YES TO A LAW THAT GETS RID OF DANGEROUS TENANTS

As the property manager of 500 federally subsidized apartments in Southeast
Washington for 14 years, I agree with the recent Supreme Court ruling that
residents of public and assisted housing can face eviction if a family
member or guest conducts illegal drug activity within the residence or if a
household member is arrested on drug charges away from the housing unit
[news story, March 27].

Some residents of assisted housing and their advocates maintain that this
ruling is unfair because residents aren't always aware of drug activity.
Elderly residents, for example, can be subject to eviction if their
visiting grandchildren are arrested for smoking marijuana on the playground
of the housing complex, and whole families can face eviction if one member
is arrested on drug charges miles away from the family's residence.

From my management experience, I've found that residents of subsidized
housing aren't as ignorant about the activities of their family members and
guests as they and their advocates suggest.

I manage a 27-unit Section 8 apartment building located on a notoriously
dangerous Anacostia corner, where drug activity is rampant. Every weekday
morning, my maintenance staff removes the remnants of the previous
evening's activities from the halls and stairs: dozens of tiny, plastic
crack bags; syringes; burned matches; and tobacco from "blunts," shells of
cigars used for marijuana.

Because drug users are averse to the security that bright lighting
provides, they regularly shoot out the lights in the halls and on the
building exterior, and they break into vacant apartments to conduct their
illegal activity. Even police armed with guns are leery of the building I
manage.

One recent morning, while I was conducting a building inspection, a man who
appeared to be intoxicated was walking through the building hallway,
brandishing an ax. When I called 911 for police assistance, six uniformed
officers answered the call, and a police helicopter hovered above. The man
with the ax, it turned out, was a well-known visitor of not one but several
residents.

March was a typically chaotic month at my building. A visitor stabbed one
resident, and the guest of another jumped out of her third-floor window
when police knocked at the door. A rash of robberies occurred in the hall.
Further, law enforcement officials raided four apartments, netting drugs,
drug paraphernalia and ammunition. They arrested several wanted people.

Regarding the raids, a D.C. police officer said, "No major investigation
was necessary. We executed four search warrants and in no case came up
empty-handed." When I asked him if residents were aware of the drug
activity, he said, "Everybody is aware, and many are acting as lookouts."

This statement is supported by the fact that police receive few calls for
assistance from building residents. Residents who are not involved in
illegal activity so fear repercussions from their neighbors and their
neighbors' visitors and guests that they refuse to call police for help. In
my experience, even elderly and disabled residents usually are aware of the
illegal activity conducted by their family and guests, although some seem
helpless to do anything about it. In these isolated cases, subsidized
assisted-living facilities should be made available.

The Supreme Court ruling is on target. With thousands of deserving families
waiting for subsidized housing, why spend tax dollars paying rent for
people whose presence is a danger to everybody?

- -- Jill G. Matthews