SINS OF THE GRANDCHILD

It may be constitutional, but that does not necessarily make it rational.

We're speaking of the federal government's "one strike" policy for evicting
public-housing tenants who have even a remote association with drug use.

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday upheld this draconian policy, instituted
by the Clinton administration in 1996 as an outgrowth of an anti-drug law
passed by Congress in 1988 to ban drug activity in public housing.

How harsh is the rule? Look no further than one of the cases that reached
the high court.

Pearlie Rucker, 65, was caring for two grandchildren, a great-grandchild
and a mentally disabled 40-year-old daughter at a public-housing unit on
21st Avenue in Oakland. Police caught her daughter with cocaine three
blocks from home.

Rucker insisted that she kept drugs out of her home and was unaware of her
daughter's drug use. Yet, the Oakland Housing Authority moved to evict
Rucker under the 1996 "one strike" rule, which extends to off-premises
conduct. The authority eventually backed off after the daughter was
incarcerated, but federal housing officials maintain to this day that her
eviction would have been justified under the "one strike" rule.

Another case involved a 77-year-old disabled Oakland man whose care
provider was caught with a crack pipe.

This policy exceeds the bounds of reason. Public housing officials should
take a zero-tolerance stance toward drug dealing and possession on the
premises. People who deal or use drugs in or near public housing should be
evicted -- along with their relatives and other housemates in cases in
which they tacitly or actively allow such activity.

But the notion that any drug activity anywhere by a tenant or person
ostensibly "under the tenant's control" should be grounds for eviction
violates a basic concept of fairness.

Sheila Crowley, head of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said
that the extreme policy was an example of politicians picking on the
powerless to get a tough-on-drugs sound bite.

"If every household with a teenager that was up to no good could be evicted
. . .

a lot of people would be on the streets," Crowley said.

The policy is particularly unfair to grandparents who are struggling to
raise children coming from troubled homes, which is not an uncommon
situation in high-poverty areas. More than 1.7 million families headed by
people age 61 or older live in government-subsidized housing.

While some of the Supreme Court justices seemed sympathetic to the tenants
during oral arguments, the court ruled that the policy was constitutional.

It is now up to Congress or the Bush administration to craft a tough but
more carefully targeted anti-drug policy for public housing that is both
constitutional and rational.