Administration Unveils Program to Fight Crime in Public Housing

Vice President Al Gore and several Cabinet members Friday announced an initiative to fight violent crime in public housing and to curb corruption in administering federally assisted low-income housing projects.

Gore said the program, called Operation Safe Home, displayed “absolutely extraordinary, I believe unprecedented” cooperation among agencies whose relations, particularly in law enforcement, frequently are marked by friction and mistrust.

Henry G. Cisneros, secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department, said his department will use $5 million in rent subsidies for public housing tenants who testify in trials and need to be relocated through the Justice Department’s Witness Protection Program.

He also said that HUD plans to support gun buyouts and to prohibit gun dealers from doing business in public housing projects.

Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will step up efforts to trace guns used in crimes committed in housing projects, and will ask the Secret Service to serve as security adviser for local housing authorities.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno said that the Justice Department would work with HUD’s inspector general and local law enforcement officials to curb “white-collar crime” at federally assisted housing.

Cisneros said that HUD was allocating $800 million to the initiative by redirecting existing funds or through new money that will be requested in President Clinton’s fiscal 1995 budget to be announced Monday.

Gore said that the budget proposal also had “made room” for spending proposed in the anti-crime bill pending in Congress.

“It is not right that we ask poor people to live in public housing so dangerous that the police will not even patrol there,” Gore said.

Cisneros said that the initiative will apply to about 3,400 public housing authorities. In addition, law enforcement will monitor private, HUD-assisted projects to check for bribery, fraud and “equity skimming” by landlords who illegally divert resources from projects.