Rather than spending $309 million on law enforcement, security and demand-reduction services for public-housing residents, the Bush administration would focus on evicting public-housing residents with drug records as a means of preventing drug activity. The administration also wants to see faith-based programs become more involved in serving public-housing residents.

The plan has prompted protests from both public-housing officials and drug treatment and prevention programs, which receive about one-third of total funding under the federal program. Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly reported March 19 that HUD officials said that under Bush's plan, $150 million of the funds from the drug-elimination program would be folded into a general operating fund that public-housing officials could draw upon to pay for demand-reduction services or other needs, such as repairing roofs or paying utility bills.

Federal officials maintain that the HUD drug-elimination program suffers from lack of accountability and has had a limited impact on drug activity in public housing. That has drawn protests from groups like the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) and the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association (PHADA), as well as Democrats led by Rep. John LaFalce (D-N.Y), the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.

PHADA, for instance, points to HUD's own data in asserting that the drug-elimination program has helped cut crime in large public-housing projects, particularly in relation to the crime rates in surrounding communities. "The program has had bipartisan support since its inception and HUD has repeatedly cited the effectiveness of the program," PHADA said, adding that evictions are no substitute for comprehensive anti-drug efforts.

"The Bush administration promotes evictions as a panacea for reducing crime and drug problems in public housing," notes a fact sheet from the group. "While housing authorities strongly support eviction as a tool, they are not the lone solution. Moreover, evictions take a long time, and some courts will not enforce them."

Deanna Briese, drug-elimination grant coordinator for the King County Housing Authority (KCHA) tells Join Together that the drug-elimination grants have made a perceptible difference in the lives of residents in her community, with services like a WIC clinic, Head-Start center and career development programs supplanting open-air drug markets. The KCHA has won best-practice awards from both HUD and NAHRO for its anti-drug programs.

"With increasing numbers of working parents -- the result of welfare to work programs -- we see large numbers of kids alone and unsupervised during critical after school, evening and weekend hours," says Briese. "Our drug-elimination grants provide core funding for Boys and Girls Clubs and homework assistance programs to protect kids and assist parents ... All this will be eliminated if there is no core group of services on which to build."