'I'm a loner. If i'd had friends around, the drug dealers wouldn't have tried to turn my flat into a crack den'

"He was grabbing at my clothes and trying to drag me round the corner so nobody would see him. He punched me several times.

"I had to give him some money and just run for my life. I was saying, 'Please help me, please call the police, he's going to kill me.'"

Shawn Stephenson* was attacked on the doorstep of his home, a home he'd got after almost a year in a hostel. His attacker, a man whom police suspect is a major player in the south London drugs scene, had wanted to use Stephenson's Brixton flat to store drugs or stolen goods and Stephenson had refused.

His experience illustrates the misery crack dealers can bring to the residents and staff of supported-housing projects. Many dealers find a vulnerable resident – a lone woman, a former rough sleeper trying to settle into a new area, a person with mental health problems or an ex-drug addict – and prey on them.

But the end to the story shows the tools housing organisations can use to nip a potential crack den in the bud. Stephenson's story has a happy ending because of swift action by landlord London & Quadrant Housing Trust, the police, Stephenson's neighbours and Thames Reach Bondway, the charity that provides support in the block where Stephenson lives. Four years ago, Thames Reach Bondway had never dealt with a crack house; but crack has become cheaper and more widely available and the charity has had to deal with three crack houses in four years.

This time, the problem began in the flat of another resident, Pete Hart*. Hart is a former rough sleeper and ex-heroin addict who had been taking methadone for several years and who moved into the block from a shared house but didn't know anyone in the area. His support worker tried to get him to go to coffee mornings where he could make friends but he did not. Instead, he was befriended by a local woman who introduced him to her friends – already known to police as drug users.

Soon, between 20 and 30 people a night were tramping in and out of Hart's flat. They shouted and screamed outside to get him to answer the door, rang the neighbours' doorbells or bundled through the communal door when other residents went in. They stamped up and down the stairs and across Hart's floor from sunset till sunrise. Car windows were smashed. There were fights on the stairs and people smoking crack in the stairwell; locked letterboxes were broken into and giros were stolen. Women thought to be prostitutes were seen in the building. A man with a suitcase was seen several times going into the building and quickly leaving. A car would pull up, the occupant would go in and come out soon after.

Then one day, Hart was badly beaten with a baseball bat. The support workers suspect he told the drug users to leave his flat and then suffered when they took it badly; Stephenson, his neighbour, believes rival dealers had come to rob the flat and that Hart was caught in the middle.

Before Hart's beating, one of the dealers had befriended Stephenson, although he says he didn't know the man was a dealer at the time. "It seemed like they wanted to be friends with me," Stephenson recalls. "They would invite me in, smoke some cannabis, have a drink.

"Looking back, they were trying to persuade me. I'm a loner. If I had genuine friends always around, knocking on my door, they wouldn't have taken that chance."

After Hart was attacked, the drug dealer asked Stephenson to distribute his phone number to potential customers. "I thought if I did him a favour, he would lay off but it made it worse," he says. The dealer asked Stephenson to store things for him, which Stephenson says could only have been drugs or stolen goods. He thought of what happened to Hart and refused.

It seemed like they wanted to be friends with me. They’d invite me in, smoke some cannabis, have a drink. Looking back, they were trying to persuade me 

Shawn Stephenson

Then trouble began for Stephenson. Things were thrown at his window and people kicked his front door in the middle of the night but, when he went to look, there was no one there. "I'll bust you up, I'll pay someone to get you," the dealer threatened over the phone.

Frightened, Stephenson left his flat. Several days later, he arranged to meet his tenancy sustainment officer, Sarah McCarthy*, at the flat to collect his belongings in preparation for a move to a new home, but strangers were already living there and he was attacked by the dealer outside the building while on the phone.

After Stephenson ran from his flat, the drug users moved back to Hart's. The other residents, who all used to be rough sleepers too, were at the end of their tethers.

Downstairs, Bob Carson's* flat was broken into several months after the drug users moved into Hart's flat. He suspects they were behind the burglary. "I was worried about leaving the house in case I got burgled again. It played on my mind," he says.

Dave Jenkins*, who lives directly below Hart's flat, says he has barely had a month's worth of proper sleep in the six months he's lived there because of the noise from upstairs. Jenkins, who doesn't come across as a man to tangle with, went upstairs to complain, but got nowhere. "There's no point going up again," he fumes. "It's mob-handed up there, three or four people. If I go up on my own, it could get nasty. Some nights they go on all night and into the next day. It's relentless. Cars pulling up. All these people in and out. It's a crack house, it has to be."

