Complex is Searched for Unauthorized Tenants

Public housing residents pay rent on a sliding scale, depending on income. Those at Park Morton were notified about the identification cards and inspection. But many said yesterday that they were unaware that their guests and family members would be forced to leave. And they said that housing officials should be ashamed for treating residents poorly.

"The people who were inspectors laughed at us," said Anasa Wilson, 25, whose houseguest was ejected. Wilson said the woman, a friend, had been helping to care for her two small children -- one of whom recently had surgery. "They called us nasty. Babies were put out."

Wilson and several neighbors showed visitors apartments with plaster falling from ceilings and roaches teeming from holes, closets and drawers. Wilson's closet was filled with glue strips, bug bombs and insecticides.

"We shouldn't have to live like this," said Wilson, a two-year resident. "I'm doing everything I can to keep the roaches off my kids."

Almost everyone in her three-story building acknowledged another lease violation: They all own cats. It helps control the rat population, they said.

"I despise cats," Wilson said. "But I have to have them. Everybody has one."

The crackdown coincided with what the housing authority billed as a day-long festival that included free hotdogs, hamburgers and bags filled with groceries. Officials from various agencies set up booths offering free services to residents. A band and a disc jockey began playing tunes in the afternoon as students arrived home from school.

But many residents were not in a party mood and said the resources could have been better spent fixing up dilapidated apartments.

Phyllis Lomax, 25, and her boyfriend, Jamar Bush, live in the complex with their three children. The couple may have to find a new home. Bush is not on the lease and was told to leave yesterday. "I don't have another place to live," Bush said. "I'm trying to be with my kids."

Adrienne Todman, deputy chief of staff for the housing authority, said that officials do not relish the idea of breaking up families, but the agency also has to be cognizant of how federal dollars are being spent.

"We need to know who's living there," she said. "It's not like we showed up at night to see who's sleeping there. If we don't do this, what do we do?"