"The Housing Authority does little to foster an environment of lawfulness when the agency itself breaks the law in releasing confidential juvenile court records. The confidential arrest records of children should not be the basis for evicting entire families," said ACLU staff attorney Kelli Evans.

According to the lawsuit -- Michael Doe v. San Francisco Housing Authority -- federal law does not allow the dissemination of juvenile records unless there is express authorization under state law; California law establishes the confidentiality of juvenile records and sharply limits access to them. Yet the Housing Authority, in blatant disregard of the law and privacy considerations, uses juvenile arrest records -- including instances where there has been no conviction -- to forcibly evict whole families from their homes.

Moreover, the Housing Authority unlawfully publicizes the information in its eviction actions and fails to provide tenants with any opportunity to appeal or object as required by federal law. The Housing Authority has proceeded with evictions where the original criminal charge was dismissed, dropped or even based on mistaken identity.

The named plaintiff is seventeen-year-old Michael Doe, who lives with his family in a public housing development in San Francisco. In 1996, at the age of 16, he was arrested on a minor marijuana charge. Without any court authorization, the police department released Michael Doe's arrest report to the Housing Authority which then publicly disseminated the confidential information and issued a unilateral and unequivocal notice of termination to the teenager's entire family.

The family is still battling the eviction -- and the Housing Authority has given them no opportunity to dispute the accuracy or the relevance of the police report.

The Housing Authority maintains over 3,000 units; since January 1996, when President Clinton announced his "One Strike, You're Out" policy for public housing, more than 100 eviction actions have been initiated on the basis of police reports. "The Housing Authority makes no distinction between police reports concerning adults and those concerning minors, and indiscriminately relies upon either as the basis for pursuing evictions," said Evans. "Both federal and state law, however, make an important distinction between adult and juvenile records. With limited exceptions, juvenile records may only be released upon permission of a court and must be kept confidential," she explained.

"California has long recognized the value of protecting the confidentiality of juvenile records and proceedings," Evans added. "Our juvenile justice system's confidentiality provisions protect young people, unless they are accused of committing serious crimes, from the lifetime stigma associated with arrest and incarceration. The Housing Authority's use of confidential police reports in order to evict families violates minors' privacy rights and makes a mockery of our justice system."

The "One Strike, You're Out" policy takes such a harsh toll that civil liberties advocates and tenant activists have lobbied the Housing Authority to use evictions as a last resort in addressing crime in public housing. "The Housing Authority has its priorities wrong. It has failed to investigate incidents of hate violence by adults yet it seeks to evict an entire family because a teenager has been arrested for selling marijuana. Not only does this violate the law, it violates common sense," said attorney Gen Fujioka of the Asian Law Caucus.

The suit is asking the court to issue an injunction ordering the Housing Authority to immediately stop the illegal dissemination of the juvenile records; to halt any eviction proceedings based on the confidential information; and to provide residents with the required pre-eviction opportunity to dispute the accuracy and relevance of criminal reports.

Several weeks prior to filing this suit, Plaintiffs made an inquiry to the Housing Authority regarding its improper use of confidential juvenile records. The Housing Authority failed to respond to Plaintiffs and has been furnished a copy of Plaintiffs' lawsuit.