Ahead of the Section 8 Ball

by Daniel Brook

In his annual budget address, Mayor Street stepped into the racially charged minefield that is Section 8 housing in Northeast Philadelphia. "Although most [Section 8] tenants are good neighbors, let me be clear," Street intoned. "Irresponsible tenants and landlords will not be allowed to disrupt neighborhoods by failing to maintain their properties or monitor the conduct of their tenants, to the detriment of hardworking, taxpaying homeowners."

Under Section 8, a federal housing subsidy for low-income families, tenants are given rent subsidies to make private housing affordable. In the Northeast, the program has been widely blamed for bringing blight to stable neighborhoods. During the 2002 congressional campaign, the debate spurred allegations of race-baiting as Republican challenger Melissa Brown tried to link incumbent Democrat Joe Hoeffel with the program and with Mayor Street. The Street administration said Brown was playing the race card. Brown's campaign said the issue wasn't about race but about quality of life, claiming Section 8 was being used to house "felons, drug dealers and prostitutes."

On Jan. 29, the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA), which oversees Section 8, hosted a meeting for community leaders from the Northeast. After bounding into the room and shaking every hand in it, PHA director Carl Greene told his audience that Philadelphia would be the first city in the nation to make serious changes to Section 8. The most important change for the Northeasterners assembled was an expedited termination process for disruptive tenants. Greene said PHA had gotten clearance from Washington to institute a seven-year time limit on benefits.

Community leaders said they were eager to get the facts on Section 8. Many acknowledged that whenever a home in their community is ill-maintained, neighbors assume it is a Section 8 house, even though that is not always the case. Terry Devlon of Lawncrest Civic Association said his neighbors would be "shocked as hell" to find out how few Section 8 houses there actually were in the community.

PHA officials shied away from bringing up the chicken-and-egg question. Neighborhoods are only affordable for Section 8 residents when rents are low enough that poor tenants can pay for them with the subsidy. In near Northeast neighborhoods where housing prices are already depressed, Section 8 tenants are often scapegoated for neighborhood decline that started before they even got there.

The advisory group plans to meet monthly in the hopes of improving the Section 8 program and defusing a contentious neighborhood issue.