Pubdate: Mon, 26 Nov 2001
Source: Blade, The (OH)
Copyright: 2001 The Blade
Contact:  http://www.toledoblade.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/48
Author: Dale Emch

COURT SCRUTINIZES HOUSING AUTHORITY EVICTION POLICY

County-Inspired 'One-Strike' Program Is At Risk

In 1996, representatives of the Lucas Metropolitan Housing Authority and 
Toledo police stood proudly by President Clinton's side on the steps of the 
Capitol after he signed into law a "one-strike-and-you're-out" policy 
intended to push drug users out of taxpayer-subsidized apartments.

The authority had received national attention two years earlier when it 
adopted the policy, which has been credited with helping to turn the agency 
into one of the nation's top public housing operations.

But the one-strike policy that LMHA and officials across the country used 
to try to clean up drug-infested housing developments could be gutted 
depending on how a highly publicized case from California is decided by the 
U.S. Supreme Court.

The case involves a 63-year-old grandmother from Oakland, Calif., who was 
evicted from public housing when her daughter was caught with drugs three 
blocks from the complex. No evidence was presented to indicate that the 
grandmother, Pearlie Rucker, knew her daughter was using drugs.

The central issue is whether a tenant can be evicted even when he or she is 
unaware that a family member or guest is in possession of drugs. The right 
of public housing officials to evict leaseholders for using drugs is not 
being questioned.

"As a dad, I feel like I know what's going on in my house. So I think most 
people probably know what's going on," said Larry Gaster, who took over in 
January as executive director of Lucas Metropolitan Housing Authority from 
Dennis Morgan, under whom the one-strike policy was adopted. Mr. Morgan 
left in December to join a private firm that advises public housing agencies.

Mr. Gaster said LMHA doesn't keep statistics on the number of people it has 
evicted for third-party drug possession cases, but he said the tough policy 
is an important tool to limit drug use in the public housing agency, which 
has about 10,000 tenants in 3,100 units.

"Taking that tool away, it will more than likely have an [undesired] 
effect," agreed Toledo police Chief Mike Navarre, who remembers when 
officers assigned to public housing complexes responded to a steady stream 
of calls revolving around drugs and violent crimes.

As important as they think the one-strike rule is, the U.S. Ninth Circuit 
Court of Appeals in San Francisco says the policy goes too far because it 
allows for the eviction of people who don't know of the criminal wrongdoing 
of family members or guests whose names aren't on the lease.

In its opinion, the court said, "evicting the innocent tenant will not 
significantly reduce drug-related criminal activity in public housing, 
since the tenant has not engaged in any such activity personally or 
knowingly allowed such activity to occur."

By the accounts given in court records, that's apparently what happened to 
Ms. Rucker, who had lived in public housing since 1985. She was evicted 
when her "mentally disturbed" daughter was found in possession of crack 
cocaine three blocks from the apartment.

Ms. Rucker said she regularly searched her daughter's room and never found 
any evidence of drug use, but she was still evicted under a policy 
championed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

HUD claims the Oakland housing authority was within its rights to evict Ms. 
Rucker based on the one-strike policy statute passed by Congress. The law 
states that "any drug-related criminal activity" on or off the premises by 
the tenant, a member of the tenant's household, or guest under the tenant's 
control is cause for eviction.

Based on the statute's legislative history, the 9th Circuit said it doesn't 
believe Congress intended for innocent leaseholders to be evicted. It said 
such a broad reading would mean that a tenant could be tossed out if his or 
her child was caught with drugs while on vacation across the country, which 
the court called an absurd and unjust consequence that Congress never intended.

HUD argues in its appeal brief before the Supreme Court that the 9th 
Circuit 's decision would make it "difficult or impossible" for a housing 
authority to prove the tenant had knowledge of a family member's drug use. 
All the tenant would have to do to escape culpability is deny knowledge, 
the department notes.

Laura Garrett, LMHA's staff attorney, agrees with HUD's position and hopes 
the Supreme Court does too. She's been at the housing authority since 1994 
and has seen the effect the one-strike policy has had in rooting out drug 
users from the LMHA.

Like Mr. Gaster, she said she finds it hard to believe that tenants don't 
know drugs are being used in or around their apartments.

"The feeble grandma who doesn't know what's going on - I don't buy it," Ms. 
Garrett said.

LMHA has evicted tenants who claimed they weren't aware of drug use by 
others in their households, but she said the evidence in those cases didn't 
support those assertions.

She points to a case decided in June by the Ohio 6th District Court of 
Appeals in Toledo in which a woman initially claimed she had no knowledge 
that the father of her three children was keeping drugs in the apartment.

The woman later admitted at trial that she knew the father kept some drugs 
in her residence. This admission, combined with the fact that police found 
more than 2,000 grams of cocaine in her freezer and five bundles of 
marijuana in her kitchen, sunk her case in front of the court.

Susan Choe, supervising attorney for housing at Legal Services for 
Northwest Ohio, which has defended public housing clients who could not 
afford to hire their own attorneys, said the law is clear that a tenant 
caught with drugs should be evicted. But she said it's simply not fair to 
hold an innocent tenant responsible for drug use by a family member or 
guest that they simply didn't know about.

Just as unfair, she said, is holding the tenant responsible for family 
members under the tenant's control for their behavior away from the housing 
complex.

"If a kid gets caught at school with something, does that mean the whole 
family gets evicted?" asked Ms. Choe. "At least give legal services 
advocates the chance to prove the person is innocent."

LMHA officials generally have allowed innocent tenants to stay in public 
housing as long as the offending family member or guest moves out, Ms. Choe 
said. Usually, mediation resolves the conflict before it goes to court.

Regardless of any flexibility LMHA may show, Jeffrey Gamso, a Toledo 
attorney who is vice president of the American Civil Liberties Union, said 
he hopes the Supreme Court upholds the 9th Circuit's ruling.

"I'm sympathetic, as I'm sympathetic to much of what the government wants 
to do. But the problem is that it's the wrong weapon," Mr. Gamso said. "The 
collateral damage it causes is worse than the good it produces. What 
happens is that you have a lot of innocent people getting thrown out of 
their homes because they have some unfortunate family members or guests."

Toledo Municipal Court Judge Allen McConnell, who handles housing cases for 
the court, said his reading of the statute is that LMHA has the right to 
evict as advocated by HUD and is backed up by the leases signed by the 
tenants that contain similar warning language.

However, he said he particularly disagrees with the section of the statute 
that gives housing authorities the power to evict tenants for behavior of 
family members away from the complex.

"I think that's absurd."
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