PUBLIC HOUSING EXCLUDES HER

Haunted By A Criminal Past, A Cancer Patient With A 5-year-old Owes Rent
But Can't Turn To Housing Agencies

ST. PETERSBURG -- Most people who have been arrested half a dozen times
don't see police as instruments of divine providence. Tammie L. Barber is
an exception.

"God allowed me to get arrested again," she says, explaining the time in
1998 she was charged with trying to buy cocaine from an undercover officer.

That got her sent to Operation PAR, a drug rehabilitation center where she
lived for more than a year. Fully sober for the first time in two decades,
she got a job building countertops after her release and moved into an
apartment with her daughter.

But "happily ever after" barely lasted past the summer. In September, four
months after leaving rehab, she learned she had breast cancer. She began
chemotherapy, which makes hair fall from her head and energy seep from her
body.

Unable to work and pay rent, she turned to the Pinellas County Housing
Authority, but was turned down for a rental assistance program because of
her past convictions.

To many, public housing sounds like the bottom rung of the ladder, the
place you go when there is nowhere else. But it's not that way anymore.
Across the country, housing authorities have cracked down on who gets
government help. Those who use drugs or commit certain crimes lose the
privilege. But those policies don't contemplate cases like Ms. Barber's.
"Unfortunately, the government has pretty much sent out the message that .
. . it's not going to guarantee housing to everyone who needs it," said
John Dubrule, director of litigation for Gulfcoast Legal Services.

With $425 rent that was due last Tuesday, and more chemotherapy to come,
Ms. Barber is left wondering: Where will she and her 5-year-old daughter go?

"I'm not the only one with these kind of problems," she said. "What do we do?"

It's easy to understand the need for cracking down on crime in public
housing. In cities such as Chicago, major public housing complexes have
been virtually controlled by gangs who sell drugs and wage war over turf.
In St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Tampa, police at various times in the
past decade have pushed to remove cocaine, marijuana and other drugs from
large public housing complexes.

Since these developments often are teeming with kids, removing the drugs --
not to mention the accompanying violence and leftover needles - - is a
priority.

Ms. Barber was turned down for a program called Section 8 that provides
housing subsidies for people who live in private apartments. Her
application is still active for a spot in a public housing development, but
the same rules on criminal convictions apply. Even Ms. Barber acknowledges
the need for some rules.

"I do understand their rules, and I respect that," she said.

What the rules don't answer is what happens to people such as Ms. Barber
who cannot support themselves, but have been cast aside.

The Rev. J.W. Cate, a member of the St. Petersburg Housing Authority's
Board, said housing boards have to set standards for who must be excluded.
At the same time, he said, "the flaw in that system is, is there another
level somewhere for people like that?"

Answering his own question, he said, "Obviously, other than some of the
shelters in town, temporary, the answer is no, there's not."

"This woman that you're talking about, I'm sure, is not alone," said Cate,
who had no personal knowledge of Barber's case, which involved a different
housing authority.

Pinellas County's Housing Authority director could not be reached.

Sitting on a couch in her apartment last Wednesday, tears spilled onto Ms.
Barber's cheeks as her life story spilled from her lips. A swirl of thin
sandy hair, maybe half an inch long, had grown back onto her head during
the three weeks since her last chemotherapy treatment.

Ms. Barber, 39, said she started drinking at age 14, when she was a high
school student in Bradenton, after her father died in an accident. She
progressed to the point where she needed alcohol even at breakfast to stop
the shakes. A functioning alcoholic and drug abuser, she held down jobs as
a cabinetmaker and boat builder.

She was arrested for aggravated assault on a police officer in 1982 , but
most of her other crimes were drug offenses, such as the 1998 bust for
trying to buy cocaine.

Learning about her breast cancer after a year's worth of treatment designed
to turn her life around was devastating, she said.

"I did a lot of crying on the toilet and I said, "God, please don't let me
die.' " Sometimes she thought the opposite: "God, please let me die."

But her daughter, who is 5, always came to mind. "I am all she has. And
that is what keeps me going."

At Ruhl Enterprises in St. Petersburg, where Ms. Barber worked building
countertops, owner Pete Ruhl says she was an excellent employee and "as
strong as the guys."

Not now. These days she rests at home while her daughter is at
kindergarten. She struggles for energy to keep up with her until 7 p.m.,
when they often fall asleep together watching a movie.

Because of her cancer, "At least at this point she is 100 percent
unemployable and 100 percent disabled," her doctor wrote in a letter. But
she was turned down for disability payments through Social Security,
because she has not been disabled long enough. Her only income now is $241
in welfare and $238 in food stamps per month.

Ms. Barber has received one-month rent payments from a handful of social
service agencies, but that well is running dry. She has toyed with the idea
of going back to work, in spite of her doctor's instructions, but knows she
shouldn't and probably cannot.

Her last gambit: See whether her landlord will let her stay until her tax
refund comes in. She also may inquire about a home for disabled people that
Ruhl knows of.

In the meantime, she wonders about others in her situation. "What in the
world are people like us going to do?"

When her daughter came home from school last Wednesday, she promptly began
reading books to a visitor, including Baby's Birthday.

When the visitor asked about Mommy's sickness, the girl answered directly:
"I feel bad, real bad." Then she covered her face with Baby's Birthday.

Ms. Barber paused in thought when asked to describe her situation.

"Like being in an eclipse," she said. "Waiting for the sun to shine."