Table 3. Most Common Reasons for Initiating a Smoke-Free Policy, Study on Development Process of Adopting Smoke-Free Policies, 23 PHAs in North Carolina and Georgia, 2016.

Theme	Illustrative Quote
Cost of turning a unit	. . . [B]y the time we get in there it’s brown. And we’ve had to replace all the drywall and everything because putting KILZ on it, the tobacco seeps straight back through. So it’s insane. . . . I mean, if you were to just paint it without putting the KILZ on the paint . . . the labor for that is $600. So to put KILZ on you can pretty much double [the cost of the] paint job. And if you have to take down drywall you can pretty much triple it. Not only that, but if you have to take out the tile, you never know. (Nonconventional PHA representative, Georgia)
Health concerns for residents and staff	When I have maintenance people that go in these apartments and work 8 hours a day, you know, in and out, and sometimes a job might take 30 minutes or an hour inside an apartment, so these guys, in our case, we have 2 guys . . . walk in the apartments, and they do their job for 8 hours a day, they go home smelling like they've smoked a pack of cigarettes, and their lungs probably feel like they smoked a pack of cigarettes. Neither one of them smoke, their families don't smoke, and I don't smoke. None of my staff smokes, but when I would go into an apartment just to have something signed, I'd smell like smoke the rest of the day. And so, you know, secondhand smoke, I've always read and heard that it's even worse on a person than a smoker, because your lungs are not used to all that tar and nicotine and it's not already corroded, so they absorb a lot quicker, your lungs do. And so, I mean, I just didn't feel like it’s fair to ask our people to go inside these apartments and do work, if they didn't smoke and didn't want to be around smoking, but yet their job tells them you got to, you know? (Nonconventional PHA representative, Georgia)
HUD guidance	We had already had some discussions, you know, about the smoke free and then HUD came out with recommending that housing authorities move in that direction. We took some time. You know, like I said, it took a few years to make a decision to go ahead, so probably had HUD not recommended it, it may not have come as soon as it did, you know? (Conventional PHA representative, North Carolina)
Concerns about fire	We've had several issues with smokers who fell asleep, caught stuff on fire. It's a huge safety thing. Health-wise, I think it's smart to not do it. If you want to smoke, you can go elsewhere. You don't need to be around other people, and safety-wise, take it out in the open air over, you know, over across the parking lot, because I don't want you falling asleep and hurting anybody else. I think it's a smart thing. I think in the long run it will help save money and save lives, and I think it's, it's about time that HUD rules caught up with the direction stuff is going. I mean, restaurants implemented it years ago, so this is — this is just keeping up with the times and the whole effort to be healthy. So I think it's a good thing, and I think it's pretty neat that we were ahead of that and already converting our properties to a nonsmoking property. (Nonconventional PHA representative, Georgia)

Abbreviations: HUD, US Department of Housing and Urban Development; PHA, public housing authority.