Housing First Says OK to Drugs; Prosecutors Should Say No

https://ciceroinstitute.org/blog/housing-first-says-ok-to-drugs-
prosecutors-should-say-no/

Advocates of Housing First have begun to push back against the direction 
of federal homelessness policy in the second Trump Administration. 
However, regulatory reforms take time and, with homelessness and overdoses 
at crisis levels nationwide, lives are at stake.

Following the closure of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness 
earlier this year, the Administration is widely expected to continue to 
restructure the homelessness programs of the U.S. Department of Housing 
and Urban Development (HUD) and reprioritize programs that require 
treatment and sobriety over more permissive Housing First policies.

The federal government has a powerful tool available to it to make 
sweeping changes to the most dangerous elements of Housing First 
immediately: the so-called federal Crack House Statute. That statute was 
Congress’s response to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, in which landlords 
and club owners were complicit in the deadly spread of crack cocaine in 
buildings they owned and operated. The crack house statute opens landlords 
and businesses to prosecution by U.S. attorneys, with penalties of up to 
$2 million in civil fines and 20 years in prison.

The crack house statute offers a unique avenue for the Trump 
Administration to promptly end the disturbing category of policies and 
programs known as harm reduction. While some specific harm reduction 
policies are based on robust scientific evidence, the broader harm 
reduction philosophy and many programs that operate under it are 
dangerous.

Harm reduction is rooted fundamentally in the belief that people have a 
right to use drugs. The philosophy prioritizes practices that destigmatize 
drug use, eliminate prohibitions against drugs, and assist people in using 
drugs in ways that advocates view as safer than others.

Harm reduction is the core principle of Housing First programs, which 
provide housing to homeless individuals without any requirement for 
sobriety or engagement with treatment or services.

The harm reduction practices of Housing First service providers open them 
up to potential violations of the federal Crack House Statute for 
permitting drug use in their housing units as a matter of official or 
unofficial policy. If Housing First providers have received complaints 
from tenants about drug use or trafficking in permanent supportive housing 
units and failed to take any reasonable actions expected by a landlord or 
service provider to stop the activity, then the providers could be 
prosecuted by U.S. attorneys.

In some states, providers could also be prosecuted under state law. For 
example, this year Utah codified its own law against “drug-involved 
premises,” which includes buildings that allow use or manufacture of 
drugs, or which are specifically used for a supervised drug consumption 
site—one of the preferred programs of harm reduction activists. Violations 
are a second-degree felony.

More states should prohibit drug-involved premises, as well as create 
drug-free homeless service zones. Drug-free homeless service zones are 
based on drug-free school zone policies, which enhance penalties for 
trafficking or using drugs within a defined radius of schools. Drug-free 
homeless service zones are similar, except in the Cicero Institute’s 
model, they enhance penalties for traffickers as well as service providers 
who knowingly permit drug use in their facilities, without increasing 
penalties for users themselves. This approach rightfully focuses on 
offenders who are taking advantage of vulnerable homeless people or are 
negligent in their care.

Enforcement of laws against permissive environments for drug use is not 
just about enforcing the law for its own sake—it’s a matter of life and 
death. A recent randomized control trial of a Housing First program was 
characterized by researchers as a success, but there is a major problem 
with that conclusion: the Housing First group had a 50 percent higher 
death rate than the control group. This fatal evidence, combined with the 
fact that overdoses are the leading cause of death among homeless people 
in many states, highlights the urgency of curbing harm reduction policies 
that fail to take drug use seriously. It is time for prosecutors at all 
levels of government to increase their vigilance against policies and 
programs like Housing First that endanger the lives of the most vulnerable 
people in our communities.


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.