Pubdate: Thu, 04 Apr 2002
Source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
Copyright: 2002 Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas
Contact:  http://www.star-telegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/162
Author: Don Erler
Alert: It Is Not OK To Evict Granny http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0237.html

Tolerance: Sometimes zero is the right degree

A continuing debate between liberals and conservatives centers on crime and 
punishment. Right-thinkers generally prefer being tough on criminals, even 
against liberals' justified caution that incarcerating miscreants can harm 
their innocent families, because we care about the happiness and safety of 
communities.

Last Friday, I was reminded of my fondness for toughness when the driver of 
a large pickup zoomed through crowded 60-70 mph freeway traffic at close to 
90. A huge traffic fine - which, of course, might well take food out of the 
mouths of his children - is utterly inadequate. The law should permit 
forfeiture of these vehicles-cum-missiles being demolition-derbied at, say, 
20-plus mph over the speed limit or being operated by drunken drivers.

And I have reason to think that some of our brightest left-leaners are 
becoming right-thinkers about such matters. The March 26 Supreme Court 
decision in the case of Department of Housing and Urban Development vs. 
Rucker supports my contention.

Congress decreed that each "public housing agency shall utilize leases 
which ... provide that any criminal activity that threatens the health, 
safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other tenants or 
any drug-related criminal activity on or off such premises, engaged in by a 
public housing tenant, any member of the tenant's household, or any other 
person under the tenant's control, shall be cause for termination of tenancy."

Long-time residents of HUD-owned housing were given eviction notices 
because, in one case, a tenant's live-in daughter was found with cocaine 
three blocks from her apartment. In another case, a 30-year tenant was 
asked to move because her grandson admitted smoking marijuana in the 
parking lot.

Such actions seem draconian. After all, how could the one tenant control 
her daughter's drug use from a distance of three blocks? How can a 
grandmother possibly control her headstrong grandson outside her home? 
Isn't this zero-tolerance approach to law a textbook invitation for 
judicial liberals to attack HUD on civil liberties grounds?

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals thought that the evictions probably 
violated due process of law. Regardless, that court decided, the law itself 
bars eviction when the tenant, "for a lack of knowledge or other reason, 
could not realistically exercise control over the conduct of a household 
member or guest."

Wrong, wrote the unanimous Supremes, whose liberal and conservative wings 
are closely balanced. The 9th Circuit's interpretation of the law "runs 
counter to basic rules of grammar." Besides, wrote Chief Justice William 
Rehnquist, Congress could have been less harsh (as it has been in some 
forfeiture legislation) and chose not to be.

Moreover, the statute does not require eviction, leaving that decision up 
to the local housing agency authorities. Thus, the court ruled that 
Congress gave "local housing authorities the discretion to terminate the 
lease of a tenant when a member of the household or a guest engages in 
drug-related activity, regardless of whether the tenant knows, or should 
have known, of the drug-related activity."

Many professional "advocates for the poor" abhor this decision. But "many 
poor people in crime-ridden housing projects," as reported in The New York 
Times, support such zero-tolerance policies.

The Supreme Court's liberals do occasionally join conservatives in seeing 
the right light.

Don Erler is president of General Building Maintenance.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom