If you're a politician in a close election, and you find a hot, visceral issue in a key constituency, you jump on it, right? Not necessarily.

With less than two weeks left, the mayoral campaign has barely tapped the anger that has raged for several years over Section 8 low-income housing in Northeast Philadelphia and other neighborhoods.

"I think this has eclipsed crime as the number one issue in the Northeast," said state Rep. Chris Wogan, R-Philadelphia, in an interview yesterday. "I don't think it's been an issue in the mayor's race, but it should have been."

Wogan and other elected officials have given voice to angry middle- and working-class families who complain of noise, litter, rowdiness and even drug use among Section 8 tenants in their communities. It could be a potent issue for Republican Sam Katz, since fury over Section 8 is rooted in GOP country in the Northeast, and since Democrat John Street was vice chairman of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, which administers the program, for much of the '90s.

But Katz has been reluctant to raise the Section 8 issue, in large measure because it is racially charged. About 85 percent of Section 8 tenants are black, and many of the complaints have come from white neighborhoods.

Also, there's awkwardness in the fact that John F. White Jr., executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority when Section 8 abuses became an issue, has crossed party lines to endorse Katz for mayor.

Ironically, it is Street who has begun talking Section 8 reform.

At an endorsement news conference last week with Democratic ward leaders, state Rep. Michael McGeehan, leader of the 41st ward, praised Street as one who will "see that the program is cleaned up and that the people in the neighborhoods are serviced, because they haven't been."

At the news conference, Street blamed White for problems in the program and said that under Carl Greene, PHA has been making progress.

Wogan said that he thought PHA was doing better but that he could not believe that Street was criticizing PHA's handling of Section 8 in recent years. Street and Mayor Rendell, he notes, held senior PHA board positions for years as things were going very wrong.

"These people just want us to believe Martians came down in the middle of the night, ran the Section 8 program, screwed things up then flew away," Wogan said. "They're all in these problems up their eyeball."

The problems, critics say, include a lack of screening, training and monitoring of tenants, and the approach of moving the poor into private rental housing in stable communities.

Rendell wants to move the Section 8 program toward managed, multi-unit developments as opposed to individual certificates that disperse tenants throughout the city and to make monitoring harder.

Now that Street has opened the subject, Katz has begun to talk about Section 8, saying he supported the efforts of Democratic City Councilman Jim Kenney to improve the program.

"PHA has been lax in not attempting to have its customers exercise some discipline in their daily living," Katz said. "That's why you have trash cans left lying around and dogs running freely. Nobody ever loses a section 8 certificate."

One Democratic leader from the Northeast who asked not to be identified said Street scores points when he talks about the issue.

"He's gotten a visceral, emotional reaction from the crowd. They're surprised and pleased to see those words come out of his mouth," the Democrat said. "But since he's only doing in small groups, I don't know how much it's going to help him."

Asked if his audiences don't blame Street for creating the problem while he was on the PHA board, the leader smiled.

"I don't know that anybody's thinking that fast in these crowds," he said.

Staff writers Mark McDonald and Joseph R. Daughen contributed to this report.