No-trespassing policy drums up controversy for housing authority

David Pomerantz

A newly proposed no-trespassing policy for the city’s public housing developments is drawing condemnation from critics who say that the policy will needlessly criminalize youths and violate tenants’ rights.

The controversy pits the Boston Housing Authority, which proposed the new policy for all of its properties, against juvenile and tenant rights advocates, and sets up a debate about public safety and civil rights that will culminate in an April 30 public hearing at City Hall.

At first glance, the controversial policy might not seem all that controversial.

The BHA has had a no-trespassing policy in place since 1987. The policy was enacted then to address drug dealing and other crimes, and it dictated that any non-tenant could be issued a “No-Trespassing Notice.”

An individual who receives a notice and later returns to BHA property could be arrested and prosecuted in the criminal system.

The major departure from the BHA’s previous policy is a new section that allows for individuals to file for an internal review of the notice with the BHA Department of Public Safety.

The BHA’s chief of police, Stephen Melia, would then have final say over whether or not to withdraw the notice.

In the old trespassing policy, alleged trespassers had no way of filing a grievance, but critics claim that this new process is not any better.

In fact, it’s worse, since it places the BHA in the role of “judge, jury and executioner,” according to Lisa Thurau-Gray of the Juvenile Justice Center at Suffolk University.

“The policy says that BHA police will be the final determiner,” said Thurau-Gray, who is also a member of the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. “I’m shocked that a police authority would arrogate to itself that level of power.

“I would hope that the BHA would not have itself be the final arbiter of questions of law. That’s not the role of police. It’s the role of the courts.”

The BHA defended the new policy.

“This policy is no more harsh than what we had before.” BHA spokeswoman Lydia Agro said. “It gives people more due process than existed with the policy before, based on concerns that we heard from our residents.”

The impetus for the policy change was that tenants had complained to local politicians about cases in which the children of tenants had been issued no-trespassing notices.

These notices were given in error, since tenants clearly cannot trespass on their own property. The BHA claims that such incidents were rare.

“That happened on two occasions,” Agro said. “It was an error, and it happened over a year ago. It was brought to our attention and it was immediately corrected.”

But Thurau-Gray and tenant advocates say that children of tenants commonly receive no-trespassing notices, causing a slew of problems and often forcing families to remove their children’s names from the lease to avoid eviction.

“Did it happen more than two times? Oh, I am sure it did,” said Mae Bradley, executive director of the Committee for Boston Public Housing.

“When a parent is told a child has a no-trespassing notice, the parent must either remove the child from the lease — which is illegal — or the whole family has to move,” said Cheryl Lawrence, a tenant organizer at City Life/Vida Urbana who says she knows of several instances in which this has happened.

Aside from concerns about the new appeal process and the wrongful issuance of notices to tenants, the new policy has also stirred criticism about the whole notion of issuing trespass notices in general.

More than one critic drew a comparison between no-trespassing laws and older loitering laws, which have come under heavy criticism for being tools of racial profiling and violating First Amendment rights.

“In practice, males of color are the majority of people who get [the notices],” Lawrence said.

Lawrence said that at Harbor Point, a non-BHA controlled housing development, trespassing notices have been applied unevenly, and worries that the BHA would have similar problems.

“White college kids playing Frisbee on the grass wouldn’t get one,” Lawrence said. “A black kid playing football would.”

The fact that the notice can be delivered orally, without anything in writing, also irks tenant advocates who say that people who do not speak English may not even know if they are given an oral “no-trespass order.”

“What about the language issue?” Bradley said. “What does that mean in terms of language translation, because the BHA is one of the most diverse populations in Boston … What about Somali and Haitian Creole? How seriously do people take things that are oral anyway?”

Most of all, critics say that no-trespassing policies do not accomplish the goal of reducing crime.

“I don’t know how successful the no-trespassing policy has been [at reducing crime],” Bradley said. “I can imagine that they used it in a real positive way when they had a very large police force for the Housing Authority and people knew who the criminals were.

“They didn’t have to guess because there were so many patrol officers, they actually knew who the drug people were and violent people were. Now that they have, like, two officers per shift running around the city. How could they know who is a criminal, and how could it be a fair process?”

The controversy has caused District 7 City Councilor Chuck Turner to call for an April 30 public hearing on the policy.

“I share the concern that it would be helpful to clarify the language in the policy,” said Turner, whose district includes Roxbury, Lower Roxbury, and parts of the Fenway, South End and Dorchester. “If I were in position to enforce the policy as a public safety official, I’m not sure this policy gives me all the guidance I need to understand my limitations.”

The BHA has agreed not to move forward with the policy until at least after the hearing has taken place.

In the meantime, the BHA claims that tenants actually want fewer chances for trespassers to appeal, not more.

“We have heard some of the criticism [of the policy], but it has been from very, very few people,” said Agro. “We’re mostly getting comments from residents saying they want to keep the current policy and not offer a review or offer less people a more limited review.”

Tenant advocates like Lawrence and Bradley say that they’re waiting to see what tenants want before taking any action.

“The advocates’ issues aren’t always the same as the tenants’ issues, so we change our stance depending on their concerns,” Bradley said.

“The thing is, if a no-trespassing policy can be used to help residents, then residents should help design that policy … I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a policy. But if there is one, residents should help design it, because they’re the ones that live there.”