AMBIDEXTROUS FEDERAL POLICY

IN A classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left is
doing, the federal government will spend $4.7 million for Oklahoma
"drug elimination" programs, primarily at public housing projects.
Pardon our frustration, but this is an absurd example of the federal
government creating a problem and then demanding more of your tax
dollars to "solve" it.

"We will fight drug abuse with prevention and treatment programs and
with a crackdown on drug dealers and other criminals," Andrew Cuomo,
secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,
said in announcing the program. "We are telling dealers in HUD housing
to find another line of work or be sent to another type of subsidized
housing -- a prison cell."

Talk is cheap. Drug prevention programs are not. One of the main
causes of the influx of drug dealing at public housing is the federal
government's own decision to open projects to the disabled. The
definition of "disabled" absurdly includes even drug addicts.

In a series of stories in 1992, The Oklahoman reported on the takeover
of public housing projects designed for senior citizens by younger
residents, many of whom claimed the "disability" of drug addiction.
The series detailed a 42 percent rise in crime between 1989 and 1991
at Oklahoma City senior public housing units. Seniors living in the
projects, many of whom had left unsafe homes in bad neighborhoods,
began to fear for their lives.

In Connecticut, an 80- year-old woman was beaten with a pipe and
stabbed to death (hate crime?) by her downstairs neighbor (a man of 41
with a history of drug abuse) at a public housing project. Horror
stories about unsafe conditions in the projects in Oklahoma City and
elsewhere abounded, but HUD remained adamant that public housing
projects remain open to the disabled -- often defined as young people
coming out of drug rehab programs.

Not all the drug problems in public housing can be traced to the
government's wide-open resident policy, but much of it can be. For the
right hand of the federal government to invite drug addicts to live in
public housing, followed by the left hand of the federal government
taking a slap at drug abuse, is lunacy. It's also piracy -- a seizure
of tax dollars to combat a problem for which the government is largely
responsible.

On the one hand, your taxes pay for housing an addicted and
crime-prone population. On the other, your taxes pay for empty
promises of a "crackdown."

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady