Final rule on smoking ban in public housing units announced

The Obama administration issued a final rule on banning smoking in all public housing units nationwide, announced Wednesday.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule covers the prohibition of smoking any lit tobacco products like cigars, cigarettes, and pipes, in indoor areas of public housing complexes as well as in public housing administrative offices and outdoor areas within 25 feet away from buildings.

According to The New York Times, officials said that the rule will give public housing agencies 18 months to bring their buildings into compliance and will affect 1.2 million households in the process. Though some 200,000 homes already come under smoking bans adopted voluntarily by hundreds of public housing agencies around the country.

The New York Housing Authority, the largest housing agency in the United States, has lagged many of its housing counterparts in adopting the smoke-free policies. While the HUD was sweeping the proposed prohibition a year ago, New York Housing Authority are already poking the public housing authorities to adopt such policies since 2009.

In a statement issued by the New York agency, "we are fully committed to providing an environment that promotes resident health as a part of our vision of safe, clean and connected communities."

Anti-smoking advocates consider smoke-free housing the latest major front in the long-running campaign to curb exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.

Per NPR, the Secretary of HUD, Julian Castro, also stated that "Every child has the right to grow up in a safe and healthy home free from harmful secondhand smoke." Castro also added, "HUD's smoke-free rule reflects our commitment to using housing as a platform to create healthy communities. By working collaboratively with public agencies, HUD's rule will create a healthier home for all of our families and prevent devastating and costly smoking-related fires."

In line with these, health officials said that significant amount of smoke could be transferred between apartments and that alternatives such as improving ventilation, cannot eliminate the ills of secondhand smoke causing or aggravating conditions like asthma and lung cancer.

Children are the most vulnerable to these conditions and 760,000 of them are living in the public housings.

"Housing and Urban Development rule will save public housing agencies USD 135 million every year in repairs and preventable fires, including USD 94 million in secondhand smoke-related health care, USD 43 million in renovations of smoking-permitted units, and USD 16 million in smoking-related fire loses," an official said.

However, questions remained about the enforcement of the policy.
According to HUD, it was leaving it up to the individual public housing authorities to use lease enforcement actions to make sure tenants don't smoke in the buildings and suggested a graduated enforcement approach that includes escalating warnings with documentation to the tenant file. Decisions will remain at the discretion of each public housing authority.

Secretary Julian Castro also added that he was confident in the incoming Trump administration would not have a problem with the ban because "the public health benefit to this policy is so tremendous, and the residents' support for going smoke-free is also tremendous out there, that this rule will stick."