POOR ELDERLY FIGHT FEDERAL EVICTIONS

The Supreme Court Will Review A Law That Aims To Keep Drugs Out Of Projects.

OAKLAND -- Herman Walker is a thin, frail man, a former warehouseman who
has lived here nearly all of his 79 years. Sitting beneath the photos of
his children and late wife that paper his living room wall, Walker seems an
unlikely candidate for a dispute over illegal drugs and public housing.

But 4 1/2 years ago, Walker was served an eviction notice after police
determined that guests of his had used cocaine in and near his Oakland
Housing Authority apartment.

That thrust Walker and three other elderly housing authority tenants facing
similar expulsions into a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the
federal government's "one-strike" law, which permits evictions from public
housing when residents or their guests are found to be involved in illegal
drug activity.

"It's crazy. It's sick," Walker said, describing his view of the one-strike
rule. "It's just pushing down on the poor people. That's what that's for."

Walker and his co-plaintiffs, all of whom deny any knowledge of drug use in
their apartments, make for sympathetic figures. Evictions would force them
into the private housing market that is at best unfriendly to seniors of
little means.

But lawyers for Oakland housing officials say they are looking out for
tenants of all ages who want to be free of drug users and traffickers. The
one-strike rule, they insist, is the strong tool they need to accomplish that.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case Tuesday. Legal experts say the
debate will center primarily on the Department of Housing and Urban
Development's interpretation of the law, which even allows for the eviction
of innocent tenants -- those unaware of their guests' or relatives' actions.

The court's ruling could be life-changing for residents and managers of the
44,000 public housing units in California, including the 4,800 located
between Sacramento County in the north and Kings County in the south.

Tenants of those homes -- among the 1.2 million public housing units
nationwide -- are ruled by a housing provision first written by Congress as
part of a sweeping anti-drug law in 1988.

"Any drug-related criminal activity on or off the premises engaged in by a
public housing tenant, any member of the tenant's household, or any guest
or other person under the tenant's control, shall be cause for termination
of tenancy," the law states.

To strengthen the law, the Clinton administration in the 1990s pegged
federal funding to a public housing authority's handling of one-strike
evictions. In theory, authorities retain discretion not to evict innocent
tenants on one-strike grounds, but critics argue that the financial
incentives propel evictions.

In Merced County, there have been about three dozen evictions under the
one-strike policy, though relatively few have been for those considered to
be innocent tenants.

"We've been watching this very closely," Nick Benjamin, director of Merced
County Housing Services, said of the case. "We've found one-strike to be
extremely effective; when there's a waiting list of 1,200 people for public
housing, it makes sense."

For Walker, the legal journey began in August 1997, when the Oakland
Housing Authority (OHA) police arrested a woman for possession of cocaine
and drug paraphernalia in a senior citizens complex that rises above OHA's
headquarters. The woman told the officers that she had been in Walker's
top-floor apartment.

Police searched Walker's unit, finding small amounts of rock cocaine and
pipes, as well as a minor girl and two other women who were not tenants.
During two subsequent searches, police again found paraphernalia. Housing
officials then moved to evict Walker.

Similarly, Pearlie Rucker, 66, was served eviction papers in 1997 after her
son and daughter were arrested separately on suspicion of possessing
cocaine a few blocks from her East Oakland apartment. Later that year,
police found the grandsons of Barbara Hill, 66, and Willie Lee, 74, smoking
marijuana in the parking lot of a North Oakland housing complex.

All four tenants denied using or possessing illegal drugs themselves, and
all said they were unaware that their guests or relatives had used or sold
drugs.

That's beside the point, contends Gary Lafayette, who represents OHA. He
recalled the days when the now-dead drug kingpin Felix Mitchell ruled from
an OHA complex near the Oakland Coliseum. He also cited a lawsuit filed
against OHA in early 1997 by almost five dozen tenants who, in part,
complained that the authority allowed drug dealers to roam common areas of
their complexes.

"These types of situations," Lafayette said, "put the (housing) agencies in
a no-win position. If they don't do anything, residents complain ... . And
when they do respond, they get charged with responding too harshly."

Rucker's eviction was rescinded after she removed her daughter's name from
the lease. She remains a plaintiff, though, for technical legal reasons.
Neither she, Hill nor Lee consented to interviews. That left Walker to be
the quartet's unofficial spokesman. A volunteer preacher at a local Baptist
church, Walker can still talk up a storm when the feeling strikes him.

Walker disputes OHA's version of events that led to the eviction notice in
1997. He implied that the drugs and paraphernalia were planted by one
officer after three other officers searched his home and came up with nothing.

He also said he is the target of retaliation for efforts he made to improve
the building's operations when he moved in 10 years ago. "When I came here,
I straightened things out too much for them," Walker said. "They tried to
get rid of me."

The Supreme Court is not his last stand, though. Even if the court upholds
the law, Walker and his co-plaintiffs can still fight their evictions in
state court.