ONE STRIKE, YOU’RE OUT! JC HOUSING TENANTS RECEIVE FOUL PLAY FROM BAD POLICY

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ONE STRIKE, YOU’RE OUT! JC HOUSING TENANTS RECEIVE FOUL PLAY FROM BAD POLICY

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Posted by Ricardo Kaulessar on May 31, 2003 at 06:16:24:

If baseball had the one strike, you’re out rule, the game would probably be finished a lot faster - a fan’s dream. But for the tenants of Jersey City’s housing projects, this is no game but a literal nightmare.

A meeting on May 7th inside the Jersey City Housing Authority (JCHA) meeting room at the Marion Gardens housing projects was held to address the issue of the HUD One Strike Policy. Tenants from Marion Gardens and other housing projects across the city attended the meeting. There were local ministers from the Interministerial Alliance, officials from the Housing Authority and community activists also in attendance.

The One Strike Policy was created in 1988 during the Reagan Administration to combat the rampant drug dealing and crack epidemic that especially plagued housing projects in the United States during that time. But the policy has been a lighting rod for controversy since its inception.

The policy requires that any tenant of public and assisted housing must agree when signing their resident lease that any criminal activity engaged by tenant, any member of the tenant’s household or a guest are grounds for eviction of the entire household.

However, various factors are supposed to taken into consideration before evicting tenants such the seriousness of the offense and whether or not the offender committed the offense on the premises. Alternate sanctions would then be carried out such as removal of the offender from the household if he/she were not the head of household, a ban from the premises and/or rehabilitation.

According to Aneesah Abdullah, a teacher at Snyder High School who was at the meeting on behalf of tenants from the city’s various housing projects who were penalized unfairly, the policy has taken effect in severe measure the past two years with few of the sanctions as required by the policy even being invoked.

The center of much controversy, as addressed during the meeting, was whether or not the policy has been implemented equally from resident to resident. Tenants who have been evicted charged that they were forced out for the flimsiest of reasons, while some their fellow tenants who were raided by police and caught with the drugs on the premises were allowed to stay. Other complaints included the Jersey City Housing Authority doing a poor job of educating tenants on the One Strike Policy itself and especially the due process rights to which are they are entitled under the policy, and that there is no assistance provided to help evicted tenants, particularly the elderly, find new housing.

Abdullah, who has spent the past three months organizing the meetings on city housing sites where tenants aired their grievances about the policy, said there were positive signs during the Marion Gardens meeting from the new JCHA interim director Robert Graham who was in attendance.

“What I heard from the interim director is that (Jersey City Housing Authority) was going to revise the policy, take a look at some of the issues, and they’re going to also take a look at some of the people who were evicted to see if they were due processed in a correct way and if not, some time down the road, maybe bring some of those people back,” said Abdullah.

In fact, there are talks underway to create an advisory committee consisting of Abdullah; local activist Virginia Miller; Reverends Kevin Agee, Thomas Robinson, and George Maize of the Interministerial Alliance; Jersey City NAACP branch president Kabili Tayari, Ron Scott, and tenant representatives from the housing projects who will meet with the Housing Authority to assist in the revision of the policy.

Robert Graham, who was named on April 14th to fill the interim director position left vacant by the recent demise of former director Robert Rigby, stated in a recent interview with the Urban Times News that it will be sixty to eighty days before a new One Strike policy is set.

Graham stated that after meeting with the soon-to-be-formed advisory board, he would have to go through the Board of Commissioners as well JCHA attorneys, housing police, site managers before putting the revisions to a vote. He will also confer with the directors of other urban Housing Authorities within the state to find out about their respective approaches to the One Strike Policy.

The move toward revisions and possible reinstatement of residence will be good news to Yvette Bryant and Rasheeda Jackson, two of the many victims of what many housing and community experts across the country have called a regressive and racist policy that punishes the innocent more than the guilty.

Bryant, a 39 year old single mother of four who lived in the Marion Gardens Housing Complex for eight years until her eviction in April of this year. What lead to the eviction was the arrest of her son, Daivon, who was eighteen when he was arrested on Pavonia Avenue in June 2002 on a drug charge. Bryant, whose son was on her lease until she had him taken off the lease one month later, claimed that she was contacted in the fall of 2002 by the JCHA that she had to attend an informal hearing before housing management to determine eviction. She was sure that she was immune but that was not the case as she ended up fighting the termination of her tenancy before Housing Court in February 2003 and lost.

Bryant now resides in Newark with two of her children, hoping that she will be able to return to live in Jersey City where her other two children still reside along with many of her relatives, and where she currently works as a Pathmark employee. She also pointed out the unfair application of the One Strike Policy in citing the example of some people whom she knew were able to avoid eviction when they were charged with more serious offenses than hers, and the hypocritical presence of the current Marion Gardens site manager.

