Angry bunch protests CHA’s proposal to drug test residents

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Updated: July 8, 2011 3:33PM

It was an angry bunch that lined up to give CHA officials a piece of their mind about the proposal to drug test nearly 16,000 families, including seniors.

Among the gray-haired residents were self-styled community activists and former CHA resident leaders. Even Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd) had something to say.

Only one speaker defended the proposal. The rest stood before CHA’s CEO, Lewis Jordan, and lashed out at the agency’s plans.

“We all want a safe, healthy and drug-free environment, but the reality is we don’t live in a drug-free world, a drug-free Chicago, a drug-free Illinois,’’ said Darlene Hale, a CHA resident.

“How in the world can you demand that poor people be subjected to rules and regulations that is going to put them on the street and create more homeless people?” she asked.

Renaud Tatum, an 11-year resident at Lake Parc Place, said he was “highly offended” when he read about the unilateral drug testing.

“I challenge Mr. Jordan to hire a third-party consulting firm to do scientific research to substantiate a correlation between low-income people having a higher use of drugs then people with higher incomes,” he said.

But the most heart-rending comment was not a complaint or a defense.

It was a testimony that had a familiar ring.

Audrey Motes, who lives in Lake Parc Place, told CHA officials she is being evicted because her son was arrested on the West Side on a drug-related offense.

Under CHA policy, a leaseholder can be evicted on a preponderance of the evidence if a family member is charged with criminal activity.

Motes’ son is 28 years old, and she said he was no longer living with her when the arrest occurred.

She broke down in tears as she pleaded her case to Jordan.

“I’m not the one who did anything wrong,” she said.

If the CHA gets its way, it will be a lot harder for tenants like Motes to defend themselves.

The CHA is proposing removing language that says the “resident may raise a defense that the resident did not know, nor should have known, of said criminal activity.”

“Removing the innocent tenant defense from the lease agreement will, in my opinion, do nothing to reduce crime at public housing developments,” said Lawrence Wood, an attorney with the Legal Assistance Foundation for Metropolitan Chicago. “All it will do is ensure that innocent people are evicted for crimes that they did not foresee and that they could do nothing to prevent.”

Motes said she doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t deal drugs and doesn’t condone drugs.

“He is a 28-year-old man, and I raised him to do better,” she said. “I was at work just like I am now and he was out here getting into trouble. Why should that affect me? I don’t feel that is right.”

If Motes’ son had been caught selling drugs out of her apartment, or somewhere in the building or even down the block, I could understand the CHA’s actions.

But apparently he was clear across town when officers picked him up, and he gave police his mother’s address.

More importantly, these new policies set up roadblocks similar to what families in public housing faced decades ago, when many fathers were forced to leave their homes so that their families would have a roof over their heads.

These new proposals will have a similar effect. For instance, if a father or mother tests positive for illegal drugs, the entire family will be made to suffer. How does that help?

Motes is being made to pay for her adult son’s illegal behavior,

“If I agree to be on probation for six months and bar him from visiting the building, then I can keep my apartment,” she said.

“But I am going to fight it to the end,” Motes told me. “They are destroying these people’s families. You’ve got to put your child out and bar them from the building. They are breaking up people’s families. It’s just ridiculous.”

“These policies are wrong and should not be applied to our people.” Ald. Dowell told Jordan.

I’m sure Jordan, as a black man, is sensitive to the circumstances that helped cripple black families in the past. But as Dowell pointed out, he is in a tough spot.