BHA: Criminals Get Evicted from Public Housing

What happens when residents of Charlestown’s housing developments are found to be involved with illegal drugs or violence? They get evicted.

Lydia Agro, the communications director for the Boston Housing Authority, recently told Charlestown Patch that the authority considers eviction actions against its residents for any number of reasons—from non-payment to false reporting of income to disrupting other residents’ peace—but acts as quickly as possible when drugs or violence are involved.

“For offenses that involve drugs or criminal activity or something of a violent nature,” she said, “we take those seriously.”

But, despite the authority’s stance on illegal activity, completing the eviction can take months. All eviction cases must be presented before housing court, Agro said, and that means that the authority has to present evidence.

“If there is potential evidence of drugs found in a unit, that has to be tested and confirmed,” she said.

But, before any suspicious substances can be tested, police must first find them. Agro said the group tracks police activity in its housing developments and takes action when appropriate, but, sometimes, the authority has to bring police in.

If employees of the housing authority learn of illegal activity going on in the development, they forward those reports to Boston Housing Authority Police.

“The Boston police and the BHA police work closely together,” Agro said.

Context

Charlestown Patch spoke to Agro following several questions from the public about why illegal activity endures in the town’s public housing. The most recent question appeared in response to a Charlestown Patch article about a , after which police found in a Boston Housing Authority apartment.

“Absolutely, that’s the kind of thing that we would proceed with an eviction action on,” Agro said.

While these kinds of incidents catch attention in the news media, figures provided by Agro suggested that they represent a small minority of BHA residents.

During 2010 and 2011, Agro said, the Housing Authority evicted 60 families across a total of 1,100 units. Most of those were for non-payment issues. Just 20 of those were for “cause,” which would include evictions for illegal activity.