“You have someone like Donna Chandler, who treated me and many other tenants unfairly, who was herself was a former drug addict and drug dealer who was dealing out of her apartment when she lived in the projects, yet had pulled some strings and came back to become a manager. And I know a great deal more who have done worse and I’m going to give names.”

Meanwhile, Rasheeda Jackson still lives in the Lafayette Gardens Housing Complex where she has spent most of her life, with her three children. But now rather than being the tenant of her own apartment, she had to move in with her mother, who lives across the hall. Her eviction in January 2003 was the result of her brother’s arrest on drug possession in February of 2002.

According to Jackson, a single mother of three currently employed as an officer at the Hudson County Juvenile Detention Center, her brother wasn’t a resident of the Marion Gardens projects but had given her address and apartment number in previous arrests as his place of residence. Jackson believes that they used his criminal record in evicting her along with her three children.

After her brother’s February 2002 arrest, Jackson didn’t have a hearing with JCHA officials until July 2002, when she was told that if she agreed to the eviction she would be in their records as a tenant leaving in good standing, or she could find her eviction in Housing Court. Jackson chose the latter and in December 2002, the judge in the case ruled in the Housing Authority’s favor. By January 2003, she had to move out of her apartment.

Like Yvette Bryant, Jackson not only had been a firsthand witness to the arbitrary enforcement of the One Strike Policy but also was a victim of the lack of education on the subject.

“I lived in my own apartment since 1996, about six years on the lease before I was evicted and there never was an actual meeting on the subject. They would spend a hot minute.”

Aneesah Abdullah hopes that there will be change as soon as possible as she sees that more of these tenants each week being subjected to quick removal from their residences. Herself a former resident of Jersey City housing projects for most of her forty-eight years and a parent, she has seen how the One Strike Policy has affected families and hopes that Jersey City Housing Authority will step up to the plate and make the necessary changes and educate tenants on those changes.

“Before you initiate that you’re going to evict a tenant, please be mindful that where are these people going to go, please be mindful that you should offer some help,” scolded Abdullah on the subject which also brought out the teacher on her.

“The tenants are not being educated. They need to understand the policy and if you have senior citizens who live in the complexes that don’t have a high school diploma or a grammar school diploma, or haven’t sat down and the policy hasn’t been broken down to them, how are they going to understand what they are reading or what they’re signing. So to me, it was a set-up, it was a conspiracy, and so this is the result.”

For more information on upcoming JCHA meetings and the One Strike Policy, please contact Aneesah Abdullah at (201) 780-5564 and the Jersey City Housing Authority at (201) 547-6600

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Comments:
: If baseball had the one strike, you’re out rule, the game would probably be finished a lot faster - a fan’s dream. But for the tenants of Jersey City’s housing projects, this is no game but a literal nightmare.

: A meeting on May 7th inside the Jersey City Housing Authority (JCHA) meeting room at the Marion Gardens housing projects was held to address the issue of the HUD One Strike Policy. Tenants from Marion Gardens and other housing projects across the city attended the meeting. There were local ministers from the Interministerial Alliance, officials from the Housing Authority and community activists also in attendance.

: The One Strike Policy was created in 1988 during the Reagan Administration to combat the rampant drug dealing and crack epidemic that especially plagued housing projects in the United States during that time. But the policy has been a lighting rod for controversy since its inception.
:  	
: The policy requires that any tenant of public and assisted housing must agree when signing their resident lease that any criminal activity engaged by tenant, any member of the tenant’s household or a guest are grounds for eviction of the entire household. 

: 	However, various factors are supposed to taken into consideration before evicting tenants such the seriousness of the offense and whether or not the offender committed the offense on the premises. Alternate sanctions would then be carried out such as removal of the offender from the household if he/she were not the head of household, a ban from the premises and/or rehabilitation. 

: 	According to Aneesah Abdullah, a teacher at Snyder High School who was at the meeting on behalf of tenants from the city’s various housing projects who were penalized unfairly, the policy has taken effect in severe measure the past two years with few of the sanctions as required by the policy even being invoked.

: 	The center of much controversy, as addressed during the meeting, was whether or not the policy has been implemented equally from resident to resident. Tenants who have been evicted charged that they were forced out for the flimsiest of reasons, while some their fellow tenants who were raided by police and caught with the drugs on the premises were allowed to stay. Other complaints included the Jersey City Housing Authority doing a poor job of educating tenants on the One Strike Policy itself and especially the due process rights to which are they are entitled under the policy, and that there is no assistance provided to help evicted tenants, particularly the elderly, find new housing.

: 	Abdullah, who has spent the past three months organizing the meetings on city housing sites where tenants aired their grievances about the policy, said there were positive signs during the Marion Gardens meeting from the new JCHA interim director Robert Graham who was in attendance.

: 	“What I heard from the interim director is that (Jersey City Housing Authority) was going to revise the policy, take a look at some of the issues, and they’re going to also take a look at some of the people who were evicted to see if they were due processed in a correct way and if not, some time down the road, maybe bring some of those people back,” said Abdullah.

