Five Tips to Prevent Drugs from Infiltrating Your Site

Drug dealing at assisted sites isn't just a problem for law enforcement. It's also a severe threat to sites' profitability and livability. Drug dealers and their customers often vandalize site security features to ensure ready access to dealers' units or to nonpublic areas where they can do drugs in privacy. And drug users trying to support their habits may commit crimes at your site.

We'll give you five tips to help you eradicate drug dealers or prevent drug dealing from taking root at your site. We'll also cover HUD guidance concerning screening and eviction for drug abuse and other criminal activity, and provide a handy Screening Standards Requirements chart you can use as a reference.

Tip #1: Maintain Site Security Features

Proper maintenance of security features is a fundamental step in making your site unattractive to drug dealers, says Philip B. Wayne, a crime and security consultant. Drug dealers often dismantle security features, usually to gain access to nonpublic areas where their clients can get high as soon as possible after making a purchase. And drug users, whether residents or visitors, need cash to feed their drug habits and may take advantage of ineffective security features to break into units or rob residents.

To prevent these problems, have your maintenance staff make regular rounds to inspect site security features. Have them repair or replace missing or vandalized lights, locks, gates, or other security features immediately.

Another aspect of the site that can impact security is the landscaping, says Wayne. He recommends that you follow the "20-3-7" rule" when landscaping. Keep any shrubs that are within 20 feet of the site building from growing more than three feet high, and lop mature trees' branches off if they're within seven feet of the ground. These steps deprive drug dealers and users of concealment that makes it easier to sell or use drugs, lie in wait to rob residents, or break into units.

Tip #2: Communicate with Responsible Residents

Law-abiding residents are an invaluable source of information on drug crimes at sites, says management consultant Anker Heegaard. Residents sometimes see drug dealing or drug use first hand. Or they may just be disturbed by an endless stream of visitors to nearby units. Either way, responsible residents are your allies, Heegaard says. It can really pay off to develop good relations with more responsible residents, and encourage them to communicate openly with you about problem situations at the site. And be sure to express privately your sincere thanks to the residents who tip you off to drug dealing or drug use at the site.

Tip #3: Monitor Site Visitors

Drug dealers often have a constant stream of customers knocking on their doors. It's not uncommon for casual drug users as well to develop large circles of "friends" eager to share in the product. These casual drug users may be hard to distinguish from households that have many visitors for innocent reasons, such as those with large extended families in the area. But drug dealers' visitors are more likely to arrive at all hours and stay, if at all, for only short periods of time.

To spot drug traffic at your site, monitor site visitors, recommends Heegaard. There are several ways to do this. First, be sure to instruct site staff to tell the site manager if they become aware of a high volume of visitors to a particular unit.

The most common means of tracking visitors is to keep logs or sign-in sheets, if your buildings have doormen or security guards to ensure that visitors sign in. In his years in property management, Heegaard found that residents didn't mind being issued laminated photo identification cards. Require anyone without a resident photo identification card to sign in and out and to write the date and time of the visit and who and what unit he or she is visiting.

Keep sign-in sheets or log pages on file after they're completed. Reviewing the log will tell you which units have an abnormally high volume of visitors. You can cite this information when reporting suspected drug dealing or drug abuse to law enforcement.

Tip #4: Conduct Screening for Drug Involvement

HUD sets out specific grounds for denying admission to applicants based on certain drug-related and other criminal activity. It requires you to add certain screening criteria to your resident selection plan and lets you add other optional criteria to screen out applicants with drug-related and criminal backgrounds. And it requires you to determine whether applicants meet these criteria, by performing appropriate criminal background checks.

To comply, you'll need to ask all adult applicants questions to determine whether they have drug-related or other criminal backgrounds that make them ineligible for assisted housing. You'll also need to get their consent to perform criminal background checks so you can verify the information they give you [Handbook 4350.3, par. 4-27(E)(2)]. That way, you can reject applicants if they disclose—or your criminal background checks reveal—that their backgrounds bar you from renting to them or they don't meet your screening criteria. And if you rent to an applicant and later learn that he lied about this information, you can evict him.

