Getting Evicted for the Actions of Others: A Proposed Amendment to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act

Section 1437d(11(6) of the United States Housing Act of 1937 seeks to eliminate the dangerous conditions in America’s public housing complexes by providing housing authorities with the ability to combat the drug crisis through streamlined third-party-action evictions. Both history and substantive due process challenges to this law reveal significant problems, however, with providing management with broad discretion to evict tenants uninvolved in or unaware of a third party’s illegal activities. This Note proposes that Congress amend § 1437d( /) (6) to require that public housing tenants have actual or constructive notice, based on an objective standard, of a non-household member’s prohibited activities in order to be evicted. This proposal effectively balances tenant interests with legislative intent to achieve efficient, effective, and fair public housing reform.