A couple weeks ago I emailed Mayor Law objecting to an ordinance like the one mentioned in “City Ordinance Designed to Protect Section 8 Tenants From Eviction” (Nov. 11), because I suggested the so called ‘eviction’ of some 70 Section 8 families were not evictions at all, but rather the termination of their yearly leases by the apartment complexes (landlords), which has always been the right of either the tenant and/or landlord. Perhaps, actual evictions did occur if the tenants did not vacate their apartment at the end of the lease.

But the important issue here is why were the leases of the Section 8 families not renewed? No reasons were given by the city. Normally a landlord would bend over backwards to sign up a tenant who brought with them a significant monthly rent subsidy from the government. And what landlord would not want to renew a lease if the tenancy had been satisfactory?

At least that’s what my partner and I thought during the 80s when we rented one of our several rental houses to a single male on Section 8. What I recall were never-ending demands and the mess we found after he moved out. We did not consider a Section 8 tenant again.

This ordinance will do nothing more than result in more scrutiny when comparing Section 8 and other rental applications in order to find the ‘most qualified’ tenants, as well as alert landlords around the city to an apparent problem with Section 8 recipients.

AJ Notch,

Renton