Also this issue:

End Game
As the 2002 gubernatorial race lurches to a merciful end, here’s a look at where candidates stand on the issues.
-Daryl Gale

Cruz Control
Despite past legal troubles, State Rep. Angel Cruz poses a formidable challenge to his two opponents.
-Daniel Brook

Sweet on Sweet
-Mary F. Patel

Freeze Play
-Daniel Brook

"Rat" Infestation
-Deborah Bolling

Data Interrupted
The man who fought The New York Times over freelancers’ rights talks about archives, money and history.
-Deborah BollingBy Deborah Bolling

The Bell Curve
City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

October 31-November 6, 2002

city beat

The 8-Ball

Playing the Section 8 card in the Hoeffel/Brown race.

by Daniel Brook

Redistricting has brought a slice of Northeast Philadelphia into Congressman Joe Hoeffel’s formerly suburban 13th District. Apparently, Hoeffel’s trailing Republican opponent, Melissa Brown, saw that as an invitation to bring hard-nosed city politics into the race.

Part of Brown's strategy for winning votes in Northeast Philly has been to link Hoeffel with Mayor John Street and the increase in publicly subsidized housing in the Northeast. First in a direct mailing and later in a television ad, the Brown campaign shows a picture of Hoeffel and Street together, and accuses Hoeffel of wanting to bring more Section 8 housing into the Northeast.

Section 8 is a federal program that gives low-income people subsidies to help them pay rent in private housing.

Street spokesman Frank Keel says the mayor "was never a proponent of Section 8. The mayor has encouraged, as has Joe Hoeffel, the changes to Section 8 to increase home ownership."

But for Keel, the fact that the ad is "completely inaccurate is the least of its offenses." Keel says the TV spot and mailing are "trying to be racially divisive," in raising fears of black Section 8 residents moving into white Northeast neighborhoods.

Just showing the black mayor with the white congressman is, in Keel's opinion, race-baiting. "Dragging the mayor into it, from our perspective, is clearly playing the race card," he says.

But Keel doesn't think Northeast Philadelphians will take the bait. "I think it's going to end up blowing up in her face," he says.

Brown campaign spokesman Matt Archibald says, "This is not a racial issue, this is a quality of life issue." While Section 8 is supposed to house the elderly, the disabled and veterans, Archibald says it is being used to house "felons, drug dealers and prostitutes." Archibald says plans by Street and Hoeffel to modify the program to encourage homeownership only make matters worse, expanding the program without fixing its flaws.

Joe Grace, a spokesman for the Hoeffel campaign, deferred to newspaper endorsements of Hoeffel. One Philadelphia paper called the Brown campaign "irresponsibly divisive." Another, in Montgomery County, wrote that Brown "crossed over the line."

But Republican Brian O'Neill, who represents the far Northeast in City Council, thinks the ads are fair and make sense. For one, he says, "the Section 8 program is run by the Housing Authority [and] the Housing Authority is under the mayor." Second of all, says O'Neill, "the perception of people in the lower Northeast, is that Section 8 has been ruining neighborhoods."

As for the picture of Street and Hoeffel, it's not racial -- it's political. "If you think that the mayor is unpopular, you use him," says O'Neill. "It's pure politics."