IT'S A WIN FOR PUBLIC HOUSING

April 2, 2002 -- THE Supreme Court has upheld a controversial federal
policy that allows public-housing officials to evict entire families when a
family member - even a teenage child - is caught with illegal drugs in or
near the housing complex.

And you know what? I'm glad.

No, I'm not glad that Pearlie Rucker, a 63-year-old great-grandmother, was
threatened with eviction by the Oakland Housing Authority because her adult
son and her mentally disabled daughter were caught with cocaine in separate
incidents several blocks from their home.

That was too rough a decision, and I've been told that, following last
Tuesday's ruling, the OHA is reconsidering. But I'm glad the housing
authorities still have that weapon in their arsenal.

You might be, too, if you can get past the awfulness of having poor
helpless grandmothers tossed out of their homes and remember why the rule
was introduced in the first place.

It was at a time when drug dealers and gangbangers were turning
public-housing complexes into virtual crime bazaars. The noncriminal
majority of residents found their lives turned upside down by neighbors -
and neighbors' children - who were using and selling drugs, either from
individual apartments or on the grounds.

What to do about it? As the law then stood, unless the person in whose name
the apartment was leased was caught red-handed, he or she had only to plead
ignorance to the illegal activity. I had no idea my son was using drugs, no
idea my boyfriend and his cousin were dealing out of the building, no idea
. . . of anything.

But soon, leaders in the public-housing tenant-management movement got sick
of it, and people like the late Kimi Gray of Washington and Bertha Gilkey
of St. Louis started pressing federal officials to give them the leeway to
pressure tenants to shape up or face eviction.

One result was sterner screening standards for new tenants, another was the
right to award (with choicer units) residents who kept their places up and
their children under control. A third was the so-called "One Strike" policy
that Pearlie Rucker and others fought all the way to the Supreme Court,
where they lost last week.

Under "One Strike," tenants have to sign a lease that includes an agreement
to keep their public-housing premises free of drug-related and other
criminal activity. The implication is that they know, or should know, what
is going on in their homes - and if they don't, the threat of being
suddenly homeless should be enough to pique their curiosity.

Nor would it be enough under the policy simply to move the criminal
activity outside the apartment - or even just outside the grounds. Drug
dealing by a member of a resident's household near the complex could still
result in eviction.

Could. The eviction is permitted but not required, which is why the
handling of the particular case of Pearlie Rucker seemed unnecessarily
ham-handed.

A rule requiring proof of knowledge would do nothing to stop the descent
into chaos that marks so many public housing complexes. A rule requiring
eviction under any and every circumstance of family-member involvement with
criminality would be just another example of "zero tolerance" gone mad.

Based on what I've read of the Rucker case and some others in the suit, a
stern warning would have made a lot more sense than summary eviction.

But I understand, too, the fragility of poor communities, and their special
vulnerability to the predations of a relative handful of miscreants.

It really comes down to a choice between a liberal interpretation of the
civil liberties of those affected by "One Strike" and enforcing at least
the possibility of a safe community for those willing to live by the rules.

Having seen both the devastation wreaked by the gangbangers and the hopeful
patience of poor families on the long waiting lists for public housing, I
choose "One Strike."

Sensibly enforced, of course. Grandma Pearlie doesn't need to be on the street.