Some Fort Wayne Housing Authority properites will be smoke-free effective Jan. 1st

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - The Fort Wayne Housing Authority will follow other HUD properties across the country and enforce a smoking ban in and around some of their properties.

Maynard Scales, Fort Wayne Housing Authority Executive Director, said they have been preparing their tenants for this upcoming change since 2009. He said it's a move that's strongly encouraged by HUD and could be especially good news for taxpayers, who help fund the subsidized housing.

"There's significant amount of money in just making sure those units are ready and a great percentage of it is because of the smoking," he said describing the extra money it takes to prepare a unit for lease after a smoker has lived in it.

Some tenants are not happy with the new change coming next year.

"They're basically discriminating against people who are and want to smoke," said Gail Surfus, who lives in a Fort Wayne Housing Authority apartment and is a smoker.

 Housing Authority officials said they will accommodate for smokers by putting up a smoking shelter. The new mandate will require smokers to not smoke in or around their homes.

The ban will go into effect January 2013. Officials say when tenants prepare to resign their lease, there will be a new provision stating all units will be smoke-free. Scales said tenants can either resign or sign a month-to-month lease and find another place to live if they plan to smoke inside their unit.

Surfus said she's not giving up the fight.

"We're hoping to that somehow are another we can put some pressure in areas that need to be and they'll do something different about this," she said.

She has also planned to protest if there's no change.

Scales said this smoking ban does not apply to Section 8 single-family housing. He said they don't have the right to tell a landlord to enforce such a ban on their private property.