Posted on 10/04/2014 3:46:52 PM PDT by Drango
When it snows, Albert Smith dreads having to put on a couple of coats and sit in his car in the parking lot of the West Mifflin Manor apartment complex to smoke a cigarette.
But after the Allegheny County Housing Authority banned smoking inside his building this week, he fears that's what he'll have to do.
“I'm not on board,” said Smith, 72, a smoker since he was 15 who sat outside the subsidized apartment complex with a pack of Pall Malls in his shirt pocket and a smoke-free sign tacked to the wall behind him. “I pay $400 a month, and then they tell you what you can't do in your room.”
The housing authority snuffed out smoking inside five authority-managed buildings Wednesday, forcing Smith and other smokers to light up outside.
On Friday, that meant sitting on a bench under West Mifflin Manor's covered entrance or dodging raindrops in a designated — uncovered — smoking area.
“Smokers are not a protected class in this country,” said Frank Aggazio, executive director of the housing authority. “There are health reasons that we have; there are economic reasons. We've had three fires in the past. We've gotten many complaints.”
He said smoking caused three fires in the past 12 years at authority properties, each doing more than $1 million in damages. Jean Guentner, 79, died from burns four days after she fell asleep with a lit cigarette and started a fire at an authority-managed high-rise apartment in Blawnox in 2009.
It costs the authority twice as much to clean and repaint an apartment when a smoker moves out, Aggazio said.
Dr. Karen Hacker, director of the county health department, said the smoke-free policy will help address obesity and encourage physical activity, according to a statement Friday announcing the housing authority had joined the county's Live Well Allegheny campaign. Secondhand smoke can create cardiovascular complications and has been shown to cause cancer.
The authority offers subsidized housing to senior citizens and low-income families. Most tenants make less than $15,200 a year, 30 percent of the county's median income of $50,664, Aggazio said.
The five buildings that went smoke-free — Andrew Carnegie Apartments in Carnegie, G.W. Carver Hall in Clairton, John Fraser Hall in Turtle Creek, Ohioview Tower in McKees Rocks and West Mifflin Manor in West Mifflin — have 330 apartments. Aggazio hopes to expand the program to about half of the authority's 47 buildings and more than 3,000 units in the next few years.
The Cumberland County Housing and Redevelopment Authority went smoke-free for its 208 units at the beginning of the year. A few tenants have violated the policy, but there has been little opposition, said Ben Laudermilch, the authority's executive director.
Cumberland County gives tenants one warning before they are evicted for smoking. Allegheny County will give tenants four strikes before they are out, Aggazio said.
Private landlords, too, may rent only to non-smokers.
Liz Hersh, executive director of the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania, a low-income housing advocate organization, said housing authorities legally can ban tenants from smoking inside buildings. She said it's a sensible policy.
“Being a smoker is not a civil right. It's a lifestyle choice, and it has an impact on other people,” Hersh said.
It has been pointed out to you many times the Apt is subsidized with the lottery, not Tax money.
Who buys the most Lotto tickets?
Po People.
Lots of places where $700 a month can get you a decent place to live.
They need a mobile cigar&smoking bar lounge or sumthin’! Maybe medicinal marijuana wagons!
The last thing you want to do is get the complexes burnt to the ground.. Or.. Lol
In the northeast? Not so much.
This was not as issue before. The real story here is petty bureaucrats getting their rocks off by bothering the tenants.
But both parents and the government reserve the right to change the rules as they choose
Houses are cheap in Dee-troit city.
If you can find one still standing. ;-)
A message to the welfare bum:
When “you suck the government teat” you enslave yourself to them.
Suck it up fella, the government can make you do anything they want while you are raping the taxpayers.
If the government is paying (welfare, food stamps) for the soda, then yes, I hope so.
No one is entitled to government money to smoke, drink soda or do other, non-necessary activities.
Yet up-thread, multiple FReepers defended people mooching off the taxpayer dole. Bizarro.
“The individual in this story smokes and likely spends over $1,000 a year doing it assuming he smokes a pack a day. It’s disposable income.”
Here in MA a pack a day would run about $3000.00 a year.
.
These types of threads always amuse me because half the comments reflect and endorse a majoritarian dictatorial view from alleged conservatives.
If we allow government to become the master of the house, the food, the travel or anything else we do, then the appointed custodians of the majoritarian dictatorship can make whatever rules they want. Letting government in the housing business in the first place was the error. Picking and choosing what rules government then makes about housing compounds the error.
Crusaders gave us prohibition, and other crusaders gave us an income tax arguing that it would be small and only the rich would pay it. Crusaders want limits on guns, sodas and alcohol but will allow other forms of behavior that are destructive because they can get majoritarian approval.
The self-righteous won’t stop until everyone behaves the way they insist, and if means government tyranny and poking its nose where it doesn’t belong, so what. Getting one’s way to make people do something for their own good is more important than stupid ideas like “liberty” where people can eat, smoke and drink as they please. Let’s have more government so we can make that argument. /sarc
Banning smoking in subsidized housing could save half a billion dollars a year
As of October 2013, more than 300 public housing authorities had banned smoking, with more and more owners and managers of multi-unit housing doing the same on their own.
“Banning smoking in subsidized housing could save half a billion dollars a year”
—
Incredible.
We could support quite a few illegals with that kind of money.
.
OK, that’s funny.
To Drango:
“Facts based upon studies” huh? Haven’t we had enough “studies” by gullible socialist career college parasites that suck government money as their only source of income?
Do you believe that these people who refuse to conform with the moral and work ethic of those who pay for their welfare and free/subsidized housing and food obey any kind of rule or law? How about taking personal responsibility for anything?
Now, back to the banning of smoking; do you think that when they ban smoking these “hovels” will be squeaky clean and well maintained by the animals who lived in them so that when they move out new “occupants” can simply move right in...and the government can save gobs of money since the “clean” cages are ready (without major cleaning) for the next set of law abiding welfare cheats?
And finally, do you actually believe in ANY GOVERNMENT STUDY? If you do, I have a bridge in Arizona I am giving away for a mere $5,000.00.
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