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Community activist lost her voice, now loses her home

Six years after her son's drug arrest in Robles Park, the former WMNF-FM 88.5 talk show host is forced from her public housing unit.

By TOM ZUCCO
Published May 23, 2005

TAMPA - Two Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies arrived at the Robles Park public housing complex at 7:30 Monday morning and taped an eviction notice to the door of Apartment 147.

After 15 years of living there, Connie Burton and her 6-year-old granddaughter had 48 hours to pack their belongings and get out.

Burton made sure there was nothing she could do to get the order reversed, then scrambled to rent a U-Haul trailer and fill it with everything she thought she would need. "I had to throw a lot of stuff away," she said Thursday, "but I took as much as I could."

Burton, 49, borrowed a friend's Chevy Impala, hooked the trailer to the back, and left after dark Tuesday.

In less than four months, one of the Tampa Bay area's most visible community activists had lost her voice and her home.

"I don't want people to have sympathy for me," Burton said Thursday. "I'm looking for justice."

A member of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, Burton made headlines in January when her controversial radio show on WMNF-FM 88.5 was canceled after station officials said it was a vehicle for the Uhuru movement and contained what many considered hate speech and racial stereotyping.

"I was able to use WMNF as a vehicle to shed light on what was happening to poor people," Burton countered. "You shut that down, and who is the voice for the poor?"

And then there was the loss of unit No. 147.

The Tampa Housing Authority won the right to evict Burton last month, the final act in a six-year legal battle that began after Burton's son, Narada, was arrested at the complex and charged with marijuana possession. Under the federal government's one-strike law, public housing tenants can be evicted if anyone on their lease is arrested.

Burton said her son was not living with her and that she did not condone his drug use. She said the authority, which spent $300,000 on her eviction case, was retaliating against her because of outspoken criticism of the agency, a charge housing authority officials denied.

For now, Burton and her granddaughter are staying with friends until she can find something else. But technically, she said, they are homeless.

And the prospects appear dim. Burton said she doesn't receive public assistance. Her only income comes from temporary jobs. Her son, she said, is in the Orient Road Jail and won't be released anytime soon.

Because her eviction makes it unlikely she can rent at another public housing project, she has turned to finding private housing.

But rent in even the poorest neighborhoods, she said, is $800 a month.

"I make no apologies," Burton said. "Nor do I support or condone my son's behavior.

"But because of the rules of public housing, we are forced to abandon people who find themselves in a crisis. People reached out to Gov. Bush when his daughter, Noelle, had problems with drugs."

Even little things Burton took for granted are a problem now. She had to get her driver's license renewed Thursday. When the clerk asked for her address, she had to think. She couldn't use her old address.

"So I gave him 5100 N Nebraska Ave.," she said. "It's a social service agency that allows people to pick up their mail there."

Perhaps most difficult was explaining the move to Nygeria, her granddaughter.

"She asked me where we were going to live," Burton said. "What about her friends. She's been at Robles Park since she was 3 weeks old.

"I told her the truth, and she understands as well as a young girl can. Regardless of where we live, we have each other."

[Last modified May 23, 2005, 01:23:18]