APARTMENTS REQUIRE DRUG TEST

When the Belle Shore and Bryn Mawr apartment buildings on the North Side
were sold and were being renovated, neighbors saw it as a golden
opportunity.

An opportunity to make sure that the prostitutes and gang-bangers that used
to hang around the 400 apartments never come back.

In the two years since people started moving back into the renovated
buildings, the area has been transformed. The reason: drug testing of
tenants, neighbors say.

"It got to the point where I was afraid of going down the street," said
Gerald Marcoccia, president of the Edgewater Beach Neighbors Association.
"We thought we could turn around the street and then the neighborhood with
these two apartment complexes."

When prospective tenants ask for an apartment application, they are told
about the drug test. The applicant pays $35 for a credit check, and the
development company pays the $25 for the drug test. Tenants renewing leases
must be retested.

Urine samples are checked for cocaine, marijuana, heroin and amphetamines.

Testing seems to have worked. Neighbors near Bryn Mawr and Kenmore avenues
are happy to be rid of the crime, tenants are happy to live in a safe
environment, and developers are happy that their multimillion investment is
a hit.

"It's an excellent idea. It's no offense. If a person is doing drugs, then
they might have problems paying the rent," said Lee Johnson, 28, who has
lived at Belle Shore for about 18 months. "One person who uses drugs brings
another person, brings another person, and they start selling it in the
building. It brings the neighborhood down."

The buildings, with a mix of low- and middle-income tenants, are almost
full, said officials with Holston Management Corp., the building owners.

Tenants rights officials say the drug testing could lead to problems.

"Something like this could be used as a discriminatory tool by landlords,"
said John Bartlett, who coordinates the tenants rights program for the
Metropolitan Tenants Organization. "What it does is provide more and more
barriers on someone trying to find an apartment. And you find that many of
these barriers are going to be targeting the lower income tenants."

Building managers say they test everyone--including an 82-year-old woman.

There have been reports of a few buildings in the country requiring drug
tests, but Bartlett said he has not heard of another in Chicago.