There is a new battlefront in the war on drugs — housing. U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp has promised a national public housing policy that will include house-to-house searches, identification cards and eviction of subsidized housing residents.

This is one more example of the new drug war strategy of punishment without reliance on the criminal law. Just as workers are being subjected to drug testing and thereby being punished, and boat owners are having boats seized through civil forfeiture, the housing attack results in punishment without the protections of the criminal justice system. This new strategy further highlights the drug war's destruction of constitutional protections and the trend toward creating a conflict between rich and poor, white and black in the war on drugs.

House-to-House Searches in Chicago

The most aggressive campaign has been in the public housing projects in Chicago. The Chicago Housing Authority has instituted "Operation Clean Sweep," which includes locking all the exits to a building and conducting unannounced, warrantless sweep searches of tenants and their guests. Under the guise of housing inspections police officers and security personnel have "inspected" dresser drawers, closets, bedding, personal items, kitchen cabinets, refrigerators, medicine cabinets and even Christmas presents of residents.

After the searches — that is what the "inspections" really are — the buildings are fenced in with security grates, and residents are required to present identification cards to security personnel.

Guests cannot stay past midnight without special passes and security guards are stationed at building entrances 24 hours a day.

The best way to describe the events is through the eyes of some of the people living there. The following are some of the allegations contained in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of tenants in the buildings:

•    Rose Summaries was out of the building, but her brother was visiting her apartment. When he tried to leave to go to a job interview, he discovered that the doors to the outside had been barricaded and were being guarded by police officers. He was told he could not leave until his sister's apartment was searched and if he tried he would be arrested. Hours later, after her apartment was searched by four police and two housing officials, he was finally told he could leave. But he had already missed his job interview.

•    Rose Summaries' daughter did not arrive home from school on time. When she was half an hour late, Ms. Summaries went to look for her. She discovered her daughter was standing outside in the December cold unable to return home because police officers would not let her in without a picture ID.

•    Rose Summaries' sister planned to visit for Christmas with her two children. She planned to stay with Ms. Summaries because she could not afford a hotel. Housing authority officials told her that this would not be allowed because she could not have guests in her apartment after midnight.

•    Jane Doe 1 was babysitting in her apartment for the three children of her sister at 11:55 p.m. Her sister was working until 2 a.m. A housing authority official knocked on the door and demanded that the children leave the building by midnight. Jane Doe 1 had to find someone else to take the children at midnight.

•    Jane Doe 2 lives in an apartment with her three children. A group of police and housing officers entered her apartment and searched under the cushions of the couch and inside the freezer. The officers picked the lock on her bedroom door and searched the room, including clothes in her dresser drawer. Later that day, Jane Doe 2 was returning to her apartment. Upon entering her building, police subjected her to a personal search, including her bags in which she was carrying Christmas presents.

•    John Doe does not live in CHA housing but on weekends he visits his elderly parents, staying overnight to assist them and provide security. Police officers have stopped him on the street, told him he cannot stay overnight, and threatened him with arrest.

Mass Evictions in Washington

On May 16 an elite force of 50 black-uniformed U.S. Marshals, members of the Special Operations Group, met at a military base in Washington, D.C., to finalize plans to evict people from 300 apartments. Specially trained to handle civil disturbances and anti-terrorist strikes, the Marshals carried assault rifles and were joined by 20 D.C. police officers.

By the end of the day tenants had been evicted from 50 properties. The first day of raids resulted in three drug seizures, $250 worth of heroin, $1,000 worth of crack and a small amount of cocaine. By the end of the week-long strike the force had made 209 evictions.

The tenants were chosen for eviction because of alleged drug dealing. Marshalls reviewed 1,800 pending evictions, comparing them to information from landlords and the D.C. police to find properties suspected of drug dealing. There was not a high degree of confidence in the likelihood of finding drugs. As the assistant director of operations told The Washington Post, "This is a crapshoot."

As the evictions progressed there became more doubts. At one apartment there was confusion about the apartment number. When the eviction was completed and the Marshals left, the drug dealers were in the hall and tenants said: "Everybody here thinks they got the wrong apartment." In many cases tenants proclaimed they were fighting with their landlords about repairs and that was the cause of the rent dispute. The same landlords were the source of allegations about drugs.

