CHA TENANTS MAY GET BOOT

CHA residents braced for a surge of evictions after the U.S. Supreme Court
on Tuesday unanimously upheld a controversial "one-strike" policy that
allows tenants to be evicted for drug crime by a family member or
visitor--even if the tenant is unaware of the activity.

The lead tenant in the case out of Oakland, Calif., is 63-year-old Pearlie
Rucker, whose mentally ill daughter was caught with cocaine three blocks
from her apartment.

"It's terrible, because it's sort of like the tenant is in prison," said
Barbara Richardson, a Legal Assistance Foundation attorney who handles
similar cases in Chicago. "When a person comes to your apartment, do you
search your guests or run a criminal background check?"

Chicago is one of a few cities that require the public housing authority to
prove a tenant had prior knowledge of illegal activity before they can be
evicted. But residents and the attorneys who defend them feared losing that
protection after the high court's ruling.

One of Richardson's clients, Debra Bailey, is facing eviction from her
Henry Horner Homes town house in the 3000 block of West Washington because
her 15-year-old son was arrested for heroin possession at another public
housing development.

The boy pleaded guilty in order to get probation, Richardson said, but now
Bailey and her five other children also face eviction.

"It's not fair, especially when you have other kids," said Bailey who said
her son doesn't have a record for dealing drugs and is not involved in gangs.

"What parent in America would want to be held strictly liable for
everything and anything that their teenage children do at the cost of their
family's home?" asked Jamie Kalven, an adviser to residents living at
Stateway Gardens on the South Side.

Kalven said the pace of evictions has picked up along the State Street
public housing corridor as the high-rises have been demolished under the
CHA's plan to replace the buildings with mixed-income communities.

In 2001, nearly 400 CHA families were evicted, including 119 who were
tossed out under the one-strike policy. The other evictions were for
non-payment of rent or for other lease violations. In 1996, the year
tougher one-strike legislation was signed into law, there were only nine
one-strike evictions.

CHA chief Terry Peterson backed the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, but said
public housing residents here in Chicago will be treated fairly.

"I believe the process must be compassionate," Peterson said. "But if
you're involved in drugs and illegal activity, then public housing is not
the place for you."

Bill Wilen, an attorney for the National Center on Poverty Law, said the
one-strike policy makes CHA residents "second-class citizens" because
private renters don't live under the same restrictions. On Tuesday, Wilen
and other attorneys who often represent public housing tenants said the CHA
may now be emboldened to strip the lease protections.

"I would urge the CHA to focus not just on what is now legal, but on what
is fair and just," said Lawrence Wood, a supervisory attorney for the Legal
Assistance Foundation.