There is no substitute for common sense. In an election year, though, “get-tough-on-crime” rhetoric can be relied on to give it a try.
In Springfield, law-and-order lawmakers want to bring back prison chain gangs. In Washington, the House thinks repealing the assault-weapon ban will somehow help to protect law-abiding citizens. And at the White House, well, nobody ever accused Bill Clinton of being slow to spot a trend. This president will not be “Willie Hortoned.”
And so, Clinton is making good on a threat made in his State of the Union address: eviction of public-housing tenants who commit crimes or deal drugs.
Not that it’s a far-fetched idea. Law-abiding residents of public housing deserve to be protected from thuggery. And in fact, since 1988, public-housing agencies like the Chicago Housing Authority have put clauses in their standard apartment leases authorizing the eviction of any tenant found dealing drugs or engaging in any criminal activity that threatens the well-being of other residents.
The problem, according to the president, is that too many housing authorities aren’t enforcing that section of their lease. The solution, he says, is a “one strike and you’re out” policy under which local housing agencies will be administratively sanctioned if they fail to bounce tenants who commit crimes, whether or not those crimes resulted in an arrest or a conviction.
Whether or not a tenant’s bad behavior constitutes an eviction offense would be hashed out at a legal hearing in which due process is to be observed.
All of which is commendable, though real life gets a bit messier than presidential directives and federal guidelines. What if the miscreant is a guest of the person whose name is on the lease? Or if a ne’er-do-well teen is part of a large, multi-generational family? Does everybody in the apartment get the heave-ho?
No wonder Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), whose South Side district contains the city’s largest concentration of public housing, objected to the seeming harshness of the new presidential order.
In fact, buried in the fine print near the bottom of the guidelines, there is mention of a need for “flexibility” and “reasonable discretion.” That is exactly what CHA Chairman Joseph Shuldiner promises, saying that families will be allowed to stay so long as their troublemaker goes away and stays away.
It all gets back to common sense . . . even in an election year.
