question: How many public housing units is Carlos Sanchez in charge of? answer: 3,500 public housing paragraph: The law was written at a time when public housing complexes were under assault by drug-dealing gangs and politicians were pressured to take action. Families can be removed for drug use by one member, whether the drug activity is in the home or somewhere else. Under the Department of Housing and Urban Development' enforcement program, tenants may not avoid eviction simply by claiming ignorance of the crime or an inability to stop it. Carlos Sanchez, executive director of the Grand Rapids Housing Commission, believes the law can be effective if it's applied with discretion. The commission administers about 3,500 public housing units in the Grand Rapids area, including Creston Plaza. "I think if it's done with caution, it's a tool that we desperately needed in our developments," Sanchez said. Sanchez said Grand Rapids doesn't have the large-scale drug problems larger cities do -- and he wants to keep it that way. "We've done the best we can to keep it from being so drug-infested it becomes a war zone. Once the development is taken over, it's very difficult to take them back." Sanchez said the commission relies on police reports in deciding evictions, which he estimated at one or two a year. Among those cases, according to Leslie Curry, litigation director of Western Michigan Legal Services, was that of a mother evicted from public housing about a year ago with several young children. She was removed because her 17-year-old son was arrested selling drugs outside the apartment, Curry said. That left her with the hardship of seeking a place she could afford for herself and her children, without the certainty she afford the rent. "She didn't know about it," Curry said of the drug deal. "In Grand Rapids, subsidized housing is critical to people's ability to maintain basic security in their lives." 