Year-round workers such as tractor drivers, leadmen, foremen, etc., are paid from $300 to $600 with housing and utilities furnished. My point is that farmworkers in our valley can and do make earnings comparable to the highest paid in the United States which should attract and hold migrant workers. Our peak requirement will be in May and June with a total of approximately 6,000. HOUSING EXISTING As of January 15, 1964, the Coachella Valley had on-farm housing and Riverside County Housing Authority project housing for It is apparent that the need is for seasonal family housing as with termination of Public Law 78 the supply of single workers will be greatly reduced. Some single-men housing will be converted to family use but this is not an important addition to the family housing supply as a 20-man bunkhouse usually only converts to two-family units and the expense of additional kitchens and bathrooms is great. The most dependable worker is usually the family man and in many crops the wife also can work. Children are not used in farmwork here as a vegetable harvest comes during school months and California requires school attendance. I am convinced that good family housing in this area will hold seasonal workers for longer periods and reduce migrancy. Children will be kept in schools longer and we will be a long step on the road to elimination of farmworker migrancy. HOUSING PLANS The Riverside County Housing Authority now operates an old-housing project with a capacity of 229 families and with a 98-percent annual occupancy rate. It is highly successful but very limited. They are endeavoring to obtain a loan with which to rehabilitate the project and add 100 new units. The Coachella Valley Farmers Association would like to erect a 200-family unit project but have been unable to arrange financing largely because farm labor housing projects are an untrod field. SENATE BILL NO. 2468, SPARKMAN Section 518 of Senator Sparkman's bill makes it possible for a farmer group to erect a central, family housing project for seasonal farmworkers. By building housing at a central point greater occupancy is assured, the workers would not have to move from farm to farm as the job terminated and greater continuity of employment can be attained. PAGE 58 (B) This section strikes out of section 514(a) of the Housing Act of 1949 "any State or political subdivision." It is my studied opinion that county housing authorities should be included in the bill as they are set up in a manner that makes possible good management, maintenance, and service to the users and the public. Such bodies should be aided and encouraged to take on the job of housing seasonal farmworkers. BENEFITS The benefits would be great: (a) A large number of desirable families would be withdrawn from the migrant stream and their lives stabilized. (b) Children of migrants would go to school regularly. (c) Health conditions among migrants would be greatly improved. (d) Workers living in central locations could be dispatched from job to job without delay, assuring steady employment and steady income, which means a higher scale of living. (e) Farmers would have some assurance of a dependable work force. OPINION It is my studied opinion, based on a lifetime of experience with farmworkers, that providing good housing for migrant families will alone solve at least 75 percent of the farm labor problem. RECOMMENDATION I respectfully urge that your committee act favorably on Senate bill No. 2468 and also include county housing authorities among those organizations eligible for aid in constructing farmworker housing. Hon. JOHN SPARKMAN, U.S. Senator, Washington, D.C. U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON APROPRIATIONS, April 7, 1964. DEAR JOHN: I am enclosing a statement on the administration's housing legislation which was recently sent to me by the director of the Wisconsin Department of Resource Development. I realize that the hearings your subcommittee held on these measures have long since concluded. However, I hope you will see fit to include this statement in the hearing record. I think it is worthy of publication. Sincerely, WILLIAM PROX MIRE, U.S. Senator. STATEMENT OF FRANK P. ZEIDLER, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT, STATE OF WISCONSIN, ON BILLS S. 2468, S. 2469, AND S. 2475 Members of the Committee on Housing, my name is Frank P. Zeidler. I am presently director of the Department of Resource Development of the State of Wisconsin and have been since appointed by Gov. John W. Reynolds at the commencement of his term of office. I have been a municipal consultant and for 12 years, from 1948 to 1960, mayor of Milwaukee, Wis. The department of resource development is responsible by law for a variety of State functions, including the responsibility of aiding and assisting community urban renewal programs, aiding and assisting communities and regions in local planning efforts and the preparation of a statewide plan. Further we must act upon all the urban development which resulted in annexations of land to incorporated areas, consolidations with incorporated areas and incorporations of urban places. Further we must review all plots of land in the State, except those in the city of Milwaukee. I have analyzed the proposed Housing and Community Development Act of 1964; the act creating the Department of Housing and Community Development; and S. 2475, the legislation proposed by President Johnson in his housing message to you. I am particularly happy by the positive way this bill meets the problems that are byproducts of the growth of our Nation. In our dynamic society we tend to have problems that are associated with growth as well as those problems that result from decay. This bill helps meet the problems of our growing society by providing for the meeting of those problems that rapid growth can create and further does not ignore the problems of urban and rural decay which are also the byproducts