onging to these groups. We have reviewed the various solutions that have Deen tried in the past and are currently available. It seems to us that they 'all within three basic groups.

The first of these groups is private charity. One can find scattered across he length and breadth of the land a small number of homes which have been built by donations and subscriptions raised by churches, lodges, fraternal orders, 1 few unions and other such groups. These homes are often quite attractive; some of them are quite old and some of them do not embody the design that we have suggested above. But with a high investment per person served and with nost of the investment being raised by gifts or subscriptions before construction s undertaken, it is not surprising that the number of such housing units availble is very limited.

Incidentally, because the number of units available is limited, these instituions have often been forced to take care of only the most desperately needy of he persons they were intended to serve. As a result the age of admission has een moved up from 65 to 70, 75 and in some cases 80 years of age.

Secondly, medical need has often been added to the requirements so that these nstitutions become loaded with the chronically ill cases. As a result of this, he institutions appear to be very high cost institutions and they appear to be epressing places where everyone lies around in bed and is given nursing care. This often means that the original intent to provide attractive housing to indeendent aged persons is lost from view because there are simply not enough nits to provide everyone with this opportunity and when the opportunities are imited they must almost of necessity be made available only to the most needy. We doubt that very many people will ever be accommodated on a basis of priate charity. This solution does not appear to be one that should be suggested a face of the tremendous growth in numbers of aged persons, and the adverse esponse on the part of both sponsoring groups and even of the individuals erved to the idea of charity. In order to preserve one's independence, one will ften live in squalor which is his own rather than in splendid circumstances hich depend upon the bounty of others.

The second solution we find in general use, although in limited numbers, might e called direct public subsidy. The old county poor farm became as you know argely a home for the aged. Also State hospitals are receiving an increasing umber of admissions of aging persons, especially those deemed senile. This olution is open to very serious criticism on the part of the community genrally and one finds very few such institutions being built these days. The most general complaint is that the only way one can be admitted to such stitutions is by a form of public commitment. This involves a trial or hearing efore a court of competent jurisdiction. It involves admission not only by the ged person himself, but usually also by his family and friends, that he is both competent and that there is no one else in the community who can or will rovide for him. It usually also means that the commitment is for life, that a erson once admitted to such an institution is not likely to be discharged from the stitution. Therefore, aged individuals and their families resist to the last ossible moment placing their senior citizens in such homes. Such institutions Iso involve the use of civil service personnel in the provision of services to the dividuals, and as a result are relatively high-cost housing, regardless of the dequacy of the housing either in number or quality. We do not see this as a esirable solution of housing for the aging.

The third and only attractive solution is, of course, predicated upon a private nterprise type of operation. That is to say, it is housing which is provided n a basis which preserves the economic independence of the aged person. It is n a basis which covers all of the cost through rentals or other payments by or n behalf of the resident of such unit. It is housing which preserves the indeendence of the person in the routines of his daily living. That is to say, it is ousing in which he can decide for himself when he shall get up, how his unit hall be furnished, what he shall eat, when he shall go out and when he shall come , when he shall go to bed, and when he shall stay up.

Te independence and privacy of the aged individual is a precious thing, just s it is for all of us. It ought not to be destroyed by a member of one's family, by one's own church or one's own lodge or one's own community in the misken notion that the only way we can provide decent housing for these persons by taking from them their independence and their privacy. Well, I suppose by this time, gentlemen, you may be wondering how this an be done. We believe that there is contained in section 213 the possibility f doing this under the trust form of organization and this represents, we beeve, the first likely solution of a private enterprise nature. We believe, how

ever, that if the trust form works out successfully that it is possible that specula. tive builders or investment builders may be more willing to experiment with new housing for older persons on a straight investment basis. However, this will probably have to wait upon the successful demonstration of the trust form.

Section 213 of the Federal Housing Act permits the FHA to insure housing for trust corporations to the extent of 90 percent of replacement cost, for a period of 40 years at interest rates up to 41⁄2 percent. We have thought that an individual church, or lodge, or fraternal order, or veterans group might create such a trust and secure a piece of property, and then design, finance, construct, and operate a suitable home for its own senior citizens. However, we find upon study and investigation and from experience that the cost of operating a housing project is quite high if the number of units in the project is small but that the unit cost of operating a rental housing project is fairly low if the number of units runs between 200 and 300.

