[Peace] Champaign Council to Consider Repeal of Section 8 Discrimination Protections Tuesday

[Jenifer Cartwright]

This is BAD. I can't attend this meeting and hope nothing gets decided tonight.
   
  Jenifer
Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com> wrote:
  
This is an issue that many members of these lists have spoken up about in the past. I would particularly encourage Champaign residents to attend this meeting tomorrow. Note that in the article below, Esther Patt explains the falseness of the "compromise" that Deb Frank says she intends to propose. Arguably, it would be better that they openly repeal the protection than do so underhandedly as DF proposes; it would lay a better groundwork for restoring the protection in the future. On the other hand, the clarifications proposed by the human rights commission seem quite reasonable: as far as I can tell, they just clarify the status quo under the law, in contradiction to the scare stories spread by some of the landlords and their advocates. 
    Champaign council looking at Section 8 issue again    By Mike Monson   Monday October 8, 2007
  CHAMPAIGN – The city council appears poised to eliminate or significantly weaken a provision in the city's human right's ordinance that prohibits discrimination against people who use the federal Section 8 rent subsidies.
  The council meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday in study session at the Champaign City Building, 102 N. Neil St.
  In March 2006, the city council voted 5-2, with two members absent, to define Section 8 vouchers as a "source of income." The city's human rights ordinance prohibits discrimination based on source of income.
  But in the intervening 18 months, two supporters of Section 8 protections, Giraldo Rosales and Kathy Ennen, have left the city council and been replaced by two more conservative members, Deborah Frank Feinen and Karen Foster.
  Mayor Jerry Schweighart said it now appears that five or six council members favor repealing or weakening Section 8 protections, including himself.
  He said that Congress doesn't require landlords to participate in the Section 8 program and that the city council doesn't need to create a local mandate.
  "We went beyond what federal law says we need to do," Schweighart said.
  No complaints alleging landlord discrimination have been filed with the city's Community Relations office since the protection was enacted, according to a city memo.
  Feinen said that while she opposes discrimination, she can understand that certain landlords might not want to sign a federal contract with the Housing Authority of Champaign County, as well as a tenancy addendum. The federal contract must be signed for the landlord to receive Section 8 payments. In cases where the contract conflicts with a landlord's lease, the federal contract prevails.
  "I'm still concerned about discrimination," Feinen said. "I don't want to send a message discrimination is OK. But my concern involves landlords who don't want to participate. If you completely choose not to participate, I think that should be allowed."
  Feinen said she's working on ordinance language that would make it OK for landlords not to participate in the Section 8 program at all, but otherwise would prohibit discrimination against Section 8 voucher holders.
  Don't bother, says Esther Patt, coordinator of the University of Illinois Tenant Union and one of the primary proponents of Section 8 protections.
  A compromise along the lines of what Feinen is considering would simply be a face-saving way to repeal Section 8 protections, she charged.
  "It gives landlords permission to discriminate," Patt said. "I don't see that it's any different than an outright repeal."
  Section 8 primarily benefits low-income families with children and the disabled, Patt said, and those are the people who will suffer with a council repeal.
  Council member Ken Pirok, a landlord himself, said he'll be among those supporting repeal of Section 8 protections.
  A Section 8 contract "contains a number of provisions that are outside the scope of normal business practices of the industry," he said.
  For example, Pirok said that if a Section 8 tenant moves out in the middle of a lease period, the housing authority is not obligated to pay for the remaining months left on the lease.
  "Getting a tenant in the middle of a lease period isn't easy," he said.
  The city's human rights commission has proposed language to clarify what landlords can and cannot do under the current Section 8 discrimination ban. It specifies that landlords aren't required to keep a unit vacant, or refrain from renting a unit, while waiting for a Section 8 inspection. Landlords also aren't required to perform repairs, lower the amount of rent or damage deposit or change their standards for application approval, so long as the same standards apply to all tenants.
  The city council is scheduled to consider Section 8 issue again at its regular meeting on Oct. 16.
  
---------------------------------
  Find this article at: 
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/2007/10/08/section__issue_resurfaces   
-- 
Robert Naiman

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