of growth. Our national housing programs have not always been completely geared to the needs of our communities. This was particularly true during the 1950's when the fear of growth caused curtailment of necessary housing programs. The bill as proposed contains provisions to guide the dynamics of urban growth through the provision of aids which assist the orderly development of new communities and the provision of aids for the orderly development of existing communities. By providing for such development in an orderly manner we can eliminate the hodge-podge type of development that has tended to characterize the outer edges of our metropolitan areas. This bill would enable our cities and those who build in our cities to come up with positive programs of avoiding the urban sprawl, the suburban slum, and the expensive hop, skip, and jump method of development that we tend to encourage by our present procedures. I wish to congratulate President Johnson and the HHFA for the imagination and the courage displayed in making this proposal and I wish to earnestly request your endorsement of it. At the same time I wish to recommend that in the provisions for aiding urban growth there be provision for the HHFA to engage in consultation with State agencies before any plans for land development outside of existing urban places and loans for land development inside urban places take place. The approval by the State agency is a necessity where a State such as ours has a positive planning function. I think it is important that the interest of the States be taken into account. If there be loans for land development in accordance with the proposed title X, then the interest on the future locality, as represented by the grantor of its powers, the State, should be provided for. Secondly, if a State has a function in connection with land development or the creation of urban areas (as does ours), the State agency must be consulted at an early date rather than be presented with an already accomplished fact. This early consultation should be required and not be merely pro forma. I would therefore earnestly suggest that you include provisions for consultation and approval by the applicable State agencies in any legislation on land development that you enact. I am pleased to see the housing program for low-income families extended, and particularly as such program relates to the relocation of families displaced by urban renewal. Relocation, despite the intense efforts of both the Urban Renewal Administration and the local public agencies, is not easily accomplished. Unless relocation takes place in an even more positive manner and it results in a recognizable positive experience to those families, individuals, and businesses who must relocate the entire urban renewal program, which is so necessary to our cities, will be harmed. I am very pleased to see that there has been recognition of this problem in some of the proposals before you. I would like to suggest that the definition of family for purposes of defining those eligible for relocation benefits, include all single persons who are displaced, regardless as to their age, tenure, etc. Finally, I am pleased to see the extension of the insurance principle to the financing of rural housing loans. I would like to suggest that in rural housing program it be made clear that rural families are entitled to such loans and grants as necessary and provided for by statute so that the lowest income rural families can be eligible for rural housing benefits just as the lowest income urban families are eligible for public housing benefits. A combination of insured housing loans which have shown themselves to be so useful in urban areas plus grants will be especially useful in rural areas. In conclusion, I wish to endorse the establishment of a Department of Housing and Community Development. It is my hope that such a department would service not only those of our cities that presently exist, but prevent future problems in the urban areas of Wisconsin and the rest of the Nation. LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS WASHINGTON OFFICE, THE AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION, Hon. JOHN J. SPARKMAN, House Banking and Currency Committee, DEAR SENATOR SPARKMAN: This communication is in connection with the recent hearings of the Senate Banking and Currency Subcommittee on Housing. At these hearings one of the bills before your committee was S. 2566, introduced by Senator Tower. At the time of the hearings the American Bankers Association had not had an opportunity to study this measure. The association's mortgage finance committee meets before the middle of March and at that time expects to study Senator Tower's proposal. The American Bankers Association hopes to submit its views on S. 2566 following its March meeting. Sincerely yours, CHARLES R. MCNEILL. UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF MAYORS, Mr. CARL COAN, Staff Director, Subcommittee on Housing, DEAR CARL: The enclosed letter to me from Charles Farris, of St. Louis, is, I believe, self-explanatory. I have reviewed the amendments suggested by Farris and commend them to you. I hope the subcommittee will give them favorable consideration when it marks up the Community Development Act of 1964. With best regards. HUGH MIELDS, Jr., Associate Director. Mr. HUGH MIELDS, ST. LOUIS HOUSING AUTHORITY, LAND CLEARANCE FOR REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, United States Conference of Mayors, DEAR HUGH: I believe you will be interested in the following suggestions for certain changes in H.R. 9751, the administration housing bill. These suggestions, in my opinion, would be helpful to municipalities, local housing authorities, and to the PHA, as well as to certain individuals for whom the housing program should be designed. Section 401 of the proposed legislation (H.R. 9751) does not appear to go far enough in that it excludes from the