From the standpoint of the aged residents, if there are only a few residents in the project the likelihood of any particular resident finding another who shares interests in common with him is small. But as the number grows to say, three to five hundred the chances of any persons being lonely among such a group are greatly reduced. Yet the number of persons in the group is small enough that he can know most of them personally and the number is large enough so that he should find among the group persons who share enough things in common with him that he will not be lonely. We have heard testimony privately from managers of homes for aged persons suggesting that even though they had as many as 60 persons in a home these persons were still lonely because they could not find anyone with whom they shared much in common save membership in the same organization. Our own church, which is among the first of the groups in Denver to become interested in this project, needs housing for perhaps 60 persons of the more than 300 aged members of the church. Our own church committee on a home for these senior citizens therefore proposes that other churches similarly in need of suitable housing for some of their older members combine their efforts for a solution to this problem. Our church instructed us therefore to contact and meet with other churches and discuss the possibilities with them of joining with us in an interchurch project. We have felt that this is a far better solution than having any single church build its own housing independ ently. There are a number of reasons. In the first place, the problem of housing the aging is not peculiar to any single group but is common to all groups of this sort within the community. Secondly, we have felt that there was financia! strength to be gained in having a number of such groups interested in the successful operation of such housing and each capable of providing so many tenants that there would be no risk of vacancy or losses from vacancies. But most especially we have felt that while any single large congregation could successfully finance, construct, and operate a home for its own senior citizens, the solution to the problem in Denver would not be transferable under these circumstances. That is to say, we believe that in the smaller communities only through the cooperation of the various societies, lodges, churches, fraternal orders, veterans groups and so on, can we expect to bring together sufficient resources to build an adequate institution.

Inasmuch as it appears that our proposal would be the first in the country to use section 213 we are very anxious that it be a project of a sort that could be duplicated, if only in miniature, in any size community in the country. Members from each of these groups have expressed their desire to participate in such intergroup action because they feel that is the finest form of cooperative action involving local initiative in the solution of a local problem. Section 213 authorizes FHA insuring of trusts and we believe it to be a peculiarly suitable form because the trust represents the interests not only of the present aged but of the younger persons in the sponsoring group as well, for whom the day may come when they too, will desire this type of housing. In other words, the trust corporation created by the sponsoring church or churches or other such institutions would be the owner of the property.

The immediate beneficiaries of the trust would, of course, be those persons who were first admitted to tenancy in the housing facilities. However, the other members of the sponsoring organization would also be potential beneficiaries. There fore, the first residents would only have a life interest in the housing and would not build up, by reason of tenancy, any special interests in the trust corporation. Indeed, we do not see any other form of corporate arrangement so peculiarly suited to the needs of our social institutions to help their older members maintain their independence and their security in their declining years.

If the present law remains unchanged, the trust corporation would raise an initial 10 percent of the cost of the project, would buy land, plan facilities, file for an FHA insured mortgage on the remaining 90 percent of cost, borrow the money, construct and operate the facilities.

130 units will take care of 60 to 75 individuals.

This allows $18,000 for service buildings such as recreation on 30-unit basis or $90,000 on 150-unit basis.

1150 units will take care of 300 to 375 individuals. This allows $18,000 for service buildings such as recreation on 30-unit basis or $90,000 on 150-unit basis.

We believe that the apartment facilities can be provided for $5,000 or $6,000 a unit, depending on whether it has 1 or 2 bedrooms. Residence halls can be built for perhaps $4,000 per person served or less. We could rent the apartment units for approximately $45 or $55 per month, and the residence

halls for something less than this, depending upon the amount of space and facilities provided. But this means that two persons sharing the rental of the 2-bedroom unit would each pay $27.50 per month and that persons sharing smaller facilities should be able to get by on even less. Even persons on the old-age pension rolls could pay an economic rental.

