Mass. targets smoking in public housing

bostonglobe ^ | April 4 | boston globe

[Drango]

Governor Deval Patrick’s administration moved Thursday to stamp out smoking in public housing in Massachusetts.

The Department of Housing and Community Development issued guidelines to the state’s 240 local housing authorities, urging them to develop smoke-free policies for their state-aided public housing units. Such policies would prohibit tenants from smoking in a housing authority’s buildings and apartments.

Local authorities could not ban tenants who smoke, nor could they force a tenant to quit smoking in order to keep their apartment, as long as they do not smoke in any of a housing authority’s buildings or units.

Smoking is allowed in state public housing units, although it is banned in common areas.

Housing Undersecretary Aaron Gornstein said the goal is to protect the health of residents from secondhand smoke; prevent deaths and injuries from smoking-related fires; and reduce the cost of having to scrub away smoke stains, replace carpeting, and clean ductwork and fans when turning over a unit to a nonsmoker.

~snip

[Drango]

The fact is, poor people sucking on the government teat are also sucking on cigarettes. Clearly they have disposable income to spend on cigarettes....the rhetorical question is why aren't they putting those dollars to use on housing?

[Responsibility2nd]

Agreed. If they want to smoke in their own homes, then let them GET their own homes.

[Vigilanteman]

Rhetorical question: They are also some of the best customers for high priced weed and cocaine as well. Would you deny them those “rights” too?

[txrefugee]

But if it’s marijuana, it’s okay…..

[JRandomFreeper]

FR's own resident anti-smoker nanny stater.

The proper solution is to completely remove all 'state housing' and the associated theft (taxes) from producers that supports it.

/johnny

[yoe]

When politicians think they have nothing to do...they go after tobacco or children playing Cowboys and Indians with toy or imaginary weapons...or bowing and scraping to lobbies who might donate to their campaigns...finally taking away your freedom to do what is legal in your own home. All the while promoting perverted behaivor and smoking dope...s-o-m-k-i-n-g is a dirty word in their view BUT not legalizing dope i.e., marijuana. VOTE those hypocrites out of office.

[Gay State Conservative]

“Coupe Deval” Patrick has made it abundantly clear that he's running for President.Victimizing “the most vulnerable among us” won't help him with the Rat Party base.

[Drango]

Victimizing “the most vulnerable among us

Wait. What??

[jcon40]

Question is who are the “240 Housing Authorities” being given this directive? The owners of the government subsidized apartments?

Easy to imagine the State Gov making the property owner responsible for:

Getting tenants to quit smoking
And
Cleaning up the ventilation systems mentioned in the article

[Gay State Conservative]

Wait. What??

You clearly don't get to Massachusetts much,do you! Here in the Gay State those who live in public housing (including Osama Obama's illegal alien aunt) are considered to be victims of this despicable,oppressive nation.

[Drango]

I suffer and pay penance by living in California.

[dforest]

Take away their smokes and they will have hell to pay.

[digger48]

Massachusett - $9/ pack

2 packs a day X 30 days = $540/month

That’d go a long way toward paying their own damn rent

[ourworldawry]

“The fact is, poor people sucking on the government teat are also sucking on cigarettes. Clearly they have disposable income to spend on cigarettes....the rhetorical question is why aren’t they putting those dollars to use on housing?”

---

Another fact is, what are we going to do with all the people who can’t mind their own business? Because THAT seems to be the REAL problem we face. And chronically, at that.

I find, that people who cannot MYOB are far more offensive than a smoker could ever be. Why doesn’t the gov of assachussetts do something about the ‘squalor’ that many people in “projects”(let’s call them what they are) live in, rather than focus on smoking? It would be a far more respectable thing to achieve, I believe.

[Drango]

$540/month x 12 = $6,480 a year. YIKES

The funny thing is that there are a bunch of FReepers who believe smoking is a special class and untouchable. And apparently if the comments are to be believed, society (aka the taxpayer) should provide them welfare in the form of housing.

[Drango]

I support drug testing to qualify for all welfare such as housing, food stamps, and AFDC. By extension, people spending money on cigarettes while their hand is in the public’s pocket is not something I support.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

I am with you. If they want to regulate what goes on outside of the individual housing unit, no problem.

I might be in the minority. As far as I am concerned, government has no business regulating legal activity inside a home, be it owned, rented, or a public housing unit.

I am sure there is enough illegal activity in and outside of the units to worry about anyway.

[digger48]

I’m an ex-smoker, but I don’t have any problem with anyone else who smokes.

I just find it a bit unnerving that smokers are banned in every other place that is run by the government, so why not the Public Housing that we are paying for?

[JimRed]

But...but...but that would be (all together, now) RAACISSST!

[Little Bill]

This is going to happen, get real. The harps in D street have more political drag than your average Government Slave.