Badges - Re: Chicago Housing Authority wants drug testing of residents (From the Sun Times)
- From: "CarlGlas" <CarlGlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <badges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 13:57:52 -0500
Check out this link by Detective Shavedlongcock.
http://shavedlongcock.blogspot.com/2011/05/heres-way-to-cut-public-housing-by-98.html
----- Original Message -----
From: CHK8093@xxxxxxx
To: TOPCOPS-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ; badges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2011 9:50 AM
Subject: Badges - Chicago Housing Authority wants drug testing of residents
(From the Sun Times)
Go look at the comments section at suntimes.com, they are hilarious. I
don't see a problem with it, but the lefties do. If I have to have a random
screen for my salary, those on the public dole should too. Make it all
welfare, ADC and LINK recipients too.
Chicago Housing Authority wants required drug testing for adult residents
The Chicago Housing Authority wants to require all adults who currently live
in, or apply in the future for housing in any of its developments, to be tested
for drugs — including senior citizens.
The blanket policy proposal for anyone 18 years or older has residents and
housing advocates crying foul.
The American Civil Liberties Union charges the public agency seeks to place a
double standard on the poor.
“It’s such an insensitive proposal to even bring to the table,” said Myra
King, a resident of the Far South Side Lowden Homes development. She chairs the
Central Advisory Council of tenant leaders from CHA properties all across the
city.
“Singling us out for this type of humiliation is a slap in the face of what
this whole ‘Plan for Transformation’ supposedly is about,” King said. “CHA says
they’re doing this plan to make us privvy to the same standards as any other
citizen in any other community. If that’s true, why are we the only citizens to
be drug tested?”
The measure is among several changes to the lease and CHA’s Admissions and
Continued Occupancy Policy proposed by CEO Lewis Jordan. Under the policy, a
positive drug test would subject leaseholders to eviction proceedings.
Agency officials argue they need more tools to fight crime, particularly the
drug scourge, in CHA developments.
Also controversial is a proposed elimination of the so-called “innocent
tenant defense,” referring to evictions initiated when a drug-related or
violent crime has been committed by a relative or guest of the leaseholding
tenant — but the tenant was not involved nor had knowledge of the crime. In
2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled housing authorities may evict under such
“innocent tenant” circumstances, so CHA would be within its rights. But former
CHA chief Terry Peterson had negotiated an agreement with tenants that had
continued to allow the defense if it could be proved in court.
Jordan, who took over the agency in 2008, declined to be interviewed on the
proposals.
Spokeswoman Kellie O’Connell-Miller pointed out several CHA mixed-income
properties currently require drug testing.
“These are policies to help strengthen and improve the safety of our public
housing communities,” O’Connell-Miller said.
“We’re constantly hearing from law-abiding residents that they want us to
hold the non-law abiding residents more accountable. We’re trying to tighten up
our lease with some of these issues. Drug dealers won’t come where there are no
buyers. If you remove the folks who are interested in drugs, hopefully it will
remove some of the problems,” she said.
The policy would apply to 16,000 families living in family and senior public
housing. The agency has not yet explored the cost associated with the proposal,
O’Connell-Miller said.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development here said
as federal policy prohibits drug users from public housing property,
authorities nationwide are free to enforce that rule as they see fit. HUD does
not track such enforcement, so it could not say if any other housing
authorities had such a blanket policy, nor could CHA.
“The ACLU opposes drug testing in the absence of suspicion as a condition of
residency in public housing,” said senior lawyer Adam Schwartz.
“From our perspective, drug testing without suspicion is humiliating. It’s
stigmatizing. There’s a double standard here,” he said. “All across our city
and our country, when most of us who are in whatever income bracket rent
housing, we don’t have to take a drug test. This is an emerging one standard
for poor people and another standard for everyone else.”
However, a 1999 ACLU case filed against the state of Michigan may not bode
well for such a proposal, Schwartz noted.
In Marchwinski vs Howard, the head of that state’s Department of Public Aid
mandated blanket drug testing for a sub-population of public aid recipients.
The ACLU won an injunction that was later upheld by an appellate court.
The proposed changes, unveiled May 17, are open to public comment through
June 16. A public hearing on the changes is scheduled to be held at 6 p.m. June
2nd, at the Charles A. Hayes Center, 4455 S. King Drive. If adopted, the
proposal then has to go before the CHA Board and chairman Jim Reynolds for
approval, then HUD.
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