News Articles, 1995-1997
  News Articles, Main Page

Public Housing Proposal Would Bar Criminals

D.C. Screening Plan Favors Working Poor

D.C. public housing receiver David I. Gilmore has proposed a strict new policy for screening tenants that would enable the housing authority to bar people convicted of crimes or engaged in "violent criminal behavior."

The new screening policy also would set aside 50 percent of all vacancies -- which now number about 500 a year -- for low-income working families, a radical revision of the current system, which gives top priority to the homeless.

"We believe any community is more stable when there are working families living amongst those who don't," Gilmore said.

Only about 13 percent of 9,280 families now in D.C. public housing have any earned income, and the only screening done by the authority has been to determine whether applicants are below the federal government's income-eligibility guidelines.

"There was no screening beyond income eligibility," Gilmore said yesterday. "And that's a disastrous policy for any housing authority. It says, `Hey guys, line up at the door, this is housing of last resort, we don't care what you do with it.' "

Gilmore said he had "no philosophical problem whatsoever" with barring those convicted of crimes or engaged in violent activity. But he noted that all applicants denied admission automatically can have their cases reviewed by six-member committees composed of three residents, two authority officials and one low-income advocate who is independent of the agency.

But Gilmore's screening policy, which will be the subject of four public hearings starting with tonight's at the authority's North Capitol Street headquarters, already has drawn fire.

Jacqueline Massey, an outspoken tenant leader at the Valley Green apartments, a nearly deserted development being rebuilt by the authority and a private development team, said the agency must fulfill its responsibilities if it plans to crack down on tenants.

"The responsibility goes back to the agency," Massey said. "They set the tone of how people were conducting themselves. There was no enforcement [of lease provisions prior to Gilmore's receivership] -- and no services being provided."

Massey strongly disagreed with Gilmore's attempt to bar applicants convicted of misdemeanors or felonies.

"If you're going to re-try people for something they did in the past, that's not good business," Massey said. "All should be forgiven, and they should go on the waiting list."

Patricia Mullahy Fugere, a lawyer whose lawsuit on behalf of prospective public housing tenants led to Gilmore's appointment, said Gilmore's plan -- having 50 percent of public housing comprise working families -- virtually would exclude the homeless and others who benefit under the authority's current preference system.

"His intent to build solid community is going to have an adverse impact and end up excluding a large segment of the community that needs housing," said Fugere, who also is executive director of the Washington Legal Committee for the Homeless.

Fugere also said it was wrong for the authority to even consider barring people convicted of crimes, including misdemeanors.

"Your kid's hungry and you shoplift a loaf of bread -- and you don't get to live in public housing?" she said. "I have great faith in David Gilmore. I have great faith in a lot of the [officials] over there now. But I don't know who's going to walk in the door once he leaves."

Gilmore, appointed receiver by D.C. Superior Court Judge Steffen W. Graae in the spring of 1995, has said that he believes it will take two more years for the agency to come out of receivership, by virtue of its scores on an array of federal housing indicators.

After spending much of his first two years in the District renovating vacant properties and bringing thousands of occupied units into compliance with housing codes, Gilmore called the proposed screening policy "an issue of great sensitivity."

"When you change the definition of who you admit, you get down to the most fundamental change that affects the agency," he said. "And you just don't do that without a significant amount of community review. It's important that the citizens of the District of Columbia buy into what we're doing -- so they have ownership after the receivership is over."

Kim Kendrick, the authority's general counsel, said she spent the past year soliciting comments from residents and low-income advocates before publishing the proposed screening policy in the D.C. Register earlier this month and scheduling four public hearings. Kendrick said she hopes to publish a final policy for immediate implementation, factoring in public comment from the hearings, sometime in January.

Kendrick said the authority's proposed preference system, setting aside 50 percent of all newly rented units for low-income working families, was made possible by regulations issued last year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That new policy defines working families as those with earned income or those headed by someone in job training, in school full time or enrolled in a general equivalency diploma program.

Before the change, she said, HUD required housing authorities to follow admission preferences first established in 1988 that created priorities for those living in substandard housing, those involuntarily displaced or those paying 50 percent of their income or more for housing. Under those guidelines, the District received permission to grant additional preferences for the homeless.

But HUD issued new regulations in 1996 stating that housing authorities were free to write their own preference categories, and Gilmore's proposed admissions policy would set aside 50 percent of units for working families, 45 percent for nonworking families and 5 percent for the homeless.