Gresley, of the Oakland Housing Authority, says families headed by grandparents constitute a "very significant" percentage of the total families in his projects. He suggests that the same is probably true around the country in communities where drugs -- in particular crack -- have destroyed families. Certainly, grandparent-run families are common enough that in some cities, entire housing programs have been created to cope with the trend. The GrandFamilies home in Boston, for example, is a much-lauded program that gives homes to 26 grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. The program, created by the mayor's office in conjunction with Boston Aging Concerns -- Young and Old United, has proved so popular that its organizers are opening a second, 16-unit home, and hope to expand across the country.

These programs attempt to address the overwhelming challenges faced by elderly people raising kids who are 40 to 50 years younger than they are, challenges that are compounded in communities plagued by poverty and drug use. Founders of the dedicated programs suggest that within the confines of the community, housing projects in particular, grandparents don't need more responsibility or higher stakes for discipline, they need backup.

"I know some grandparents have a hard time laying down the rules with the kids sometimes," says Elmer Eubanks, executive director of Boston Aging Concerns. "How much can they control a 13-year-old if they start being disrespectful? We need to look for resources to help them learn to deal with the kids; they want to spoil them as grandparents, not be the disciplinarian again."

Adds Omura of the Eviction Defense Center, "You have an elderly grandmother just trying to do right by a grandkid, but is she really supposed to be following him to school and back, going to the basketball courts with him?" This is a task, she points out, that younger adults, rich or poor, have a hard time pulling off with their children, and when they fail, unless they live in public housing, they don't lose the roof over their heads.

An even thornier problem for grandparents like Lark who take in the grandchildren of addicted parents is the behavior of their own adult children, many of whom want to visit or just hang around for a meal and a temporary place to sleep. These visitors bring the risk of eviction if they show up on drugs, or buy drugs on the property, or get in a fight there. In order to keep her apartment, Lark had to prohibit her drug-addicted daughter from visiting her own children: When her daughter showed up at her door, Lark would only let her speak to the kids through a locked iron grille. To live by the letter of the One Strike law, Lark shouldn't even have opened the door to her daughter.

Essentially, she can't win. If she doesn't come down like a cop, she could lose her apartment. But by taking a hard line, she could drive her daughter further away, and earn an 8-year-old's confused resentment.

There are no exact statistics that indicate how many public housing residents have family members or close friends who have struggled with drugs or been in trouble with the law, but common sense dictates that the number is high. According to HUD's statistics, in the first six months of 1999 alone, 559 public housing authorities (out of more than 3,200) reported a total of 79,212 crimes, which covered offenses from homicide to burglary to rape.

This would mean that the odds are excellent that a majority of all housing project residents -- at one point or another, with or without their knowledge -- have played host to someone who did something illegal on or near the property. Lark says she sees drug dealers in her yard every day. To keep them from doing something that could lead to her eviction feels about as easy as winning the lottery.

Public housing authorities argue that the One Strike law is not as Draconian as it sounds. They say that the Supreme Court ruling does little more than allow housing authorities to keep their properties safe. Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, believes that the powers that be can be relied upon to take mitigating circumstances into consideration.

"It's a false notion that authorities are proceeding with eviction at the drop of the hat," she says. "They see whether it's appropriate or not." She contends that housing authorities will not order an eviction before considering whether a crime is a first-time offense or a minor infraction, and whether the family in questions is headed by a diligent grandma or a crack-addicted mother.

Yet the cases ultimately considered by the Supreme Court demonstrate that housing authorities aren't always forgiving of minor infractions. Lee and Hill, for example, faced eviction the first time their grandsons were caught smoking pot -- an infraction, incidentally, that often merits only a fine. And in a supporting brief to the Supreme Court case, the Brennan Center for Justice cited eight examples of frivolous One Strike evictions, including a grandmother who was evicted because her mentally retarded granddaughter threw her baby out the window and a woman who was evicted because her boyfriend broke into her home and beat her up.

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