Mayoral candidates' forum becomes tempest in the Crystal Tea Room

WHAT SHOULD Philadelphia do to locate deadbeat owners of vacant houses when so many people are in need of housing?

Mayoral candidate T. Milton Street said he wouldn't bother looking for missing owners.

"I'd move somebody in those houses and let the owners find me," said the former state senator and onetime squatter-movement leader. "I've done it. It works."

It was a response to one question asked near the end of a mayoral candidates forum sponsored by the Philadelphia Council for Community Advancement at the Crystal Tea Room yesterday.

But with that one question, the civility present for more than 90 minutes not-so-quietly left the room.

When state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams said he would first give owners notice to protect the rights of people who eventually took over the houses, Street interrupted:

"That's not true! Tell the truth!"

"Let me finish," Williams snapped back. "This is not a joke!"

"Tell the truth!" Street insisted. "Don't lie! "

Moderator Rosemary Connors, the NBC10 news anchor, managed to get things under control.

For nearly two hours, the candidates answered questions about what to do with a huge backlog of people waiting for Philadelphia Housing Authority housing.

Nelson Diaz, a former judge and HUD solicitor, said he would create a housing czar who would be responsible for all the housing agencies in the city.

Williams said: "We have to scream at Washington, D.C., 'You've cut [housing] to the bone.' The bottom line is we need to stand up and say we're going to take our government back, as some say, and we're going to demand that America and Philadelphia deserve affordable housing."

Added Doug Oliver: "No matter how much money is spent, federal money, state money, local money, until we address the [poverty] problem, we're always going to be trying to solve this problem of needing affordable housing."

"We have to start with education and jobs," Oliver said.

Former District Attorney Lynne Abraham said a positive point is that, in Philadelphia, like "cities all over the country, people are beginning to want to live in cities." But the question is, "How can we manufacture homes at a more affordable price?"

Street added: "High real-estate taxes are not an accident. It's a plan to move people out of areas in North Philadelphia and South Philadelphia."

Melissa Murray Bailey, the lone Republican among the mayoral candidates, said the problem is that "affordable" housing is housing that costs about $125,000.

"We need to look at how to raise the income level of people. That needs to be our our No. 1 priority," Bailey said.

In response to a question about streamlining the process for development, Bailey said the city needs to deal with corruption.

She said she knows of a woman who went to the Department of Licenses and Inspections and was asked by staffers: "Do you know someone who can help you expedite this?"

She said the woman then paid $500 and got the permit she needed.

"As mayor I would put a stop to this corruption," Bailey said.

When Street also made a comment that some City Council members have turned their jobs into businesses, Kenney responded:

"I've known members of Council for more than 20 years, and they are good people. They are not corrupt, no matter what anybody out there wants to say. They want what's best for their neighborhoods. That's why they've been elected."