IF A GUEST USES DRUGS, OUT YOU GO

It took a jury's verdict to save the apartment of Christina Mabanag

Christina Mabanag, a single mother of three, was working a second job as an
in-home caretaker last year when she received a frantic call.

An excited neighbor told her there was a large crowd outside her home.
Police were inside interrogating people, outside on her balcony, and
walking around the complex's narrow corridors.

Wild thoughts ran through her mind. Was one of her daughters hurt? Did
someone burglarize her home? Unable to leave her wheelchair-bound patient
behind, Mabanag drove home, bringing the 82-year-old woman.

As she made her way past the throng, it became clear that police were there
for a very different reason. She recalled a uniformed security guard
pointing at her and saying, "I have no sympathy for you. You're going to
lose your apartment."

The message hit her like a ton of bricks.

"I was so bothered and confused," said Mabanag, who lives in newly
renovated public housing but asked that her address not be disclosed
because she fears for her safety.

She recounted how she was detained and questioned that day in March, 1997,
as if she were under arrest.

Authorities told Mabanag that her guest, a family friend staying for the
weekend, had been arrested for drug possession. It didn't matter that she
wasn't home, that she said she didn't know her friend used drugs - she
would be evicted.

The Housing Authority invoked the federal government's "one strike, you're
out" policy, which allows evictions for offenses inside or outside tenants'
apartments, with or without their knowledge. One of the most controversial
uses of the policy nationwide has been against tenants who didn't know
visitors had drugs.

"I was really having a hard time," said Mabanag, her voice faltering. "I
was going crazy. I didn't know what to do. I was calling my social worker
all the time."

Soon the eviction notices came, one on her doorstep, another wedged in her
screen door, a third hung on a gate.

Mabanag, who has no criminal record and never had problems at the
development, tried to talk to her building manager, but "he said there was
nothing he could do. I was evicted."

He ordered her to turn in her keys and vacate the one-bedroom unit she
shared with her children: Clara Jean Dixon, 12; Jasmine May, 8; and Marina
Mabanag, 7. After the initial shock and disbelief dissipated, indignation
set in. She refused to leave.

Juggling her schedule as a part-time security guard, weekend caretaker and
full-time mother, she went searching for legal help. The City's volunteer
legal services program took her case for free.

One of Mabanag's attorneys, Carolyn Burton, tried to negotiate with the
city attorney's office, which represented the Housing Authority.

Burton asked whether Mabanag could stay if she signed an agreement never
again to let the guest in her home. Mabanag consented to warrantless
searches to assure that no drug activity was going on.

"After all, she had nothing to fear," Burton said. "She was innocent."

But the city attorney's office rejected the offer.

Matt Davis, the deputy city attorney who oversaw the prosecution, said he
reviewed the case and determined that Mabanag should have known that her
guest had a drug habit. The guest was found wandering the complex under the
influence of heroin, he said.

"Public housing is a privilege, not a right," he said. "Do people have to
live with crime just because they're poor?"

Police seized balloons filled with heroin and cocaine, hypodermic needles
and other paraphernalia associated with drug use that "showed she shouldn't
have allowed that woman to stay there," Davis said.

During a three-day trial, two weeks before Christmas 1997, lawyers on both
sides agreed on virtually all the facts. They concurred that drugs were
found in the apartment, that Mabanag's friend possessed them and that she
and her children were not in the apartment at the time.

But they disagreed over who was responsible.

Mabanag's lawyers said the jury must find she had direct knowledge of her
friend's drug use to sustain an eviction.

"How are they making public housing safer by getting rid of tenants who did
nothing wrong?" said Burton. "You can't be the keeper of everything you
don't know about. (The one-strike policy) is zero tolerance, not zero
common sense."

The Housing Authority not only argued Mabanag knew of her friend's drug
use, but also said they had the right to oust her regardless of what she
knew. "Good cause requires that the grounds for eviction are fa wrote
Deputy City Attorney Scott Rennie in court papers. He contended that
Mabanag knew of her friend's drug problem and chose to ignore it.

Jurors disagreed.

In its unanimous verdict, the jury found that although the guest had
possessed illegal drugs, Mabanag had no actual knowledge of the drugs and
should not be evicted.

Hearing the decision, Mabanag wept.

"There were a few tears shed by all of us," said Kathy Pugh, one of her
lawyers.

Mabanag says that despite the verdict, her life will never be the same.

"I'm scared now," she said. "Someone knocks on my door and I get nervous. I
don't let anyone come into my house anymore."

1998 San Francisco Examiner

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski