Agency hopes to

crack down on those abusing the system  

By Joe Cantlupe

Staff Writer

Some drug dealers are living in cheap, subsidized housing thanks to the taxpayers.

The problem has been an open secret for years, but it really hit home for San Diego Housing Commission officials a few months ago.   Police raided an apartment on Imperial Avenue and found guns, drugs – and something a bit unusual – paper scattered around the unit, all bearing the letterhead of the San Diego Housing Commission.

The suspected drug dealers and their friends – not all of whom were registered as tenants – apparently were living for less than $200 a month in the apartment.  A Section 8 federal rent subsidy picked up the rest of the tab – another $200.   The Imperial Avenue case went down just as housing officials, in discussions with police, began drawing up their most ambitious plans ever to crack down on the troublesome tenants scattered among 16,200 people benefitting from rent subsidies.

“Drug problems are escalating and escalating at housing units,” said Cathy Lexin, assistant executive director of the Housing Commission.   “And I suspect that is happening at the same degree or more so at the subsidized units because these people are the most economically underprivileged.  They are exposed to the greatest problems.”

In an unprecedented step, the Housing Commission has asked the police to consider allowing officers to serve as agents of the authority while they are doing patrols or making arrests at subsidized units.  If the officers are “deputized” under the Housing Commission plan, they would be asked to question tenants and landlords about any activities that could be lease violations.   The Housing Commission officials said they would use the information supplied by police to take steps to revoke Section 8 certificates for drug dealing and violent tenants.

Police officials, reacting cautiously, have not yet responded to the Housing Commission’s proposal.   “We are aware that some people in subsidized housing may be violating their rental agreements, and we’ve been trying to make the Housing Commission aware of our concerns,” said Capt. Jerry Sanders of the police department’s southeast division.  “I don’t think we want to get involved in evictions and regulating housing.  Certainly, it’s something we want to talk to them about; we’re wary.”

Housing officials also are reviewing the possibility of removing some landlords from the Section 8 subsidy program whose properties may continually expose tenants to drug-dealing and violence, according to assistant executive housing director Cathy Lexin.   In preliminary reviews, the commissions staff had identified about 26 properties – mostly in Southeast San Diego – where “shootings and drug dealing has resulted in danger to residents,” Lexin said.   The properties are along stretches of Martin, Webster, Imperial, Logan and Brooklyn Avenues, 32^nd, Bollenbacker Boulevard, and Lenox Drive.

“We’re going to upset some landlords and tenants, but I hope we upset those who deserve to be upset – people who are not meeting their obligations,” Lexin said.   “These are areas where we have concerns, where people hanging around and where there are obvious drug transactions – packages going back and forth.”  During the past two months, housing inspectors have been threatened at several units.  “We shouldn’t be sending tenants to live in this kind of environment,” Lexin said.  Until now, she said, “we have been rather lenient.”

Many law-abiding tenants living in subsidized as well as private housing in the city’s roughest sections are forced to put up with something they can never get used to: the nightly ritual of machine-gun toting SWAT officers parading through the concrete alleys of their apartment complex, responding to the latest shoot out.   The relentless assault of drugs, graffiti and violence overwhelm the good tenants and drive them out, police, property owners and housing officials said.   As a result, many stunned private property owners are left holding a multi-million dollar building that gradually slides into foreclosure.

For the city Housing Commission, which spends $33 million in Section 8 rent subsidies for 6,047 low-income families, the drug-dealing and violence have proven equally disturbing.  Housing officials lament that the taxpayers are footing the bill to house a few troublesome tenants who may be dealing drugs, while another 6,500 eligible families are being forced to wait up to three years for Section 8 subsidies.

About 45 percent of the eligible households are black, and 30 percent are Hispanic.  Nearly half of the renters who receive Section 8 assistance reside in East San Diego and Southeast San Diego.   “The vast majority of the people are using the housing like it was meant to be,” sand Capt. Jerry Sanders of the police.  “Some aren’t – but there are a lot of people that would love to have their units.  If some people are violating the guidelines, maybe others should have the units.”

To be eligible for Section 8 certificates, individuals or families must show they earn 50 percent or less of the median income.  For a family of four, the maximum income would be $17,250 – half of the $34,000 median income.   The Housing Commission certifies tenant eligibility and administers subsidies that assist renters in paying the difference between 30 percent of their median incomes and the rent amount.  Owners, who receive the federal payments, are responsible for tenant selection, rent collection and maintenance.  Under federal Department of Housing and Urban Development guidelines, owners must not charge rents in excess of fair market rent ceilings.

The decision to crack down on drug dealing in subsidized units signals a new direction for the housing agency.   “For a long time we were focusing just on administering housing programs.  We would do inspections to determine the physical safety of the structure,” Lexin said.  “now the focus is shifting to look at the hazards of the surrounding environment.”

Since the inception of the Section 8 program 10 years ago, the Housing Commission has been reluctant to revoke Section 8 certificates from needy residents.  About 202 renters lost their eligibility in the past year, officials said, for a wide range of lease violations, ranging from failure to pay rent to vandalism.

But as the ravages of drugs and gangs scar neighborhoods, the commission decided it must take drastic steps to protect law-abiding tenants and open the door to worthy families who are waiting for Section 8 housing, Lexin said.  The commission plans to track down tenants "who now trash one apartment and move to another but still continue to get Section 8 certificates," she said.  "We want to tighten up on controls where we see clear patterns of abuse."

Some landlords receiving subsidies refuse to evict troublesome tenants because they fear losing funding from the Housing Commission.   Those decisions have forced some out of business.   According to Phil Bonham, founder of a property owner’s group known as Management Alert, “drugs and gang activity” have driven at least 2,000 units in Southeast San Diego into foreclosure.   “Because of the drugs, the good tenants leave,” Bonham said.  “Pretty soon the problems are on the owner’s back.”   Bonham noted that one year-old apartment complex in Southeast San Diego recently was forced into foreclosure “because the gangs came in and the tents quit paying rent.  And the property was run down . . and he lost the property.”

Housing officials, police and groups representing property owners, such as Management Alert, are working with landlords to improve the screening of tenants.

Bob Bell, president of the San Diego Apartment Owners Association, said last week that his organization formed a drug abatement task force designed to educate property owners and managers about dealing with drug trafficking in their units.  "It's a problem for the entire community," Bell said.  "These problems can be resolved on a property by property basis by being aware and watching the warning signs and by confronting these tenants early on."  “It’s going to get worse unless everybody . . . does something to prevent it.”

Reprinted from

The San Diego Union