Making subsidized housing safer

Erin Neff

Sunday, Dec. 6, 1998 | 8:11 a.m.

The Las Vegas Housing Authority currently has no way of knowing whether it is allowing convicted murderers, rapists and kidnappers to live next door to law-abiding single mothers in subsidized apartments and homes.

Despite tougher screening policies in neighboring North Las Vegas, similar background checks with a national law-enforcement clearinghouse have yet to get off the ground in Las Vegas or elsewhere in Clark County.

"Why we won't do it here is beyond me," Housing Authority Commissioner Dewain Steadman, who is pushing for tougher checks, said. "If we save one life, if we screen out one piece of crap from our public housing, it's worth it."

Las Vegas housing officials have been meeting in recent weeks with Metro Police staff to try to implement a similar policy, but they haven't come to an agreement on any change.

In North Las Vegas, tougher background checks have resulted in tenants and administrators remarking that public housing is noticeably safer.

"Before, they could come in from another state and be an ax murderer and we wouldn't know," Melodie Rudd, an administrator for the North Las Vegas Housing Authority, said.

The difference between the two background checks involves the level of participation from law enforcement.

When people apply for public housing in Las Vegas, they are asked to sign a release allowing Metro to do a background check. If Metro doesn't have a record of them having committed a crime in Las Vegas, the investigation ends there -- even if Washington, D.C., police have a felony warrant out for their arrest.

In North Las Vegas, however, an applicant's name is sent by North Las Vegas Police to the Nevada Highway Patrol in Carson City, which is a repository for the National Crime Information Center -- a clearinghouse of law-enforcement records. If a check comes back with a "hit," it could mean anything from a bench warrant for failure to pay traffic tickets or a recent homicide charge.

"At that point, we'll invite them back in to give us fingerprints and to discuss any remedial action they may have taken regarding whatever it is they've had trouble with in the past," Robert Sullivan, director of the North Las Vegas Housing Authority, said.

Those fingerprints are then sent to the FBI, which can take months to return an answer.

"We process well in advance of need, so we actually have waiting lists before there are any vacancies," Sullivan said of his agency's 275 available rental units.

The Clark County Housing Authority, which serves as the housing authority for Henderson, also runs checks through Metro, but said it has been stymied by the department's lack of interest in expanding its records' checks.

"We have tried for I can't tell you how many years to get this," Bill Cottrell, executive director of the Clark County Housing Authority, said. "Metro, for whatever reason, hasn't put it high on their priority list."

Metro Police Deputy Chief Richard McKee, who is in charge of the department's Technical Services division, said Metro can run the check through Carson City for about $36.

"Technically, a private apartment owner could ask us for such a check, and we do these for casinos and other big employers as long as the person signs a release giving us permission to run them," McKee said. "We're more than willing to do them for housing."

Although McKee said Metro is willing, Cottrell said he has met with nothing but resistance when he has asked to implement such a policy in the past.

Las Vegas housing officials have met with Undersheriff Richard Winget, who gave them Metro's preliminary approval to expand the background checks. Winget was out of town and unable to be reached for comment.

North Las Vegas switched to the broader checks in January 1997 but still took almost a full year before having what it considers a smooth process.

Neither police nor HUD keep specific statistics related to crime in public housing, but North Las Vegas residents say they've seen a reduction in property and nuisance crimes since the screening began.

Bemelda Byrd, who has lived in North Las Vegas public housing for five years, said she has seen the changes in her neighborhood.

"I have seen a real difference and I feel more secure knowing they're doing it," Byrd, a single mother of five who also cares for a grandchild, said. "You don't want drug dealers around your children and in the neighborhood."

North Las Vegas made the policy shift in response to a federal Housing and Urban Development law giving them the right to broader investigations.

"It is becoming a more prominent policy on a national basis," Kenneth LoBene, HUD's director in Nevada, said. "You're going to see more and more of this background investigation going on, because you want to have the best possible tenant you can."

What's more, LoBene said, it's cheaper to screen someone out on the intake process than to have to evict them from public housing. In Las Vegas, it costs $7.50 for a Metro Police check and about $2,000 to evict someone.

"We've had no complaints from our clients," Sullivan said. "The end result is we have a more solid client. We service the high-risk, and in a 10-minute interview, you're not going to find much."

Gary Peck, director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Nevada, said he is concerned that tougher screening of prospective tenants is putting the constitutional rights of poor people at stake. He said the ACLU is monitoring the issue.

But Metro patrol Sgt. Chris Hoye, who is also a Las Vegas Housing Authority commissioner, says stepped-up screening protects the rights of people in public housing to have some protection against rampant crime. He said he has seen crack vials littering public-housing playgrounds and has watched once-decent neighborhoods turn into war zones.

"We're trying to protect the single families here," Hoye said. "All it takes is a criminal element to get rooted and in a matter of months, the gangs take over."

But now that he's in a policy position, Hoye is beginning to see how hard it is to implement what everyone agrees is a positive change.

"It is a very technical process because of all of the privacy laws," said Hoye, who was appointed to the commission eight months ago.

Betty Turner, deputy executive director of the Las Vegas Housing Authority, said a state regulation limiting some of the information a housing authority can obtain is also proving a stumbling block.

"We may have to seek some type of legislative change to help us do this," Deloris Sawyer, acting Housing Programs Manager for the Las Vegas Housing Authority, said.

One possible legislative change would allow housing authorities to work directly with the state police instead of having to first go through their local police department -- something currently not allowed. In North Las Vegas, the housing authority goes through the North Las Vegas Police Department, which in turn uses the state police for NCIC checks.

The Clark County Housing Authority authority pays an estimated $70,000 a year for Metro checks, credit checks and other typical investigations done when a public-housing applicant's name reaches the top of the county's waiting list.

But Harold Jenkins, a 20-year Las Vegas resident who recently moved out of public housing, said there should be more money budgeted to pay for the more expensive checks.

"It sounds like they're just resistant to change," Jenkins said. "There are all kinds of bad apples living there. If North Las Vegas can do it, we should, too."

Turner said that although she favors implementing tougher checks in Las Vegas, one of the problems her agency faces is the waiting time for solid information on the prospective tenant.

"They have to wait months to get some of that back," Turner said of North Las Vegas.

However, Turner also cited a waiting list of 2,500 people for roughly 2,300 public-housing units in Las Vegas.

Georgia Williams, 68, whose husband applied for public housing for them last month and is still waiting for a vacancy, said the delay in getting information should not keep them from getting an apartment when one becomes available.

"We're not criminals and we have to wait," Williams complained.

Senior citizens, oftentimes the most vulnerable to crime, comprise the largest single group waiting for public housing. An estimated 1,041 applicants are on the list for one-bedroom apartments -- many of them elderly residents, Turner said.

Hoye said he is not trying to implement the policy in Las Vegas in order to discriminate against anyone with a criminal history.

"It really is a privilege to live in public housing," Hoye said. "We will work with you if you have something in your past, but this policy is to keep known felons and habitual criminals out of our units."

Steadman, Hoye's colleague on the commission, said he is ready to act.

"We're not playing games here," Steadman said. "All they have to do is put a policy together and we'll approve it. It's so simple."

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