COURT ALLOWS EVICTIONS RELATED TO DRUG USE

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that local housing
authorities can evict tenants when household members or guests use drugs.
The justices held that a federal zero-tolerance drug policy in public
housing is a reasonable approach to protecting residents from "a reign of
terror" by drug dealers.

Writing for a unanimous court, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said federal
law unambiguously gives local public housing authorities the discretion to
evict such tenants, even if the tenants didn't know about the drug use.

Four elderly tenants from California had challenged their evictions,
arguing that the actions were unconstitutional and not authorized by
federal law. But the court said Congress clearly intended the law to sweep
broadly, authorizing evictions even if the tenants were not directly at
fault or did not know about the drug use

"There is an obvious reason why Congress would have permitted local public
housing authorities to conduct no-fault evictions," the court said. "A
tenant who cannot control drug crime ... is a threat to other residents and
the project."

Quoting from the federal law, the court said it was reasonable for Congress
to permit those evictions in order to "provide public and other federally
assisted low-income housing that is decent, safe, and free from illegal drugs."

The decision was short in length and emphatic in tone. Coming just a month
after the case was argued, it stressed that Congress had authority to take
a hard line in order to make public housing safer for all tenants.

But civil liberties groups took issue Tuesday with whether the law had that
effect. They said allowing evictions because of drug use by any household
member or guest under the tenant's control put an unreasonable burden on
poor parents and grandparents.

"Homelessness is a cruel price to pay for a crime you had nothing to do
with," said Dan Abrahamson, director of legal affairs for the Drug Policy
Alliance, a leading drug policy reform organization.

The case came about in 1997, when the Oakland Housing Authority started
eviction proceedings against the elderly tenants after their relatives or,
in one case, a caretaker, were caught with drugs.

In their lawsuit seeking to block the evictions, the tenants maintained
that they did not know about the drug use and had tried to keep their
apartments drug-free.