Housing and Urban Development Proposes Nationwide Smoke- Free Public Housing Units

Department of Housing and Urban Development proposes to ban smoking in public housing across the country as part of their efforts in preventing the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans every year due to tobacco- related issues.

According to washingtonpost.com, HUD's proposal will demand more than 3,100 agencies of public housing to impose a smoking ban for next few years.

HUD official said that agencies should "design policies prohibiting lit tobacco products in all living units, indoor common areas, administrative offices and in all outdoor areas near housing and administrative office buildings."

HUD Secretary Julián Castro also said "We have a responsibility to protect public housing residents from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, especially the elderly and children who suffer from asthma and other respiratory diseases. This proposed rule will help improve the health of more than 760,000 children and help public housing agencies save $153 million every year in healthcare, repairs and preventable fires."

Though there are still no final ruling on the HUD's proposal, their campaign has already started way back 2009 when they "encouraged" the design and implementation of anti- smoking policies. Their campaign resulted to more than 600 public housing agencies going smoke- free which equivalents to more than 228,000 units.

HUD's proposal is brought by good intentions but it faces difficulty from tenants who "resentful of losing control of what they can do in their own homes" and might resist HUD's smoking ban.

Gary Smith, 47, a tenant of Walt Whitman Houses in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, said in an interview with nytimes.com, "What I do in my apartment should be my problem, long as I pay my rent," while holding a cigarette in hand.

New York City Housing Authority or NYCHA is expected to be the agency that will most heavily affected by the prohibition. It is the largest public housing agency with a total of 400,000 tenants in 178,000 apartments and it's currently falling behind in implementing the smoke- free policies.

Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, said "It's a fraught process, because to do it properly you need community buy-in. To do this successfully, it can't be a top-down edict, because you want people to comply with the policy."

What are your thoughts about HUD's proposal of smoke- free public housing units? Sound it in the comments!