By Elizabeth Carpenter, RHAGP President
The path to neutrality.
As President of the Rental Housing Association of Greater Portland (RHAGP), I’d like to express
my appreciation to Tina Kotek, Speaker of the House, for joining us at the April 17th dinner meeting.
The hot topic of discussion was House Bill 2639, known as the Housing Choice or the Section 8 bill.
In the April 15, 2013 press release from the Rental Housing Association of Greater Portland, we announced our neutrality regarding HB2639. This may be a surprise to some of our members. We are not saying we support making Section 8 mandatory. Section 8 is currently a voluntary, federally subsidized program, and it should remain a choice to participate or not.
But what does ‘mandatory Section 8’ really mean? In the context of HB2639, mandatory means: