PUBLIC HOUSING CAN EVICT DRUG USERS' FAMILIES, JUSTICES RULE

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that government agencies can use aggressive
eviction policies to get rid of drug users in public housing.

Justices, without dissent, said they had no problem with a federal law and
related policies that allow entire families to be evicted from public
housing for drug use by one member.

Maryville Housing Authority Executive Director Joyce Baker said "the lower
courts had held that you couldn't evict the whole family if one member was
caught with drugs."

The one-strike policy -- one drug conviction and you're out -- has been in
effect since the mid-1990s. Maryville has had such a policy close to a decade.

"We have evicted whole families over drugs, whether the individual is using
or selling drugs," Baker said.

In the case where a grandmother has a grandchild who breaks the policy and
is caught either using or selling, "we would look at it on a case-by-case
basis. Perhaps the mother could stay if the child went back to the
parents," Baker said.

Before residents are admitted to Maryville Housing Authority properties, a
background check is run through Maryville Police Department. If officials
are still suspicious "they are fingerprinted and those run through NCIC
(National Crime Information Center). Most people back out the door if they
know we'll find they have a record," she said.

The ruling is a relief for housing leaders, who argued that without such
tools drug problems would worsen in public housing.

The losers were four elderly California tenants who challenged the
zero-tolerance policy for drugs in federally subsidized housing after
receiving eviction notices.

Justices dismissed the tenants claims' that they should be allowed to avoid
eviction by showing that they were unaware of wrongdoing.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote that the government, as a
landlord, can control activities of its tenants while trying to provide
safe, drug-free housing.

The "one-strike" provision was part of a drug law Congress passed in 1988
amid complaints about crime in public housing. The challenge here centered
on policies developed to follow the law.

Critics of the law said the Supreme Court should have recognized that the
evictions are too harsh.

"The only way they can get away with it is because it affects poor people,"
Sheila Crowley, head of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said
Tuesday.

The ruling affects anyone who lives in public housing. Senior citizens
groups argued that the elderly would be hurt the most. More than 1.7
million families headed by people over age 61 live in government-subsidized
housing.

"It is not absurd that a local housing authority may sometimes evict a
tenant who had no knowledge of drug-related activity," Rehnquist wrote.

He said that even if tenants were unaware of the drug use, they could still
be held responsible for not controlling narcotics crime of family members.

The residents in this case were from Oakland, Calif., but public housing
groups nationwide have followed the case. Similar lawsuits are pending in
other courts.

The Supreme Court reversed a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in favor of the California tenants, including 63-year-old Pearlie
Rucker, whose mentally disabled daughter was caught with cocaine three
blocks from the apartment she shared with her mother and other family members.

When the case was argued before the court last month, some justices seemed
sympathetic to the senior citizens. But they agreed that the law allowed
their evictions.

"Any drug-related activity engaged in by the specified persons is grounds
for termination, not just drug-related activity that the tenant knew, or
should have known, about," Rehnquist wrote.

Justice Stephen Breyer did not take part in the ruling.

The cases are Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Rucker,
00-1770, and Oakland Housing Authority v. Rucker, 00-1781.