Evicting The Drug Dealers

They hang out in parking lots and playgrounds. They commandeer vacant apartments. In some cities they have become occupying armies, besieging entire housing complexes. They are the drug dealers who have terrorized public- housing projects since the birth of the crack-cocaine trade. Last week Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp announced sweeping plans to drive drug dealers out of public housing. But in his zeal to attack the drug crisis, Kemp may have ignored serious questions of practicality, if not constitutionality.

Kemp has been inspired by the antidrug crusades waged by a number of local public-housing authorities. Perhaps the most successful effort has been Operation Clean Sweep, which began at Chicago's Rockwell Gardens project. Led by the executive director of the city's housing authority, Vince Lane, the program has provided frequent drug raids by police and has planned for tenant . security patrols. Anyone entering a building is required to present a photo ID at a security desk in the lobby. Since the plan was instituted last September, the crime rate at Rockwell Gardens has dropped 28%.

Kemp would like to see similar programs at other projects. The catch is that he wants to finance them largely with HUD funds that have been set aside for modernizing the complexes. To pay for the drug war, local housing authorities would have to sacrifice the installation of storm windows, new heating systems and other badly needed improvements. Robert McKay, executive director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, complains of being faced with an "impossible choice between fixing up dwellings or fighting drugs -- and you have to do both." Moreover, housing officials are going to have less and less money for either task. HUD modernization funds are scheduled to be cut by $649 million next year, to a total of $1 billion. The cost of rehabilitating public housing across the U.S. is estimated at $20 billion. The cost of eradicating drugs from the projects is incalculable.

The second component of the antidrug offensive is a tough eviction policy that Kemp called for last week. It would speed the expulsion of any person convicted, or even suspected, of dealing or using drugs. Moreover, anyone who shared the apartment with the drug offender could also be ousted. Mary Brunette, Kemp's spokeswoman, pooh-poohs the civil liberties questions raised by that policy. Says she: "The rights of law-abiding families in public housing are at least as important as the rights of criminals."

But what about the rights of law-abiding family members whose relatives are accused of a drug offense? Should they be held culpable for the crime? "We're concerned about those who might be innocent and evicted," says Wade Henderson of the A.C.L.U. "The next step from public housing for many people is homelessness." Kemp's desire to rid the projects of drug dealers and encourage parental vigilance is commendable. But the strategy he unveiled last week seems likely to provoke legal challenges that could hamper its implementation -- and throw some innocent tenants out on the street.