Unity: "public Housing Tenants Deserve Due Process"
ANN ARBOR - Recent efforts of public housing tenants and their supporters were rewarded when the U.S. Attorney's office agreed in mid-May to allow four families to return to their public housing units for 30 days while they appeal their evictions.
The four adults and seven children were forced into homelessness on April 27 when the federal government seized their homes, located on South Maple Rd.
The seizures were made possible by the Controlled Substance Act which allows the federal government to seize property which is alleged to have been used in, or to be the proceeds of, drug trafficking if a judge signs an order citing "probable cause." At the time of the seizures, no charges were filed against any of the tenants, and they had received no prior notice of their evictions.
The seizures were carried out by over 30 federal agents and Ann Arbor cops armed with machine guns and wearing ski masks over their faces. They stormed the four units at the South Maple site, entered without knocking, and ordered the tenants inside to gather their belongings and vacate their homes within five minutes. Ann Arbor police videotaped the evictions, filming some tenants while they got dressed. The marshals then proceeded to board up the units.
But the return of the families to their homes is only a partial victory, says a city-wide group of public housing tenants (UNTTY), because the Ann Arbor Housing Commission failed to stand up to U.S. government pressure in the seizure episode.
The Housing Commission is a 17-member organization responsible for the management of the city's public housing. A five-member, Mayor-appointed, City Council-approved Board of Commissioners sets policy which is carried out by the Housing Commission.
About 100 UNTTY members and supporters confronted the commissioners and their executive director, Bonnie Newlun, at the May 16 Board of Commissioner's monthly meeting. UNITY demanded that the commission place the evicted families - living in a local hotel at the time - in public housing units and take a stand against the federal seizures which, UNITY said, denied tenants due process.
According to Housing Commissioner Paquetta Palmer, even if there were vacant units available, immediately re-housing the four families would have been difficult since there are 246 families on the public housing waiting list.
Long-standing tenant grievances and frustrations with the Housing Commission exploded at the May meeting in the wake of the seizures. "The government says it's fighting a war on drugs, but it's really fighting a war on the poor," said UNTTY's South Maple representative Elmira Collins. "There were no arrests made - no charges were made at the time. Think about the children. These people should be put back on site until the matter is resolved."
Other speakers stressed that they were not supporting drug dealers, but that they were opposed to evictions that denied tenants due process.
"You're aware of what we're about, and that's putting our people back together," a UNTTY member told the Board. "We're for drug rehabilitation programs, programs for employment. Everything
(see DUE PROCESS, page11)