Felicia Frazier said she paid her rent.

Frank O'Leary, the manager of the St. Clair Village public housing community where she lives, said she may have paid, but a month late.

District Judge Gene Ricciardi sat in his courtroom Wednesday, listening to their dueling accounts, and concluded that Ms. Frazier overpaid by $9 -- but since it came in 32 days late, she owed court costs of $119.

Then Judge Ricciardi scratched his head, and asked Mr. O'Leary about the rising number of eviction filings he's seeing by the Pittsburgh Housing Authority. Private landlords, he said, initiate court actions when tenants are two or three months behind with the rent. "Why is the Housing Authority doing it after one month?"

The answer, according to authority officials, rests with a new emphasis on using the courts to enforce rent payment and evict troublemakers. The authority, long considered the housing option of last resort, is filing landlord-tenant actions at a pace 28 percent higher than last year and expects the trend to continue.

This year, said authority Chief Operations Officer Caster D. Binion, "we got direction that we have a zero tolerance policy, and we're enforcing that." That means arrests for drugs or violence generate an immediate eviction filing, as does a one-month lag in the rent.

New leases that will take effect Jan. 1 will tighten the policy further, he said.

In the first half of this year, the authority filed 1,302 landlord-tenant actions -- the precursor to evictions -- versus 1,016 over the same period last year. There has been a slight drop in the number of completed evictions -- 106 in the first half of this year versus 137 for the same period last year -- which Mr. Binion attributes to people leaving their units before the court actions against them are completed.

The increase in filings "bothers me," said George Moses, a local tenant advocate and chairman of the board of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. "Yes, I believe in paying your rent, and paying your rent on time. But the way this economy is, jobs can disappear with a flick of the pen" and that can mean a late payment.

In some cases, the authority's filings are against criminals or people who chronically fail to pay their rent and run up more than $1,000 in arrears. In others, the overdue rent is just $10 or $20, and the authority's filing adds $119 in court costs to the bill.

"I don't understand why I have to pay a court fee," said Ms. Frazier. Judge Ricciardi explained that he doesn't have the power to waive it when the evidence indicates the payment was late.

One St. Clair Village resident, who asked not to be named, was socked with a $119 court fee for a month in which no rent was due. She was between two food service jobs that month, and in public housing today, no income means no rent. She admitted that she failed to fill out paperwork reporting the gap in her employment, saying she didn't know it was required.

"I'm working every day, and I have four kids," including three who live with her, she said. "We shouldn't be taken to court for just a brief delay."

"Some housing authorities are not very aggressive on rent collection," said Mr. Binion. "Our culture is, you pay rent, and if you don't pay rent, you leave."

He noted that federal subsidies cover an ever-decreasing percentage of the authority's costs, making rent payments a more important part of the bottom line.

Authority tenants, including those with Section 8 vouchers that allow them to rent privately owned homes, pay 30 percent of their gross income toward rent and utilities. If they have no income, they pay no rent.

That will change in January, if the authority board approves new lease language recommended by Executive Director A. Fulton Meachem Jr. The new lease includes a minimum rent of $25. If a resident is neither working nor part of the authority's self-sufficiency program that encourages training and job-hunting, the minimum rent will jump to $150.

Mr. Meachem has said the change will drive more people into the program, and some will likely move into the work force.

Mr. Moses said the minimum rent amounts concern him, since public housing has traditionally been a safety net for people who have fallen on hard times. The authority is "seeing themselves as pretty much just a housing provider for folks who can pay the most money," he said.

The lease also gives the authority the ability to boot residents who commit drug or violent crimes within 15 days of the occurrence, rather than the current 30-day time frame. If a resident is deemed an imminent danger to neighbors, the new lease allows an eviction the same day, or immediate termination of Section 8 benefits.

The authority's switch from running its own police department to relying on the city's Police Bureau is having an impact on evictions, Mr. Binion said.

The authority is getting more complete data on the arrests of its residents, whether they occur inside or outside of public housing communities, and is acting on that.

"You will start seeing more evictions," said Mr. Binion.

For some people, that will mean a scramble to pay rent, or find another place to live.

Others "are going to move off welfare and move up to some of the other programs we have, like our home ownership program."