: 	In fact, there are talks underway to create an advisory committee consisting of Abdullah; local activist Virginia Miller; Reverends Kevin Agee, Thomas Robinson, and George Maize of the Interministerial Alliance; Jersey City NAACP branch president Kabili Tayari, Ron Scott, and tenant representatives from the housing projects who will meet with the Housing Authority to assist in the revision of the policy.

: 	Robert Graham, who was named on April 14th to fill the interim director position left vacant by the recent demise of former director Robert Rigby, stated in a recent interview with the Urban Times News that it will be sixty to eighty days before a new One Strike policy is set. 

: 	Graham stated that after meeting with the soon-to-be-formed advisory board, he would have to go through the Board of Commissioners as well JCHA attorneys, housing police, site managers before putting the revisions to a vote. He will also confer with the directors of other urban Housing Authorities within the state to find out about their respective approaches to the One Strike Policy.

: 	The move toward revisions and possible reinstatement of residence will be good news to Yvette Bryant and Rasheeda Jackson, two of the many victims of what many housing and community experts across the country have called a regressive and racist policy that punishes the innocent more than the guilty.

: 	Bryant, a 39 year old single mother of four who lived in the Marion Gardens Housing Complex for eight years until her eviction in April of this year. What lead to the eviction was the arrest of her son, Daivon, who was eighteen when he was arrested on Pavonia Avenue in June 2002 on a drug charge. Bryant, whose son was on her lease until she had him taken off the lease one month later, claimed that she was contacted in the fall of 2002 by the JCHA that she had to attend an informal hearing before housing management to determine eviction. She was sure that she was immune but that was not the case as she ended up fighting the termination of her tenancy before Housing Court in February 2003 and lost. 

: 	Bryant now resides in Newark with two of her children, hoping that she will be able to return to live in Jersey City where her other two children still reside along with many of her relatives, and where she currently works as a Pathmark employee. She also pointed out the unfair application of the One Strike Policy in citing the example of some people whom she knew were able to avoid eviction when they were charged with more serious offenses than hers, and the hypocritical presence of the current Marion Gardens site manager.

: 	“You have someone like Donna Chandler, who treated me and many other tenants unfairly, who was herself was a former drug addict and drug dealer who was dealing out of her apartment when she lived in the projects, yet had pulled some strings and came back to become a manager. And I know a great deal more who have done worse and I’m going to give names.”

: 	Meanwhile, Rasheeda Jackson still lives in the Lafayette Gardens Housing Complex where she has spent most of her life, with her three children. But now rather than being the tenant of her own apartment, she had to move in with her mother, who lives across the hall. Her eviction in January 2003 was the result of her brother’s arrest on drug possession in February of 2002. 

: 	According to Jackson, a single mother of three currently employed as an officer at the Hudson County Juvenile Detention Center, her brother wasn’t a resident of the Marion Gardens projects but had given her address and apartment number in previous arrests as his place of residence. Jackson believes that they used his criminal record in evicting her along with her three children. 

: 	After her brother’s February 2002 arrest, Jackson didn’t have a hearing with JCHA officials until July 2002, when she was told that if she agreed to the eviction she would be in their records as a tenant leaving in good standing, or she could find her eviction in Housing Court. Jackson chose the latter and in December 2002, the judge in the case ruled in the Housing Authority’s favor. By January 2003, she had to move out of her apartment.

: 	Like Yvette Bryant, Jackson not only had been a firsthand witness to the arbitrary enforcement of the One Strike Policy but also was a victim of the lack of education on the subject.

: 	“I lived in my own apartment since 1996, about six years on the lease before I was evicted and there never was an actual meeting on the subject. They would spend a hot minute.”

: 	Aneesah Abdullah hopes that there will be change as soon as possible as she sees that more of these tenants each week being subjected to quick removal from their residences. Herself a former resident of Jersey City housing projects for most of her forty-eight years and a parent, she has seen how the One Strike Policy has affected families and hopes that Jersey City Housing Authority will step up to the plate and make the necessary changes and educate tenants on those changes.

: 	“Before you initiate that you’re going to evict a tenant, please be mindful that where are these people going to go, please be mindful that you should offer some help,” scolded Abdullah on the subject which also brought out the teacher on her.

: 	“The tenants are not being educated. They need to understand the policy and if you have senior citizens who live in the complexes that don’t have a high school diploma or a grammar school diploma, or haven’t sat down and the policy hasn’t been broken down to them, how are they going to understand what they are reading or what they’re signing. So to me, it was a set-up, it was a conspiracy, and so this is the result.”

:          For more information on upcoming JCHA meetings and the One Strike Policy, please contact Aneesah Abdullah at (201) 780-5564 and the Jersey City Housing Authority at (201) 547-6600

: 	


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