Group’s Founder Denies Bias in Billboards

The founder of an Orange County nonprofit group that offers $200 to drug users who agree to use birth control denied allegations Tuesday that her campaign targets minority communities.

In fact, Barbara Harris, director of Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity--or CRACK--said the group doesn’t even know where its billboards that advertise the offer will go until they’re up.

Harris was reacting to charges by two Los Angeles men that CRACK billboards are unfairly aimed at African American and Latino neighborhoods. They denounced the campaign at a press conference Monday under one of CRACK’s billboards at West Slauson and South La Brea avenues.

But Harris said the same sign was up in Beverly Hills several months ago and has appeared in the San Fernando Valley. CRACK doesn’t choose the location because, she said, as a nonprofit it pays a minimal monthly fee and must take whatever space is available.

Harris said that CRACK, which she began in 1994, now has 17 billboards in California, Minnesota, Illinois and Florida. “We’re getting ready to put 10 in Fresno,” she said, adding that there are two in Los Angeles.

The billboards promise $200 to any current or former drug user who agrees to use long-term birth control, including tubal ligation, Norplant, injections or an IUD. CRACK received a boost after its campaign was featured in the Aug. 23 issue of Time magazine.

Since then, Harris said she has received 400 e-mails, all but three of which were supportive of her pocketbook campaign to reduce child abuse. Contributors to her organization include conservative radio show therapist Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who has given $10,000.

So far, Harris said, CRACK has paid the $200 to 61 women: 26 Caucasians, 24 African Americans and 11 Latinas. Most had tubal ligation. The women had a total of 446 pregnancies, 169 of which ended in abortion and 185 of which resulted in children now in foster care, she said.

“We’re saying they’re irresponsible, they’re drug addicts and they need to use birth control,” she said. Harris, who is white, said she got the idea for CRACK after adopting four African American children born one year apart to the same drug-using mother.

Harris and her husband, who is African American, also have three older sons.