authority offered a
deal before the second trial: a coveted Section 8 voucher that would
allow Burton to move virtually anywhere in Tampa. The housing
authority hasn't accepted new applicants for vouchers since February
2002. The average wait is currently 16 months, and more than 2,300
people remain on the list.

Not Burton. She refused.

"I felt what Jerome was trying to do was remove me from the people,"
she said. "I just looked at taking a Section 8 voucher would be me
abandoning the issue here. I felt it would have been betrayal."

Burton lost the second trial, too. Some might have given
up.

Not Burton. She appealed.

Ryans and the authority's lawyer, Ricardo L. Gilmore, defend Tampa's
mounting legal fees by saying such challenges leave them no choice,
not when the integrity of a federal policy is at stake, and
particularly not when it's a policy that so many other agencies rely
on.

"All the eyes of every housing authority in the country were on us,"
Gilmore said.

HUD, in an April 24 letter to Ryans, declined to reimburse any portion
of Tampa's legal costs.

Change Of Heart?

Burton left Robles Park in 2005. She vacated Apartment 3721 and today
spends much of her time volunteering for the International People's
Democratic Uhuru Movement, which is based in St. Petersburg. She helps
organize people to attend events and speaks about issues facing black
people.

Her son Narada is still in jail. Two other children have stayed mostly
trouble-free. She denounces drugs and talks about the impact they have
had on her family.

She misses her public housing neighborhood.

"For some people, public housing has such a negative overtone, but I
always saw it as a community where I grew as a woman, I nurtured my
children, I developed wonderful friendships with people," she said.

The people seem to miss her, too.

When Burton returned to Robles Park recently to talk about her
experience, a number of residents stopped to say hello. Housing
maintenance employees came up to tell her the complex just isn't the
same.

"This community has always been intimidated by the establishment, and
that is what Jerome Ryans represents. Hopefully it will serve as an
example," she said. "He will think long and hard on moving on a case
against anybody with half the spirit I've got."

Defiant Burton. The thorn in the side.

A day after being interviewed, she called to offer more. The woman who
rejected a plum settlement, who now is filing her own appeals, who
openly admits she doesn't expect to win the legal fight, is ready to
make a deal. She wants to negotiate with Ryans on her terms.

"We'll see what happens as I continue going on with the process," she
said. "We ain't through by a long shot."
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MAP posted-by: Derek