SCALES OF JUSTICE

The impulse to rid public housing of drugs is on target. Still, the urge
must be balanced against rights of the innocent

Tenants in public housing have a right to be free from the hassle of drug
activities. Subsidized housing is a benefit for which people wait years.
Demand for the affordable housing is so high that housing authorities have
no reason to tolerate tenants who abuse the privilege. Drug users and
dealers pose a serious threat to the safety and the quality of life of
tenants. It is the obligation of housing authorities, as landlords, to
enforce leases strictly within the bounds of law.

All these are highly reasonable points in the argument against harboring
drug users and giving drug criminals a foothold in public housing. Congress
and state legislatures have approved a raft of tough laws in the past 20
years to combat the use of drugs and the violence that frequently
accompanies it.

A 1988 federal law authorized the Department of Housing and Urban
Development to evict from public housing any tenant who violated the lease
requirement that no tenant, members of the household and guests be involved
in using, producing, selling or distributing drugs.

HUD then developed a "one-strike-and-out" zero-tolerance policy that
permits a family to be evicted -- even if the tenant had no way of knowing
that a guest or member of the household had violated the drug policy. Also,
it made no difference whether the violation occurred within or away from
the housing property.

Harsh and inflexible, the policy has been applied in California against
such tenants as an elderly woman whose mentally disabled daughter was
caught with cocaine three blocks away from the apartment she shared with
her mother, and an elderly man whose caretaker was caught with crack
cocaine. By zero-tolerance guidelines, they were guilty because of the
behavior of others.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld without a dissenting vote HUD's
eviction guidelines as within the language and intent of the law as enacted
by Congress.

Zero tolerance for drugs may sound reasonable enough as a means to screen
criminals out of public property and to ensure that tenants had an
incentive to firmly control activities in and around their housing units.
But is it reasonable or fair to evict a tenant who does not know that a
resident son, daughter or friend is involved in some drug- related activity?

As with other war-on-drugs policies and legislation -- for example,
forfeiture laws that target homes, automobiles and other properties
suspected to be associated with drug-related crimes -- the eviction policy
offers one more example that as instruments of justice, zero- tolerance
policies are blunt, utterly unfair and indiscriminate.

No one questions that drug activities create an unsettling atmosphere and
physical danger wherever they occur. Certainly, administrators of public
housing need a strong stick in order to maintain control and security. But
a law that fails to preserve the distinction between what is fair and
blanket judgment undercuts respect for the justice system.

The high court's ruling exposes the deep flaw in the law. The onus is on
Congress to rectify it by expanding the administrative discretion of
housing agencies.