ANTIDRUG PROGRAM IS FACING A RELAPSE

Smiling, Marqueetah Hicks felt victorious.

The lean 15-year-old had just reached out, grabbed the hands of a friend
and together they had pulled each other up from the floor.

The team-building and self-esteem exercise was a success.

But a grin and a lesson in self-esteem aren't normally high priorities in
Atlanta's Red Oak housing project, Marqueetah said.

"It's fighting the drugs," she said with her head down. "There are a lot of
people who try to influence you to do bad things, to try stuff yourself.
It's hard."

The once reclusive and bitter little girl with few friends, is smiling a
lot now, crediting the Miss Georgia Teen of Excellence pageant program.

But in the proposed 2002 federal budget, the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development and the Bush administration plan to pull the plug on the
Public Housing Drug Elimination Program, meaning the six-to 12-month
program Marqueetah is taking advantage of soon could be a thing of the past.

The $309 million grant program that President Bush's father started during
his administration in 1989 provides money to public housing authorities
nationwide to rid their properties of the drug trade and create drug and
crime prevention/education efforts.

Housing authorities across the country go about that in a variety of ways,
funding everything from gun buyback programs to basketball leagues for
residents in Huntsville, Ala., to hiring off-duty police officers in
Marietta, to running teen pregnancy, drug and crime prevention and
education programs like the Miss Georgia Teen of Excellence pageant
program, offered by the Housing Authority of Fulton County.

Politicians, housing and law enforcement officials have lauded the program
in helping to lower crime rates in public housing areas.

But under the current White House administration, HUD officials' priorities
have changed. HUD wants to end the program and instead add $150 million to
its Public Housing Operating Fund, which subsidizes the day-to-day
operating expenses of public housing authorities nationwide.

"I don't think that particular fund was meant for these types of needs,"
said Tyronda Minter, Fulton's director of resident mobility. "You're
struggling to pay for your maintenance, your utilities and things like
that. These type programs are beyond that. I'm not sure if by doing that
that we'll have adequate funds to continue to keep doing what we're doing."

Marqueetah lives in Red Oak with her mother and sister. Many days, they are
the only folks she chooses to see.

"I don't hang out with anybody," she said. "Me and my sister might go
somewhere together, but I just stay in the house."

While Red Oak isn't the most crime-infested place in the world, Marqueetah
said the environment isn't always great for a teenaged girl who dreams of
going to college to study business and later open her own hair salon.

Drug-dealing in the streets. Fights between neighbors. Some of her friends
becoming pregnant before they can even drive.

"It's not that good for anyone under, I say, 16, at all," she said.

Being holed up at home --- except for a weekend job in a candy store at
Hartsfield International Airport and visits to her grandmother --- took its
toll on Marqueetah. She said she got mean, distrusting, bitter and quiet.

"I had a bad temper," she said, her eyes furrowing. "Little things would
bother me. And I had self-esteem problems. I couldn't get along with anybody."

Last year, her mother heard about the pageant program that mainly tries to
curb teen pregnancy, but also teaches other life lessons. A poise and
production training program prepares girls for the pageant, but program
manager Nancy Samuels said the idea is to provide cultural enrichment,
career exploration and personal growth as an alternative to the trappings
of their environment. "This is where we've got to start," she said. "We've
got to get them at an early age and let them know that they can aspire for
higher goals."

That's exactly what has happened for Marqueetah. Last year, she finished
second in the competition. This year she wants to be first. But she's
seeing that she's become a different person. And she's much happier now.
"It's a great program," she giggled while smiling at a friend.

The Drug Elimination Program isn't the only HUD initiative facing the
knife. HUD wants to decrease its $3 billion Public Housing Capital Fund by
$700 million. Housing authorities use that money to rehabilitate and
modernize their buildings.

The effect: Housing agencies nationwide would be losing one-fourth of their
current levels of capital fund money.

For the current fiscal year, Georgia's public housing authorities
collectively received more than $98 million in HUD capital funding and $9.8
million in Drug Elimination grants.

If the budget cuts are approved, the state's housing authorities would lose
nearly $25 million in capital funding and all of the Drug Elimination
money. Those totals are the highest among Southeastern states.

"There's a lot of concern," said Darrell Kane of the Marietta Housing
Authority.

Kane said the authority would have to find other ways to pay for children
to attend the Boys and Girls Club during the summer, pay the salaries of
off-duty police officers and do renovation work on some units if it loses
the $340,000 in capital funds and $197,000 in Drug Elimination funds HUD
gave them for this year.

"I don't see any way to," he said. "That's two major programs right there."

The state's biggest loser would be the Atlanta Housing Authority, which
would lose $5.3 million in capital funding and the Drug Elimination grant
from which it got $2.3 million this year and $2.4 million last year ---
would end.

That would put into peril the Atlanta Self-Sufficiency Action Program,
which teaches job skills to residents and has placed more than 200 people
in jobs; the Integrated Computer Learning Activities Supporting Students
program, which teaches computer skills to 120 youths; and a combination of
after-school and summer activities that provide tutorial, educational and
recreational services for 400 public housing children.

Disposing of the Drug Elimination grant "would critically impair" the
agency "and the residents we aim to serve," said Renee Dixon, the housing
authority's director of resident services and economic development.

But HUD Secretary Mel Martinez said other federal initiatives are available
to fight drugs and crime, so there's no reason for HUD to duplicate those
efforts.

"When you look at HUD's mission of providing housing, I'm not sure that law
enforcement really falls very well under that category for us," he said.

Tim Kaiser, executive director of the Washington-based Public Housing
Authorities Director Association, disagrees.

While he said authorities are responsible for providing safe, drug-free
environments, Kaiser believes the bigger issue is that they're already
struggling to make ends meet and using operating funds will make it
difficult --- if not impossible --- for them to maintain Drug Elimination
Programs.

"(HUD's) argument is just not a valid argument because housing authorities
around the country are already in the hole," he said. "And it's really not
a choice at all, because you have to pay your utility bills and you're sure
not going to have enough to continue your Drug Elimination Program."

Federal officials said they understand the worries, but believe they're
doing the right thing. Kaiser is still worried.

"It's going to be extremely difficult for housing authorities to make up
the funding," he said. "That is devastating to not only Atlanta, but to
every housing authority in the country."

Kaiser's group has been busy lobbying lawmakers to restore funding for both
programs. Last week, 109 congressional members --- including Georgia's Bob
Barr --- sent House leaders in charge of HUD funding a letter urging them
to restore and raise the appropriation for the programs.

Final decisions on HUD's budget are expected in July.

But far away from the Beltway battles in Washington, a group of girls
grins, giggles and grimaces in Atlanta as they try to find other cool ways
to pull each other up from the floor.

Samuels said she and others have already started looking for other funding
sources to keep the program going if the grant ends.

"It'd be a big letdown for the children of the community," she said. "I'm
hopeful, however, I know the funding is dwindling."

Marqueetah's only thinking about winning the pageant in December --- and
hoping others will get a chance to benefit in the future.

"It helped me with my friends, my grades and," she said with a smile, "myself