Support staff, too, feel threatened. Now, the tenancy sustainment and drugs workers visit in pairs, or try to meet clients off the premises in a public place. They don't go into a flat if a resident has company and if they feel worried about doing something, they don't have to do it. It's also a strain for them to see their clients being manipulated and they wish they could solve the problem; and of course, they have to support everyone in the block, including Hart.

Some residents blame him, but support workers say that he is part-perpetrator and part-victim. McCarthy says: "He's a vulnerable guy and they've preyed on him. It's pretty hard for him to say no, now. He has split loyalties. He wants to help, but it would upset these guys."

Thames Reach Bondway and L&Q acted quickly. Stephenson and his support worker went to the police to report what they knew; the police wrote to the clearing house that rehouses former rough sleepers to say Stephenson should be a priority for a new flat away from Brixton. Stephenson's old flat was boarded up about a fortnight after he left.

The police then homed in on Hart's flat while the local beat officer, police sergeant and L&Q staff visited residents to reassure them and get their views. L&Q got an emergency notice seeking possession and began putting a case together.

The problem with many of these cases is gathering the evidence. While the flat shows all the signs of being used as a crack house, there has been no police raid. So instead of presenting a drugs case, L&Q is going for suspended possession on the basis that Hart has breached his tenancy because of the extreme levels of noise from the flat.

Of course, residents are nervous about giving evidence for fear that they, like Hart and Stephenson, will get beaten up if the case is unsuccessful. So they have been asked to keep diaries of the disturbances in the flat, or to report them to their support workers – they were encouraged to report incidents to the police so a log could be built up.

He’s a vulnerable guy and they preyed on him. It’s hard for him to say no

Tenancy sustainment officer

The police also increased their presence in the area and paid ad hoc visits to the flats. "It was important for tenants to meet the police and see the problem was being taken seriously and that they could contact them," says Anna Ramirez*, who works for L&Q's supported-housing arm.

Landlords fight back
L&Q is opting for suspended possession but there are other tools available to landlords dealing with crack houses.

Support providers can begin by working with residents to help them put an end to the crack house, as they did with Stephenson. They could get the resident to sign an acceptable behaviour contract. They could take out an injunction banning the resident from having more than one visitor at a time or having a particular visitor. They can take out an antisocial behaviour order, get suspended possession or evict the tenant.

Naturally, each option has its advantages and disadvantages. "ASBOs are quite time-consuming," says sergeant Toby McDaniel, who covers Brixton. "We normally try to get a fast response by going to visit. [Stephenson] was the victim. He was vulnerable and people took over. If the tenant was involved in criminal activity, we would want them evicted and convicted."

The newest weapon is the closure order, part of the 2003 Antisocial Behaviour Act, which allows police to close a suspected crack house within 48 hours and keep it closed for up to six months. It also allows the court to specify who can enter the house.

Christine Steele, a housing management litigation specialist at legal firm Trowers & Hamlins, says this law can be a temporary remedy while the housing organisation gets a possession or suspended possession order. It is fast and avoids the need for getting an ASBO or injunction on every visitor to a crack house, she adds (see "Legal Tools", below).

There is a police protocol that landlords sign up to so they can share information with the police on tenants when making cases for possession, but it didn't work too well in Brixton, says Ramirez. "We have a police protocol with Lambeth but it took four to six weeks to get information back. The expectation is that they respond in 10 working days because you need the information fast."

But reclaiming a crack den takes more than legal know-how. Housing organisations have to act fast before dealers get a stronghold over the tenant and become harder to dislodge. Stephenson's flat was secured at the first opportunity. "If L&Q hadn't responded quickly and taken it seriously we would have had drug dealing in Stephenson's flat intensively," says McCarthy.

The need for speed
She recalls a case at another association where the landlord was slow to take action. The dealers turned the place into a fortress, with cameras monitoring the corridors and a steel security gate on the flat's doors. The crack den was only shut down after a bust in which police officers abseiled down from the roof, entered through each window and blow-torched off the security door.

Relationships are also key: there must be trust between the association, support provider, police, residents and victims. In the past, relationships between landlords and support providers could be tense. Landlords pushed for eviction while support providers tried to help people change and stay in their homes. In Brixton, it helped a lot that Thames Reach Bondway and L&Q could see each other's point of view.

And one of the most important things is to win the trust of residents, including the victims and, if possible, any tenants who are perpetrators. "You have to have a good relationship with them, have regular contact so that they know who you are and they share things with you. Then you are easily alerted when things go wrong," McCarthy says.

Housing organisations need residents to trust them enough to provide evidence and to believe that something is being done even though the legal process takes time. If housing organisations can help people like Hart to shut down the crack house without eviction – and also help them to change their ways – so much the better. That way, the problem will not move with them to another neighbourhood.