THE SON'S BAD DECISIONS HIT HOME

Sandra Gilchrist has lived at The Elms, in West Warwick, for 22 years. She
wants to stay.

Kathy Paux, who manages the low-income family-housing complex, believes
Gilchrist has to go. She says she would be sending the wrong kind of
message to the other tenants if she allowed Gilchrist to stay.

Gilchrist hasn't done anything wrong. She hasn't broken the law or violated
tenant regulations. But her son has. And, under a recent ruling by the U.S.
Supreme Court, the crimes of one family member can be visited on all other
family members who live in the same place.

"My whole life went upside down," Gilchrist says of the day three months
ago when the West Warwick police came through her door.

She says the police told her they had been watching her son, David, for
three months. They took a shoebox containing marijuana from his room and
charged him with possession of a controlled substance, with intent to
distribute. He wasn't home at the time of the raid, but he turned himself
in to the police the next day.

Gilchrist, who lives at The Elms with a Section 8 subsidized-housing
certificate, says she knew nothing about the drugs. She doesn't think it's
fair that she should lose her home because of something her 22-year-old son
did without her knowledge.

"I wasn't arrested," she says. "I had no idea my kid was doing this. There
was no traffic in this house." At the heart of the matter is the Supreme
Court decision that in March upheld the "household-responsibility clause"
in public-housing leases. It holds members of a household responsible when
another member, or even a guest, is involved in drug-related activity on
the premises.

Paux, the manager of the complex, points out that Gilchrist and her son and
daughter all signed the lease and are therefore equally responsible for
upholding the rules.

Paux also says there have been a lot of people visiting the Gilchrist
apartment at 5- or 10-minute intervals. "We promote drug-free housing," she
says. "I let her stay, the next person who gets caught, what do I do? And
they're always going to say they don't know."

It is a dilemma. Sandra Gilchrist could be innocent of any wrongdoing and
be evicted anyway. It is possible that her son moved drugs in and out of
the apartment without her knowledge. And while the Supreme Court decision
upholds evictions in response to drug activity, it doesn't make eviction
mandatory. It leaves enforcement to the discretion of local housing officials.

In a letter to public-housing directors, Mel Martinez, U.S. Secretary of
Housing and Urban Development, urged that eviction be the last option
explored. He said that while the household-responsibility clause provides a
strong tool to deal with illegal drugs, it should be applied responsibly,
not rigidly.

But Kathy Paux has 120 apartments to worry about. She has a community to
try to keep in some kind of balance. She has to worry that the way one
tenant is treated is consistent with the way others are treated. And she
has to make it clear that the responsibility for keeping drugs out of The
Elms is everyone's responsibility.

In managing The Elms, Paux gets a front-row seat for the kinds of social
problems that plague communities great and small.

SANDRA GILCHRIST is appealing her eviction in District Court. She really
doesn't know how much longer she will be living at The Elms. She says she
has told her son, who has been placed on probation, that he can no longer
live there.

"I can't believe he would do this to me," she says.

She is 44 and divorced and has epilepsy. She says she has checked out other
apartment complexes and has been told that the wait for an apartment could
be five to seven years.

But she could soon be out of the place that has been her home for 22 years.
She could learn in a very hard way the wisdom of those television
commercials -- the ones that urge parents to find out if their kids are
involved in drugs simply by asking them.