There are both mandatory and optional criteria for screening out applicants based on drug-related and other criminal activity.

Mandatory screening criteria. The rule requires you to screen out applicants with histories of illegal drug use or who are registered sex offenders. Specifically, you must deny admission to an applicant household if:

• Any household member has been evicted from a federally assisted site for drug-related criminal activity within the past three years;

• Any household member is currently engaging in illegal drug use;

• You determine that there's "reasonable cause to believe that a household member's illegal use or a pattern of illegal use of a drug may interfere with the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other residents";

• You determine that there's "reasonable cause to believe that a household member's abuse or pattern of abuse of alcohol interferes with the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other residents"; or

• Any household member is subject to a lifetime registration requirement under a state sex offender registration program.

Optional screening criteria. HUD also lets you adopt optional screening criteria. Specifically, you may reject a household if, during a reasonable time before the date of the admission decision, a household member "is currently engaging in, or has engaged in":

• Drug-related criminal activity;

• Violent criminal activity; or

• Other criminal activity that would threaten other residents'—or site employees', contractors', or agents'—health or safety or their right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises.

When you conduct criminal background checks to verify independently whether the information the applicant has provided is correct, HUD says you should do this in every state where the applicant has lived [Handbook 4350.3, par. 8-14(C)(3)].

You may use the local PHA to do criminal background checks [Handbook 4350.3, par. 8-14(C)]. If you do, you must get the applicant's consent to perform criminal background checks, provide the PHA with your screening criteria, and pay any fees the PHA requires (which are site expenses and can't be charged to the applicant). The PHA will tell you whether the applicant meets your site's screening criteria, but won't tell you what the applicant's background contains.

You are also allowed to use sources other than the PHA to conduct criminal background checks [Handbook 4350.3, par. 8-14(C)(9)]. Other sources include:

• Screening companies;

• Private investigators;

• State and local law enforcement agency records;

• National Crime Information Center (NCIC);

• Internet screening services;

• State sex offender registration Web sites; and

• References from former owners or managers.

It's important to note that you can't charge applicants a fee for criminal background checks [Handbook 4350.3, par. 8-14(C)(10)]. If you conduct your own criminal background checks or use sources other than a PHA, be sure to follow federal and state privacy laws and laws on criminal background checks. For example, some states bar screening companies from reporting arrests that didn't lead to convictions. Have your attorney check the laws in your state before you start conducting criminal background checks.

When applicants don't meet the criminal screening criteria spelled out in your resident selection plan, it's best to reject them, says Ohio attorney James Bownas. Don't pick and choose. If you have written criteria that call for rejecting all those convicted of violent felonies, then reject everyone with those convictions. Picking and choosing can invite fair housing complaints by other applicants with similar criminal backgrounds.

Tip #5: Rely on Local Law Enforcement

Contact local law enforcement immediately if you suspect drug abuse or drug dealing at your site. You may call the police if site staff sees drugs in units during maintenance visits or inspections, if residents report that neighbors are selling or abusing drugs, or even if the site becomes aware of a high volume of traffic to and from particular units.

It's best for law enforcement to further investigate the situation. They can determine whether drug laws are in fact being broken. If a household member is arrested, you should send a lease termination notice immediately.

Further reading: See "Should You Test Applicants and Residents for Drugs?" in the September 2011 Special Issue of the Insider, available online at www.assistedhousinginsider.com.

Insider Sources

James Bownas, Esq.: Partner, Zaino and Humphrey LPA, 5775 Perimeter Dr., Ste. 274, Dublin, OH; www.zandhlpa.com.

Anker Heegaard: Principal, The Compass Group LLC, 927 15th St., NW, Ste. 600, Washington, DC 20005; www.compassgroup.net.

Philip B. Wayne: Principal, Crime Control Services, 5404 N. 107th Plaza, Omaha, NE 68134; www.douglascountyhousing.com.

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