One
Strike for the Poor and How Many for the Rest of Us?
By Robert Hornstein, Treena Kaye, and Daniel
Atkins- Legal Times
Several weeks ago the nation learned of the
arrest of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's daughter, who was charged with
trying to buy the drug Xanax with a fraudulent prescription. Bush
and his wife quickly issued a press release stating that they
were deeply saddened by their daughter's troubles and asking the
public to respect the family's privacy. The governor also noted
that drug abuse is a problem confronted by many American families.
Several days later, the media reported that his 24-year-old daughter
had entered a drug treatment program, which upon completion would
result in dismissal of the criminal charges against her.
Pearlie Rucker, a 63-year-old great-grandmother
who has lived in public housing in Oakland, Calif., since 1985,
would understand the full measure of the Bush family's burden.
She lives with her mentally disabled daughter, who was found in
possession of illegal drugs three blocks from Rucker's apartment.
Unlike Gov. Bush, however, the Oakland Housing
Authority thought that a daughter's drug problem was anything
but a private family matter. Instead, the housing authority invoked
the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's "one
strike and you're out" policy: As a consequence of her daughter's
drug crime, Rucker, her daughter, two grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter
were faced with eviction in late 1997.
HUD's one-strike policy is founded on the
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which requires that all public housing
leases prohibit criminal activity on or near the premises by a
tenant, guest, or other person under the tenant's control. That
statute was amended in 1990 to require that such leases contain
a provision that "any drug-related criminal activity on or
near such premises, engaged in by a public housing tenant, any
member of the tenant's household, or any guest or other person
under the tenant's control, shall be cause for termination of
tenancy." The law was amended again in 1996 to change the
phrase "on or near" to "on or off" such premises.
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