The Political Interest Clinton's House Rules

By Michael Kramer

Would you permit the police to search your home, at will and without a warrant, if doing so would reduce crime? Defying his liberal constituency, Bill Clinton says if you're one of the 3 million mostly poor and mostly black Americans living in the nation's 17,491 public housing projects, you would -- and you should. Acting on that conviction, the President is urging local housing agencies to rewrite their leases so residents can allow cops to do just that.

Ever since Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign for the White House, Presidents have pledged to "restore law and order." Nixon couldn't -- and neither have his successors. Twenty-six years and 11 federal crime bills later, Americans are more worried than ever about their personal safety. The latest answer, the crime bill pending in Congress, is filled with feel-good, get-tough provisions -- "Singapore solutions," say its critics -- along with several proposals that could truly make a difference, like Clinton's measure to help put an extra 100,000 cops on the beat. But the heart of the President's plans to revitalize the country's inner cities -- where most crime occurs -- lies in two radical ideas.

The first one, involving the "sweeps," as they're called, is really about values. Taking dead aim at the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against "unreasonable" and warrantless searches, the President, who once taught constitutional law, wants the concept of reasonableness balanced to conform with today's conditions. "There are many rights ((guaranteed by)) our laws . . . but ((victims)) have certain rights that we are letting slip away," says Clinton. "They include the right to go out to the playground and the right to walk to the corner without fear of gunfire, the right to go to school safely, and to sit by an open window."

This week the heads of the nation's 40 leading public housing agencies will gather in Washington to hear the case for the lease provisions Clinton favors. "You could legally compel" such clauses, argues White House counsel Lloyd Cutler, because "residing in publicly funded housing is a privilege, not a right" -- but political reality renders mandatory provisions impossible. So, says Cutler, "we're hoping that the majority of project tenants" who have signaled their support for Clinton's plan "will exert peer pressure" on those reluctant to go along. However the idea plays -- and it will surely be tested in court -- the Administration aims primarily to send a message. "Voluntarily signing such leases is an empowering act," says White House aide Rahm Emanuel. "It allows people to exert some control over their lives."

Still, as Clinton acknowledges, warrantless searches are only a Band-Aid. The harder challenge, embodied in the President's second controversial idea, is to turn public housing developments into decent and desirable places to live. What Robert Kennedy said about the projects 25 years ago remains just as true today: they are "separate nations screening the poor from the rest of us."

The racial and economic integration of the projects will never happen so long as they remain war zones ruled by fear, inhabited only by those with no choice. If what passes for safety in U.S. cities could be assured, it may be possible to again attract working people to public housing. "Besides the crime," says Chicago Housing Authority head Vince Lane, "there's the problem that those who can leave do. Few if any role models are left. Unless working folks live here -- people whose example can show what real life is -- we'll keep failing."

Ideally, Lane would bulldoze the projects and disperse their residents to "normal communities." But "no one wants the poor in their neighborhoods," he says, "so that won't happen." The next best hope rests with the quiet revolution launched last week by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros. Rejecting calls to reserve public housing for the poorest of the poor, the Administration is proposing a series of economic incentives designed to create mixed-income developments where the role models Lane seeks (mostly poor too, but working nonetheless) can live without bankrupting themselves. To this end, HUD will shortly amend its rules so local authorities can prefer working families over welfare recipients as they fill apartment vacancies from waiting lists that now total an astonishing 6 million people nationwide. Rent caps are coming too. Currently families pay 30% of their income in rent, a figure that climbs as earnings rise, a nonsensical policy "that creates a work disincentive as tenants seek to keep their rents low," says Cisneros. "In some cases," adds the Secretary, "it's got so crazy that local housing agencies have calculated a kid's college-scholarship income in order to hit the family for more rent." To further encourage work, first-time job holders will enjoy an 18-month rent freeze regardless of their wages.

Clinton believes project residents will appreciate the working world only if they're connected to working people. "Much of public housing is what the approaches to hell must be like," says Cisneros. "All they breed besides crime is anger and despair. If we continue as we are, we'll lose another generation of young people." And then, he adds, as public support erodes because the nonworking or underemployed residents are politically powerless, "the projects will fade away and the number of homeless will soar even more." That scenario would be hell for everyone, not just the poor.