definition of "families" those single persons who are neither elderly, displaced, or remaining members of tenants' families. There is a need to serve single persons which could be met by inclusion of the additional category suggested above. Section 405 appears to be the administration's view of what might be possible and feasible politically at this time. It provides for 35,000 new units, 15,000 rehabilitated units and 10,000 leased units for a yearly total of 60,000. This is to take care of the administration's own total of approximately 13% million families and will certainly appear to be a minimum rather than a really necessary amount in order to attack the housing conditions as they exist for the large number of low-income families in the United States. Section 407 does not appear to make it absolutely clear that the relocation payments would be excluded from the computation of the total development costs and limitations on such costs. These should definitely be excluded from total development costs in order to avoid an additional burden to housing authorities. The relocation payments certainly are needed and should be included in the administration's proposal. It has also been suggested that, if we are not able to go that far and if the Congress would not accept the foregoing as its intention with respect to relocation payments, then section 407 should be amended as proposed on the attached sheet, item (d). This is at the bottom of page 43 and top of page 44 H.R. 9751. Attached to this letter are proposed amendments to H.R. 9751 which should take care of certain items which may cause problems in present operations, as well as at future times. These amendments should all be inserted between lines 13 and 14 on page 42 of H.R. 9751, between the items "Increase in Authorization for Annual Contributions" and "Relocation of Families and Individuals Displaced from Project Sites," except for the addition of "(a)" on line 6 after "Sec. 405." You can see that the above will provide for retroactive repeal of the old section 10(j) provisions in existing contracts and will also avoid any form of repayment as provided by section 10(1) from creeping back in. In addition to the above, I believe you can see the administrative detail which would be eliminated by the amendment in (b) and also the advantage to local communities in cases in which they could receive credit for services, as well as cash or tax remission in the instances provided for by section 10(h). There are two other items with respect to housing for low-income families. There should be some legislative history to provide that the annual contributions authorizations by a revolving fund with respect to leased units, or purchased and rehabilitated units in those cases where the period of use is less than 40 years. In addition, on reuse projects either leased or purchased, the subsidy should be available to subsidize operations as well as debt service. I will be in Washington at the end of this week and the early part of next week for the National Housing Conference meetings and if you have any questions regarding any of the above, I would be very happy to talk to you about them. Sincerely, C. L. FARRIS, Executive Director. PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO H.R. 9751 In line 6 on page 42 add “(a)" immediately after the figure “405." "(b) Section 10(h) of the United States Housing Act of 1937 is amended by striking therefrom the entire first proviso, by deleting the word "further" from the second proviso, by deleting the words "cash or tax remission" and inserting in lieu thereof the words "cash, tax remission or services," by deleting the words "the greater of (i)", by deleting the words "or (ii) 20 percentum of the annual contributions paid by the Authority (but not in excess of the taxes levied"), and by deleting from the last sentence thereof the words "Housing Act of 1954" and inserting in lieu thereof the words "Housing and Community Development Act of 1964." "(c) Section 10(1) is deleted and the following is inserted in lieu thereof: "(1) Notwithstanding any provision of any contract or other arrangement with any public housing agency made either pursuant to any provision of law in effect at the time such contract or arrangement was entered into, or otherwise, the Authority shall waive (without any amendment to the contract for annual contributions or to the cooperation agreement between the governing body of the locality and the public housing agency, or other arrangement in lieu of such a cooperation agreement) any right it may have to all or any portion of the residual receipts of any public housing agency with respect to any project after payment in full of all obligations of the public housing agency in connection with such project for which any annual contributions are pledged except such residual receipts as may be otherwise additionally pledged for any obligations due to the Authority." "(d) Delete the comma after the word "Act" in the seventh line of paragraph "8" of Section 407 and substitute in lieu thereof a period, and strike the remaining portion of that sentence." UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF MAYORS, Hon. JOHN J. SPARKMAN, Chairman, Subcommittee on Housing, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: For inclusion in the record of the subcommittee's hearings on housing and urban renewal legislation, the United States Conference of Mayors submits herewith a copy of a report-"Urban Renewal and the Local Business Community"-and a mail poll of mayors of cities with populations of 30,000 and over. The report, which records responses to a conference questionnaire about attitudes of local chambers of commerce to application of the Federal urban renewal program in their communities, is intended to supplement testimony before your subcommittee February 25 by Mayor Raymond R. Tucker of St. Louis, president of the conference. Sincerely, JOHN J. GUNTHER, |