POOR HAVE A RIGHT TO DRUG-FREE HOUSING

For the past 34 years, I have been an employee of the Buffalo Municipal
Housing Authority, and have worked for eight executive directors. Over
those years, I have read several articles in which The News criticized the
authority for its maintenance and management policies.

We have been called the city's largest landlord on radio talk shows, and
the "housing of last resort." Housing Authority politics also has been
blasted in the media. Some of the criticism has been deserved and some, I
believe, was fabricated to sell newspapers and improve ratings on radio and
television stations.

But the recent News article, "Public housing tenants evicted on "one
strike' rule cry foul," incensed me so much that I had to reply to that
nonsense.

A single mother, a 10-year Jasper Parrish resident, was evicted because her
16-year-old son was arrested in another apartment for possessing 10 bags of
crack cocaine and a bag of marijuana. What was he doing with such a stash?
Saving it for a rainy day? I don't think so.

God bless Executive Director Sharon West and the Housing Authority for
adopting and enforcing a zero-tolerance policy. Civil libertarians have
called this policy racist. Nonsense! Race has nothing to do with it. Poor
people, minorities or not, have a right to live in drug-free housing.

West, through her policies, has worked very hard to turn projects into
developments with decent, affordable housing. The evicted tenant said she
was forced to move to the drug-infested West Side. Perhaps if the city
followed West and the authority's zero-tolerance policies, the West Side
would be drug-free.

Frank C. Boncore,
West Seneca