Downtown Dwellers Living The Dry Life Many Low-Rent Apartments Institute Tough Drug, Alcohol Policies

Chester is in from Reno, Nev., with a fresh pouch of Top rolling tobacco, a roll of cash and a party jones.

He’s having as much fun as a jokester at a funeral, he says.

One downtown apartment building manager tossed him for being too rowdy. Another won’t let him in with the sweet rot of booze in his tangled gray beard.

He’s shouldering his purple backpack and heading west via Greyhound. “Too prickly here, if you ask me,” Chester said.

To the freewheeling Chester’s chagrin, a growing number of downtown Spokane apartment buildings catering to low-income people now boast tough drug-and alcohol-free policies.

Since the Commercial Building on West First made headlines two years ago pioneering stiff tenant-conduct rules, a stream of landlords have quietly added drug and booze bans to rental agreements.

After renovations, the Carlyle will join the Commercial, Wilton, Avondale, Washington and Collins buildings, among others. In total, at least eight buildings with about 1,000 tenants in the downtown core are or plan to be dry.

The catalyst for the trend was federal housing officials’ endorsement of the Commercial Building’s policy.

After that approval two years ago, landlords saw a chance to protect their investments. “Dry” buildings tend to be safer because sober tenants aren’t as violent, and don’t cause as much damage, landlords said.

Now, many are welcoming alcohol counselors and other social services into the lobby and catching the government dollars that follow them. If the landlords create a social service center, they become eligible for government money not available to other building owners.

“It helps them (tenants), knowing that the person next to them is not going to be sloshing a bottle or shooting up,” said Becky Twohy, supervisor of the 25-room alcohol-free apartment building on South Howard run by Community Detox Services.

Such policies, if enforced by vigilant managers, are also an asset to police trying to cut sidewalk drug sales, prostitution and violence.

“This helps keep the illegal activity from filtering upstairs,” said Bob Grandinetti, the Spokane Police Department’s liquor licensing officer.

The bans have been subject to civil liberties questions. “This is America, isn’t it?” said Kory Witcher, an Otis Hotel resident.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development objected to the Commercial Building’s approach, which included room searches, urine tests and curfews.

But HUD officials backed off, and now endorse alcohol bans in government-subsidized buildings. To qualify for the public purse, landlords must write a social service plan aimed at helping tenants.

“We are allowing house rules to be invoked where zero tolerance is needed for the types of services provided,” said Jack Peters, director of community planning and development for HUD’s Seattle office.

Still, bans are not always enforced, for fear of lawsuit. Legal Services attorneys butt heads with landlords occasionally when their clients are evicted for violating rules, said Jim Delegans, managing partner of a group that owns the Commercial.

He says the financial good of the bans balances any legal hang-ups. Pay now, with detox counselors, or pay later, when they fall off the wagon, he says.

“It’s something we need to be doing on a larger scale, because we are paying the cost of the Police Department, the emergency rooms, the people that pick up the pieces after the fact,” Delegans said.

Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs, a social service nonprofit, recently bought the Collins Apartments on South Wall, clipped a dry policy to the rental agreement and boarded up the dive next door, the Hideaway. SNAP also runs the dry Washington and Sidney buildings.

But bans shouldn’t be universal, said Bob Peeler, SNAP’s homeless coordinator.

“We can’t have them all drug- and alcohol-free,” Peeler said. “The ones who are not ready to stop drinking need a place to go. You know as well as I, if they are not ready, we can set up all the treatments and support, and it won’t work.”

Indeed, dry buildings remain the exception. “I’d rather be drug and alcohol free, but I don’t know how I would fill this building,” said Mike Dennis, owner of the New Madison Apartments on West First. He said he quickly and legally evicts rowdy tenants from his newly remodeled building.

Tenants often receive federal Supplemental Security Income or state General Assistance Unemployable, safety nets for the disabled or mentally ill.

All must be below the poverty line to qualify for subsidized rooms. Most single adults make less than $10,000 yearly, often selling plasma for income. Some were recently cut off from food stamps when alcoholism was eliminated from disability classifications.

The going rate for rooms is about $300, and the federal government on average pays $200 of the cost, according to the Spokane Housing Authority.

Many tenants are recovering from drug dependence and lean on the support services.

Some, like the Commercial Building’s Danny Gard, a nondrinker, are there simply for the price. The building is as clean and orderly as a middle-class hotel.

“There are not many options out there,” said Gard, who moved in after a messy divorce that left him homeless. “There aren’t many places you can afford to live on SSI or GAU.”

His neighbor, Harold Mazzei, has been clean for nine months after a drug spree in the Tri-Cities. “This a great place to live,” he said.

Policies in other buildings are paper tigers lacking enforcement.

Art Langford, a 51-year-old living on a disability check, spends the afternoon with a 60-ounce bottle of malt liquor in the Albert Building Apartments. Above his dining room table is a sign that warns, “Enter at your own risk,” and a rusted machete.

He signed a rental agreement, which says he can be kicked out if he drinks in his room. “It’s not like smoking dope,” said Langford, flapping his elbow toward the bottle.

Albert manager Ray Dunn said he fears a lawsuit if he enforces the policy. “I think we’d lose business,” he said.

Indeed, enforcement requires risks. Landlords cannot search rooms, and busting tenants with beer on their breath has led to allegations of discrimination. SNAP evicts about one tenant every three months, never for breaches of the drug policy, but for nuisance violations.

But without controls and monitoring, downtown buildings can become crusty, dangerous dens. Social workers complain about having to step around pools of blood in the halls of one West First building without a ban.

“Academically, there may be good reasons to raise (constitutional) questions,” Delegans said. “But for the real world standard, in these types of buildings, that is just foolishness.”

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