PUNISHING VICTIMS

Public Housing Rules That Evict Entire Families For The Misdeeds Of A
Single Resident Are Perversely Cruel

After Tiffani Alvera was beaten by her husband so badly it put her in the
hospital and him in jail, she was served with an eviction notice from the
manager of her government-subsidized apartment in Oregon. The apartment
complex had a zero-tolerance policy for drugs or violence in the units,
which meant tenants who were victims of domestic violence were kicked out
along with the instigators.

If this could be any crueler, we don't see how.

For the last 10 years, local public housing authorities and landlords of
publicly subsidized housing have adopted highly punitive zero- tolerance
policies, which mandate the eviction of entire families if a single member
of the household is arrested for a drug-related or violent offense.
Typically, the stories involve teenagers arrested for drugs, causing their
mothers and grandmothers to be put out of their homes. But now private and
publicly subsidized housing developments in Oregon, Michigan, California,
Louisiana, Colorado and Massachusetts have figured out a way to make the
rules even harsher, by applying them to battered spouses.

Victims of domestic assault will tell you that a beating turns their world
upside down. Assault victims often face long convalescence, criminal
prosecution of the batterer, enforcement of a restraining order and efforts
to keep life as stable as possible for their children.

Now, for some, add homelessness.

When Alvera was served an eviction notice, her options were extremely
limited. She was already living in government-subsidized housing, but the
beating left her face badly bruised for months, making her miss days of
work. That meant she had even fewer resources to look for alternative
housing. She was able to avoid being evicted only with the help of a
public-interest lawyer.

The justification for the no-excuses eviction policy given by the
management of the Creekside Village Apartments in Oregon, where Alvera
leased one of the 40 units, was that the rules protected the living
environment for other tenants. And while it is understandable that
Creekside Village would want to remove a batterer or any other violent
person from its premises, it makes no sense to punish the victim as well.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Creekside
Village is engaging in sex discrimination and therefore violating fair
housing laws. The department has sued the management of the apartment
complex alleging that, because women are disproportionately victims of
domestic violence, a policy that evicts such victims discriminates against
women. Alvera has also joined the litigation in her own right with the help
of a series of public-interest legal organizations.

Whether this zero-tolerance policy is truly sex discrimination is open to
debate. Men as well as women are victims of domestic abuse. In fact,
arrests of women for domestic violence are increasing. But this unyielding
policy can be attacked another way -- by making clear in all public housing
and subsidized housing regulations and their enforcement arms, that the
days of mindless zero tolerance are over. Innocent members of a family
should not be punished due to another's misdeeds, and any government
regulations that allow for this draconian result should be repealed or
clarified.