No-fault Eviction of Public Housing Tenants for Illegal Drug Use: A Legal Analysis of Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Rucker

Publication Date: April 2002

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

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Research Area: Social conditions

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Abstract:

In Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Rucker, the Supreme Court unanimously approved provisions of the 1988 Drug Abuse Act enacted by Congress in response to "rampant drug-related or violent crime" in public housing projects. Specifically, the law allows for no-fault evictions of public housing tenants by mandating the use of lease provisions, which state that "any drug-related criminal activity on or off such premises, engaged in by a public housing tenant, any member of the tenant's household, or any guest or other person under the tenant's control, shall be cause for termination of tenancy."

While public housing authorities have discretion under HUD regulations to evict or not based on the totality of circumstances in any individual case, agency rules also make clear that evictions are permitted even when the "tenant did not know, could not foresee, or could not control behavior by other occupants of the unit." The Supreme Court relied on the plain language of the provision to uphold the statute and perceived no unreasonableness in this interpretation nor any constitutional problems raised as a consequence. "[T]here is an obvious reason why Congress would have permitted local public housing authorities to conduct no-fault evictions," wrote the Chief Justice of the HUD regulations, since "[r]egardless of knowledge, a tenant who `cannot control drug crime, or other criminal activities by a household member which threaten health or safety of other residents, is a threat to other residents and the project.'"