Pubdate: Mon, 08 Apr 2002
Source: Columbia Daily Spectator (NY Edu)
Copyright: 2002 Spectator Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.columbiaspectator.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2125
Author: Casey Hankey
Note: The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in English and 
creative writing.
Alert: It Is Not OK To Evict Granny http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0237.html

ADDICTION EQUALS EVICTION

At a time when I would like to place as much faith as possible in 
governmental authority, I can't help but question the Supreme Court's 
latest ruling. Its unanimous decision in favor of a one-strike law for 
residents of public housing decrees that even innocent tenants can be 
evicted if a family member or guest is caught with drugs in or near a 
housing project. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is quoted in the Los 
Angeles Times saying that the policy serves to make all tenants aware that 
they can be removed if they do not prevent drug use by their family 
members, and that furthermore, it protects law-abiding families from crime 
and violence in the projects.

How can parents or grandparents control their children 24 hours a day, let 
alone their adult acquaintances? Can we expect to see the Bush family 
evicted from the White House because the president can't control his own 
daughters' substance abuse? In order to control crime and violence, is the 
government also going to start evicting any family whose members get into a 
fight or are caught using a can of spray paint?

Under this law a disabled individual could lose his home if his caregiver 
was caught carrying drug paraphernalia. Without prior knowledge of the 
situation, what control could one possibly exert? In order to effectively 
detect and prevent drug use by fellow family members, unyielding 
surveillance would be required; as this is impossible, people with families 
face the highest risk under this law.

Astonishingly, not one judge considered the very obvious consequences of 
this ruling. This one-strike--or, let's face it, no-strike--law has many 
more victims than beneficiaries. People who had been living in the 
projects, obviously not doing well to begin with, will effectively become 
homeless and most likely contribute to an increase in crime--the opposite 
end of the law's intent.

I recently witnessed the speech of a homeless man who announced that by 
giving him my change, with which he would admittedly buy crack cocaine, I 
"might be saving a human life." He yelled, "If I don't get what I want, I 
may end up killing someone tonight!" I was terrified, and I shudder to 
think that my government considers it wise to mass-produce that kind of 
desperation in its poor.

Even worse off are those who would still subsist in the projects, for whom 
the social effects would be devastating. With this law the government 
demands that residents assume the role of police, and in doing so not only 
break sacred trusts with their children but cast a suspicious eye on their 
neighbors, thus forging their world on a foundation of distrust. A 
grandmother who would normally not think twice about taking her daughter's 
children under her wing now has her own livelihood to consider.

Additionally, this law ignores the addictive qualities of most narcotics, 
which will certainly impede the efforts of many tenants who might otherwise 
be willing to comply. But citizens from the projects cannot afford to just 
up and go to detox now that there is more at stake. The risk of losing 
one's home does not make quitting any easier. People are forced to turn 
their backs rather than extend their hands to friends and family who battle 
addiction. In effect, normal familial connections are severed and forced to 
undergo scrupulous review.

Of course innocent residents of the projects have the right to live in an 
environment free of drugs and crime. But their rights do not supercede the 
rights of equally innocent tenants with relations to people who are caught 
using drugs. Under ideal circumstances, all families should be more 
vigilant about controlling drug abuse among their members. But people who 
live in public housing do not live under ideal circumstances. Punishing 
innocent people for others' faults is a cruel, senseless way to make public 
policy.

The biggest problem with drug eviction is that it ultimately targets the 
poor, violating a number of constitutional amendments. If I go to the park 
and get arrested for smoking dope, my dad is not going to lose his house. 
Granted, government property is subject to different rules than private 
property, but if owning a house makes one exempt, that is not equal 
protection. And it certainly doesn't take a chief justice to see that 
paying for a crime one didn't commit is cruel and unusual punishment. We 
have become so concerned with putting a foreign face on terror that we have 
lost sight of it within our own borders.
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