DRUG PIPE MAY COST FAMILY ITS APARTMENT

Marisa Perez never tried to shield her 17-year-old son from the law.
She hauled him to the juvenile hall or called San Jose police at
least four times in the last 2 1/2 years when he skipped out on
court-ordered drug programs.

But after police arrested the teen last month outside his mother's
apartment with a marijuana pipe, an eviction notice arrived that
could force Perez and her three youngest children from the complex
where she has lived for 13 years. Her landlord gave her until today
to move out, but she plans to fight the eviction in court.

``It's not their fault that I had it on me,'' her son said of the
pipe. ``I messed up.''

That doesn't help his mother's case. Perez, 34, is caught between a
teenager she can't control and a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling
that says public housing tenants can be evicted for illegal drug
activity by family members or friends -- even if they didn't know
about the drugs. Tenants unaware of drug use in their homes pose a
threat to neighbors because they cannot control the drug use, the
court ruled in a case that originated in Oakland.

Elena Gardens Apartments, a federally subsidized complex in North San
Jose, recently started enforcing a ``one strike and you're out''
eviction policy, after residents complained the management wasn't
doing enough to stop drug activity. The complex hired off-duty San
Jose police officers to look for trouble.

Months before that, Perez sent her son to live with his grandmother,
she said, and though she took his key she couldn't stop him from
coming when she was at work.

``What's a mom to do?'' said Victor Torres, a lawyer with Legal Aid
Society of Santa Clara County who is handling Perez's case. ``Ask for
a police standby to keep him out?''

A letter from her son's probation officer, Paula Martinho, shows
Perez's struggle to get her son to stay in a drug program. Twice she
got him to surrender at juvenile hall. On July 23, 2001, she
contacted police on two occasions but no one showed up to arrest the
teen, the letter said. The Mercury News isn't naming her son because
he is a juvenile.

``I don't think I could have done anything else,'' Perez said.

Police arrested her son May 2 on an outstanding warrant for skipping
out on a drug program. They also found he was carrying a pipe with
marijuana residue. At the time, Perez was at her job at Edify, a
Santa Clara software company. The house was open so her other
children -- 12 and 7 -- could get inside before she picked up her
4-year-old from day care.

`My heart sunk'

Eight days later, she got a 30-day eviction notice.

``My heart sunk to my feet,'' said Perez, who pays $700 a month for
her three-bedroom apartment at Elena Gardens, a community of 168
units off Cropley Avenue where children race their bikes on the
walkways and strips of grass between apartment buildings.

Huge rent leap

Similar non-subsidized housing could cost her $2,000 a month, she said.

In March, the Supreme Court ruled that the Oakland Housing Authority
could evict four elderly tenants who were unaware of drug use by
their grandchildren and caretakers.

Those cases are back in state court. Three will probably be resolved
without eviction, said Jon Gresley, executive director of the Oakland
Housing Authority.

Perez and her children also might keep their apartment under a
probationary tenancy, Torres said, but one more violation would send
them packing.

Elena Gardens' management considered the severity of her son's crime
and Perez's attempts to stop it, according to the Ecumenical
Association for Housing, a San Rafael non-profit that owns Elena
Gardens.

``After we took everything into consideration . . . we thought it was
the best decision to issue the 30-day notice,'' said Mike Farrel, an
assistant vice president of operations.

He said Perez has had problems before, a claim she says isn't true.

Farrel said Marisu Mercado-Ardales, Elena Gardens' resident manager,
and Dianna Fraasch, EAH's South Bay property supervisor, ultimately
decided to evict Perez. Both declined to comment.

Perez's family is not the only one that received eviction notices
since the Supreme Court ruling March 26. Three other households in
Elena Gardens received eviction notices for drug-related violations.
At least one of those families is fighting its eviction.

Supportive tenants

``The Supreme Court decision has sent a message to the courts to
empower us to evict,'' Farrel said.

Many tenants at Elena Gardens said they support management's
crackdown on drugs and the logic of the Supreme Court ruling. But
some, like Doris Sablan, say the rules shouldn't apply in Perez's
case.

``She should not be kicked out because of her motherly instinct,''
said Sablan, a mother of three and an Elena Gardens tenant since 1986
who defends Perez but doesn't consider her a friend.

Regardless of whether her eviction was the fair response, questions
remain whether Perez's son qualifies as a household member or guest.

According to the Supreme Court, ``Implicit in the terms `household
member' or `guest' is that access to the premises has been granted by
the tenant.''

That Perez kicked her son out but did not remove his name from the
lease muddles the issue of whether she granted him access, said Gary
Lafayette, the lawyer who argued the Oakland Housing Authority's
Supreme Court case.

``That's a written document authorizing him to be on the property,''
he said. But ``this case is still going to turn on finer issues --
how often did he come by, if ever.''

The lawyer for EAH, Todd Rothbard, said as long as her son's name is
on the lease he is a legal household member, even if Perez barred him
from the home.

The teen dropped out of high school after his junior year and started
running afoul of the law, Perez said. He spent eight months at a
boys' ranch for burning an empty trailer shell, she said.

After his release, he kept violating his parole by testing positive
for marijuana.

The tests landed him in court-ordered drug programs, which he left.

In another twist, Perez's son is serving 90 days' house arrest at his
mother's apartment for the May 2 marijuana incident. Perez is making
him call landlords during the day to inquire about new apartments,
she said.

Perez hopes he will kick his drug problems. She is frustrated that
his drug habit could cost her the apartment, when other families go
through the same problems.

``I'm not the only parent and he's not the only kid having this
problem,'' she said.