The Republican mayoral candidate got hammered for his ties to White by some of the 100 people who gathered in a vacant warehouse to hear the mayoral candidates speak.

Many in the audience appeared to hold White, former chief of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, responsible for the abuses in the Section 8 housing program in the city. They said they believed Section 8 had damaged Grays Ferry by giving subsidized housing to drug users and other unfit tenants who did not maintain their homes.

When Katz said that "for far too many neighborhoods it's been an abused program," members of the audience began to shout: "Why? Why?"

Others in the audience responded: "John White did it."

An elderly woman told Katz that "everything that Section 8 did here was John White's doing."

In case anybody missed the point, former Democratic Councilman Francis Rafferty, a supporter of Democratic mayoral candidate John F. Street, told Katz from the audience that the chief architects of the Section 8 problems in Grays Ferry were White and Mayor Rendell.

"I want to know what John White is going to do with you" after the election, Rafferty said.

Katz responded that he had made no deals with White and that Rafferty knew that.

Rafferty said that if Katz was elected and gave White a job running the PHA or the Redevelopment Authority "then we ought to kiss this neighborhood goodbye."

Katz, who appeared slightly taken aback by the criticism of his new ally, assured the audience that "I'm going to be the mayor, not John White."

In fact, Katz and Street, who spoke after him, didn't appear to have any real difference of opinion about the Section 8 issue. .

There was, however, some difference in emphasis.

Katz attributed the problem to unfit tenants and to landlords who abuse the program.

Street appeared to lay the blame primarily on bad landlords.

"I do not intend as mayor of this city to have hardworking people leave because of some bad landlord who does not do what's right," Street said.

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