There were also criticisms about the way the victims were handled. At least five evicted families, with a total of 15 children, turned up at the District's Department of Human Services pleading for assistance. D.C. Council Member H.R. Crawford said, "Someone should have been there to help those children. I don't like seeing babies being put out crying." Another complaint was that the evictions were allowed to proceed in pouring rain. Guidelines for evictions usually require suspension when there is a 50 percent chance of rain.

A National Housing Drug War Strategy

The D.C. and Chicago plans are the models for a national housing strategy. Secretary Kemp testified on May 15, before a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee that he wants to use recently appropriated housing operating subsidies "to implement local programs such as...'Clean Sweep' in Chicago." This could require huge sums across the nation; Chicago authorities report that securing one building cost up to $200,000.

At an earlier hearing Kemp described the Clean Sweep program with admiration:

"In Chicago I met an innovative public housing authority director, Vince Lane, who has developed Operation Clean Sweep. Vince has worked with the police to search every unit from the top to the bottom of the building and those who didn't belong were evicted. A security system was implemented in projects so that no outsiders could get in and residents were identified by picture IDs."

Chicago is not alone in its overly aggressive use of police power in trying to control drugs in public housing. In New York City a 2,200 person Housing Police Force has made 30 sweeps since 1986. Twenty-one officers work directly with the police department's Organized Crime Control Bureau and 12 officers are assigned to the Tactical Narcotics Team. New Orleans has created "drug-free zones," set up an urban squad specially trained to fight drugs, appointed a housing authority drug czar, issued tenant ID cards, and has a 24-hour hotline for anonymous tips. Orlando, Fla., has established three high-profile police substations in three housing projects, painted the police logo on the outside wall, and parked police cruisers at the buildings. In New Haven, Conn., apartments are used for sting operations and police arrest visitors for trespassing. Charleston, S.C., has erected an eight-foot high brick and iron fence around the housing complex.

Mr. Kemp has also moved to ease eviction proceedings. After a police officer was killed in a housing project in Alexandria, Va., it became a test case for eased eviction procedures. Drug-related evictions are consistent with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, 21 U.S.C. 581 (a) (7), which permit evictions even if a mere guest of a public housing tenant is arrested for a drug-related crime.

The first test case of new, streamlined eviction procedures occurred on April 17, 1989, in Alexandria. With television crews recording the event for posterity, two families were evicted. The next day a photograph of Evalena Durham adorned the front page of The Arlington (Va.) Journal. She was surrounded by piles of her personal effects and sat clutching a folded American flag given to her 12 years earlier at the funeral of her husband, an Army veteran.

What to Do About Drugs in Public Housing

There is a significant drug and crime problem in public housing. A survey conducted by HUD this February reported 52 percent of projects in the eastern half of the country and 37 percent in the western half had drug problems.

Rather than repressive, police-state measures, we must consider more rational and effective approaches. For example, we should begin to stitch back together the safety net that had been shredded during the Reagan era. Public housing reached its current debilitated condition after years of neglect.

We should also emphasize positive steps that can be taken in public housing. In Omaha, Neb., the housing authority is attempting to promote -a better life and dignity for tenants. The authority emphasizes education as the key to escaping poverty. It has created an award of a $100 savings bond for a year's perfect attendance in school. A self-help foundation of the housing authority has created a scholarship to three of Omaha's colleges. Five study centers have been established in the projects so students can get extra individual instruction.

We must find ways to get people out of public housing and integrated into society so that all of the poor are not grouped together in crime-infested, substandard shelters. Perhaps we should have a goal of ending public housing and instead moving toward integrated, subsidized housing.

House-to-house searches are not new. They have already failed in U.S. history. King George II approved Writs of Assistance in the 1750s authorizing warrantless searches for contraband. The writs were challenged in Massachusetts in 1761. Attorney James Otis declared that the writs were repugnant to the Magna Carta and fundamental principles of law which recognized the sanctity of the home. He argued they were "the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty, and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book" since they placed "the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer." While the king's courts upheld the legality of the Writs of Assistance a youthful spectator in the courtroom, John Adams, wrote about Otis' eloquent argument: "Then and there the child Independence was born."

To prevent these kinds of abuses from ever happening again, the Founders created prohibitions against mass searches in the Constitution. Nothing in the Constitution has ever stated that its full protection does not apply to the poor whom circumstances force to live in public housing.

Kevin B. Zeese, "Housing: The New Battleground in the War on Drugs," The Drug Policy Letter, July/August 1989, p. 4.