Eviction law is fine with local tenant
Wednesday, February 20, 2002

By Ted Roelofs
As a husband, father and tenant of a Grand Rapids public housing
complex, Aubrey Robertson puts security at the top of his home
priority list.
Because of that, Robertson is all for a zero-tolerance drug law
in force at Creston Plaza apartments on Grand Rapids' Northeast
Side.
That includes cases in which families may be evicted for the
drug use of a single family member, even off the premises.
Robertson sees it as a tool to keep his complex as clean and safe
as possible.
"If there's one person (using drugs), that is a start," said
Robertson, 52, a native of Jamaica.
He has lived the past four years at Creston Plaza with his wife,
Tammy, and his daughter, Precious, 3. In recent months, Robertson
was pleased to see casual drug use at the complex diminish with the
installation of security cameras.
"If there is a start, then there will be some other problem. I
totally agree (if there is a drug link), get them out."
Critics say the law -- argued Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme
Court -- tramples on individual rights and harms the very people
public housing authorities are supposed to help.
"It's basically one strike and you're out, and I think they went
beyond what Congress intended," said Michael Chielens, executive
director of Western Michigan Legal Services.
"Someone who had no knowledge or involvement in a criminal act
is being punished. That's kind of a basic due process notion that
we have had in our legal tradition for a long time."
The case was brought by four Oakland, Calif., senior citizens,
including 63-year-old great-grandmother Pearlie Rucker. They
received eviction notices because of the drug use of relatives or
caregivers.
Rucker was ordered out because her mentally disabled daughter
was caught with cocaine three blocks from the apartment she shared
with her mother and other family members, court records show.
An appeals court blocked enforcement of the law.
At issue is whether housing directors are being more aggressive
than Congress intended. The law was passed in 1988 and endorsed by
the Clinton administration in 1996 and by the Bush administration
last year.
The law was written at a time when public housing complexes were
under assault by drug-dealing gangs and politicians were pressured
to take action.
Families can be removed for drug use by one member, whether the
drug activity is in the home or somewhere else.
Under the Department of Housing and Urban Development'
enforcement program, tenants may not avoid eviction simply by
claiming ignorance of the crime or an inability to stop it.
Carlos Sanchez, executive director of the Grand Rapids Housing
Commission, believes the law can be effective if it's applied with
discretion.
The commission administers about 3,500 public housing units in
the Grand Rapids area, including Creston Plaza.
"I think if it's done with caution, it's a tool that we
desperately needed in our developments," Sanchez said.
Sanchez said Grand Rapids doesn't have the large-scale drug
problems larger cities do -- and he wants to keep it that way.
"We've done the best we can to keep it from being so
drug-infested it becomes a war zone. Once the development is taken
over, it's very difficult to take them back."
Sanchez said the commission relies on police reports in deciding
evictions, which he estimated at one or two a year.
Among those cases, according to Leslie Curry, litigation
director of Western Michigan Legal Services, was that of a mother
evicted from public housing about a year ago with several young
children.
She was removed because her 17-year-old son was arrested selling
drugs outside the apartment, Curry said. That left her with the
hardship of seeking a place she could afford for herself and her
children, without the certainty she afford the rent.
"She didn't know about it," Curry said of the drug deal.
"In Grand Rapids, subsidized housing is critical to people's
ability to maintain basic security in their lives."