Posted on 07/27/2011 6:54:41 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
To the list of places where smokers no longer will be able to light up — government buildings, parks, restaurants and bars — public housing residents in San Antonio soon will add one more: their own homes.
The San Antonio Housing Authority plans to impose a new policy in January that will prohibit residents from smoking indoors or away from designated outdoor spots at all 70 of its public sites.
The ban, which will affect about 15,800 residents, aims to protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke and follows a growing nationwide trend to eliminate smoking at public housing authorities.
Since 2009, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a directive that “strongly” encouraged housing authorities to adopt nonsmoking policies, the number of agencies that have banned the practice has more than doubled to an estimated 250, according to the Smoke Free Environments Law Project, a Michigan nonprofit that tracks the number.
San Antonio will become the biggest housing authority in Texas and one of the largest in the country to adopt a smoking ban, joining other major agencies in Boston, Detroit, Portland and Seattle.
“It’s our responsibility to provide a living environment that’s healthy, safe and comfortable and, frankly, your neighbor’s smoke can often impair that,” said Melanie Villalobos, a spokeswoman for SAHA.
The no-smoking rule will debut here in August or September at the newly renovated Lewis Chatham Apartments, a single, four-story building for the elderly on the South Side.
SAHA’s other properties are expected to go smoke-free in January, but the details of how the new policy will work at each site, including the locations of designated smoking areas, remain undetermined.
Residents will be prohibited from smoking within about 20 feet of exterior doorways, and those who repeatedly violate the rule could face eviction.
The housing authority began putting out the word about the new policy earlier this year, opening the discussion at resident meetings and surveying tenants.
Later this month, the housing authority plans to launch an educational campaign about the hazards of smoking and secondhand smoke. Residents who want to quit the habit also can get free smoking-cessation aids such as patches and lozenges, provided through the agency’s partnership with the American Cancer Society.
The housing authority put off a planned start date in July after studying how other agencies had dealt with the issue. Among the most important lessons was that residents were more agreeable to the change if they had time to prepare and received health information.
“The education campaign is the most important part,” said Lori Mendez, the housing director for the elderly and disabled who has spearheaded the effort. “Residents need to understand the expectations.”
Kids exposed to smoke
Many residents have yet to hear about the change, but so far the new policy has inspired a mix of strong support, ambivalence and anger.
A survey sent to all 6,029 households in January shows that a large majority of tenants support the no-smoking policy. Of the 200 residents who responded, 81 percent said they liked the idea, while 17 percent opposed it, and 2 percent said they had no opinion.
In some cases, smokers decried what they view as a violation of their rights.
“This is my house even though I’m receiving help from SAHA, and I should be able to smoke in my own home if I want to,” one resident wrote.
Another resident who smokes on the balcony suggested forcing residents to go outside would put them at risk.
“It’s dangerous enough at daytime. Understand that you will be putting people’s lives in danger,” the tenant wrote.
But many cheered the idea, and some smokers even welcomed the change as an inducement to help them quit.
“I think it’s really, really great. I want to stop,” said Norma Garcia, 47, who smokes about a pack a day inside her Wheatley Courts apartment on the East Side. “They’re doing something that’s for our own good.”
i agree with you, smoking bans are usually ridiculous.
this one, though, i’m fine with. if these people can afford to smoke, why can’t they afford to get off public assistance?
Some how I can’t get too worked up over the freedoms of those receiving public housing. Particularly, considering the cost of tobacco taxes. (a 2 pack a day smoker is paying almost six dollars a day or 180 a month in taxes) We are subsidizing their housing, they are paying taxes back to the Gov’t in Tobacco Tax and the only beneficiary is the gov’t which gets their votes for keeping them in public housing.
To paraphrase Ben Franklin: “Never let the poor be comfortable in their condition or they will never be motivated to change it.”
Just some quick math will show you that a smoking habit costs $300 per month.
Exactly. See post 21
Cries of “RACISM!” (sponsored by Newport) coming in 3....2...1....
I’ll start the popcorn
As a smoker and taxpayer, I must say, that if I cannot smoke in or near the buildings I help pay for (courthouses, dmv, etc.), then by golly, no one should smoke in a building I help pay for.
Additionally, I am assuming most of these folks are on welfare and I resent helping them pay almost 10 bucks a pack, so they can sit home and smoke all day.
Yes but it is also a good method of getting tax money from the poor.
This is just like county jails that’ve banned smoking.
I’m not at all certain we want this particular crowd to think there’s no difference ~ else they’ll be using crime to finance jail time vacations or something ~ just to, like, you know, GET AWAY FROM IT ALL.
What everyone fails to notice is these people have a pack per day (at least) habit and live in public housing. I’m not a smoker but a pack per day is roughly $150/month. How can they afford this while I am paying for their housing? That’s the real outrage.
wait until they ban french fries!
I suppose you could say the same thing about Obama.
If you are a smoker the solution is simple. Move out of public housing. They seem to lack money for rent, but do have money for tobacco, booze, drugs, gold teeth, fancy rims and tattoos. Go figure. They get no sympathy from me.
Mixed opinion on this one.
On one hand of course is the huge issue that we are paying for these people to have a roof over their heads, food on their tables, healthcare, daycare, etc etc. Cigarettes have become so incredibly expensive I have to question how anyone on welfare can afford to smoke but can’t afford to support themselves.
With that said, I have a huge issue with the government telling people what legal activities they can or can not engage in in the privacy of their own homes. Those who do not see a slippery slope only need to consider legislation that has been passed for years that have allowed the government to intrude into our homes, into our lives, the Constitution be damned, all for the current cause of the day.
Legislation has been proposed to outlaw smoking in cars when minors are present or even if minor children will at some point ride in that vehicle.
Legislation has been proposed that would outlaw smoking completely in multi-unit housing even in cases where the units are privately owned.
Give a politician a cause and more often than not they will propose a law that will infringe on our rights.
Once the camel gets a nose under the tent it’s impossible to stop him from fully entering.
Consider this before cheering on another way the government can go into peoples homes and regulate activity; you may hate smoking, but guaranteed one day there will be a law making something you enjoy illegal, if it hasn’t happened already.
They will smoke anyway and nobody will be able to do anything about it.
They have nowhere to go and they are supposedly poor. They aren’t going to kick them out on the street.
Nope, as long as you’re paying for it (and everything else in your life), it’s your own decision.
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