Pubdate: Wed, 06 Apr 2005
Source: Louisville Eccentric Observer (KY)
Copyright: 2005 Louisville Eccentric Observer
Contact:  http://www.louisville.com/leo.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2420
Author:  Rochelle Renford

NO SECOND CHANCES?

Researcher Finds Flaws In Public Housing's One-Strike Rule

Over and over, the same story: "They denied me ... They said I had a
criminal background ... I didn't do any time, I spent one year on a
stat [a period of time where the court file remains open, but charges
are dismissed if no further arrests occur]. They told me I could get a
hearing, but I didn't want to bother. What good would it have done? I
got three kids -- one boy and two girls. I just keep moving around,
living here and living there."

"They" are officials at a housing authority in Baltimore, and what
they denied the single mother of three was access to public housing,
the housing of last resort for many of the nation's poorest citizens.

Corinne Carey, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, a non-profit
organization dedicated to upholding human rights laws around the
world, interviewed employees and tenants at 17 local housing
authorities around the country for her report, "No Second Chances,"
which was released last year. Carey will be in Louisville on April 13
to talk about her findings, at a forum hosted by the Metropolitan
Housing Coalition in observance of national Affordable Housing Month.

Carey spent about 9 months looking at the so-called one-strike rules
instituted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the
mid-1990s. The idea was to reduce crime in housing projects around the
country by limiting the number of troublemakers living in public
housing projects. Toward that end, the federal agency declared that
sex offenders and anyone convicted of, or even arrested for, the
manufacture of crystal meth are banned from public housing for life.
Others can be, and are, barred from entry because of arrests that
happened as many as 20 years prior to applying for public housing;
suspicion of alcohol or drug abuse; the behavior of a relative on
public housing grounds (even if the resident doesn't live with you and
isn't on the lease); or really just about anything else the housing
authority can think of.

The one-strike rule was created for various reasons, and its
inception, in part, came at the urging of public housing residents in
the 1970s and '80s, said Carey. Groups of tenants organized and asked
for more police involvement and harsher rules governing tenant
behavior. Back then, rules were loosely enforced and police presence
was sketchy, said Carey. "They got strict admission policies because
of that, and they got strict eviction policies," she said.

"I think many of those tenants now have people who have family members
that have been negatively affected by the policies that they helped
push for."

That results, Carey said, in people like the homeless mother
previously mentioned. She was denied access to public housing because
of an arrest 14 years before she applied for an offense so minor it
never went to court, much less resulted in conviction. When she was
interviewed for the report, she was living with her children in a
shelter and taking advantage of local soup kitchens to survive. All
because a local housing authority decided she wasn't good enough to
live among the others in public housing, or in private housing
subsidized by Section 8.

Carey didn't conduct research in Louisville and didn't speak with
Louisville housing officials when she was compiling data for her
112-page report, but she said most housing authorities tend to behave
in the same manner despite having autonomy in enforcing the broadly
written one-strike laws. There's no hard and fast rule that said the
local housing authority must refuse all applicants with criminal
histories, she said.

Tim Barry, director of the Louisville Metro Housing Authority, said
his agency pays attention to details and not just the existence of a
criminal record in deciding who can live in public housing. "Somebody
who may have hotwired or stolen a car when they were young and now
they're 40, they would likely not have a problem getting public
housing," he said. "We're not going to hold that over their heads for
the rest of their lives."

But more recent crimes, and violent crimes, are a more difficult call.
While everyone should have access to affordable housing, public
housing residents deserve to live somewhere safe, he said. "We have to
look out for their quality of life too."

Most local agencies don't bother to examine applicants on a
case-by-case basis in the way Barry describes, said Carey, unless an
applicant or tenant facing eviction appeals the decision, which is
rare.

That poses a problem, said Carey, because single mothers aren't the
only -- or even the largest -- group experiencing discrimination. That
distinction goes to ex-convicts who are trying to get their lives
together and stay out of trouble, with little access to housing or
legitimate employment. While the criminal justice system has become
more interested in helping former prisoners and drug offenders who
stay on the right path -- drug courts and treatment programs instead
of incarceration -- HUD continues to make it hard for those same
people to find housing, Carey said.

"A large part of recidivism, it's linked with housing and
employment."

Ex-convicts need a payoff for good behavior, said Carey, such as jobs,
decent housing and inclusion in society.

"There's a certain buy-in when that person feels like they're a part
of the community," she said. "It makes it less likely that that person
is going to commit crimes against that community."

Corinne Carey is the keynote speaker at the Metropolitan Housing
Coalition's housing forum on April 13 at the Louisville Urban League,
1535 W. Broadway.
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MAP posted-by: Derek