Paul Arena, director of legislative affairs for the Illinois Rental Property Owners Association, explained why they are against the legislation: "Section 8 is designed to be a voluntary program. This bill requires that you sign a lease with the Housing Authority. That's their lease and is non-negotiable and that lease has provisions in it that we oppose."
This bill is a total perversion of the original intent of the Section 8 program. The underlying philosophy of this bill is to foist the solution to the housing problem onto the private apartment building owners. Not many people know the history of Section 8, which was designed in the 1980’s to encourage developers to include some low income tenants into their rental pool– not to threaten them with stopping their projects unless they did such and such. Barickman and the owners groups are right to fight this bad bill.
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Barickman is absolutely correct.
This bill is a total perversion of the original intent of the Section 8 program. The underlying philosophy of this bill is to foist the solution to the housing problem onto the private apartment building owners. Not many people know the history of Section 8, which was designed in the 1980’s to encourage developers to include some low income tenants into their rental pool– not to threaten them with stopping their projects unless they did such and such. Barickman and the owners groups are right to fight this bad bill.