Our rental quotation includes, as the attached exhibit demonstrates, all operating expenses as well as principal and interest and insurance and taxes if applicable under the law of the particular State in which these would be built.

Frankly, we do not wish at this point to open the debate as to the extent to which church-owned property should be taxed. Our private opinion is that if the property is used for residence rather than for church services it should be taxed but we recognize that this will vary from place to place based upon the State's own law, and the interpretation in the particular area. The suecess of our proposal does not depend upon the extent to which property taxes will be applied. However, the question always comes up in discussion and therefore we bring it out here so the records may be clear on this point. The important question here is providing housing for the aged, not how the States should devise their property taxes.

Our primary concern is to provide residence halls and apartments for the aged. However, we recognize (and here again sec. 213 is a very real help) that there will be need for some central facilities. For example, there should be a dining hall, perhaps on a self-service as well as table-service arrangement, that would permit the aged to take their meals out when, as, and if they chose, within reasonable limits. This building might also double as a recreation and assembly hall for such community purposes as the aged may themselves desire. We believe that certain creative activities are desirable in the interest of enriching the lives of the aged and that space should be provided for them to work out whatever special interests they may have, be it woodworking or painting, be it cardplaying or quilting.

Section 213 permits 10 percent of the overall cost of the project to be invested in community facilities to serve the residents of the project. This should be ample for all the central facilities for social and recreational purposes that the aged may desire, and at the same time provide the necessary office and maintenance facilities for the actual operation of the housing project. We believe that the tenants themselves should develop tenant councils, and on their own initiative work out the recreational services that they wish. We want to avoid programing their day to the point where some recreational director takes from them the independence which we are seeking to provide them. In other words, they should not only be free to participate, they should be free not to participate as well in whatever program may be devised.

If the number of persons served is large, and other medical facilities are not immediately available, the central facilities might include a small office for a nurse and for a doctor to make outpatient calls. The aged who do not have their own health-insurance arrangement might develop a form of group insurance to cover some of the medical expenses and to help them meet the other costs of medical care. Experience in other cities that have provided creative opportunities for the aged, however, has seemed to indicate that if the aged can lead meaningful lives they will experience less chronic illness and less mental deterioration than if they live lonely, frustrated, and useless lives as so many of them now are compelled, by personal circumstances, to do. As a result we believe that by the actual provision of housing in ideal surroundings, where neighbors can be with neighbors, and share with neighbors upon occasion, where the more active ones can on occasion help to take care of some of the weaker and disabled ones, by this we will actually minimize the need for medical care. We do not, of course, expect to eliminate it, but we believe that the extent of the medical needs of the aged are often overstated. So much attention has been given to those who are in institutions and are chronically ill or mentally ill that we lose sight of the fact that most persons lead normal healthy lives.

We are anxious that there be built, within the next few years, enough hous ing for the aged that no one housing project of this sort would be burdened with only the chronically ill and most expensive cases. In other words, what we hope to provide is housing for the ordinary "senior citizen"-to have our residents drawn from the community as a whole rather than have only those who are already chronically ill or already mentally unbalanced admitted to such housing. Indeed, if only a few projects are built under this law they will, as is the case of the present institutions, tend to come under same pres

sures mentioned above. They will appear to give the whole idea a bad reputation because they will of necessity be more costly in operation.

We recognize that out of some 300 to 500 persons living in this project a few may become high-cost persons; and the provision of medical care for them may go well beyond the amount which they are paying in rent or insurance, but a little of this is to be expected. We estimate that if the residents are drawn from the aged community as a whole, then not more than 2 to 5 percent will become high-cost cases. However, if we get only the most expensive 2 to 5 percent of the aged at the outset because of the limited number of units built, or, if the lack of other facilities forces our project to accept more and more difficult cases over the next few years, the experiment will appear to be a failure because it was never given a chance to succeed along the lines we have intended.

Let me turn from the explanation of the proposal which we have been developing out of our research study and conferences over the past 20 months to a quick explanation of the immediate situation facing us in Denver in order that you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of your committee may understand why we are here. We were approached as persons interested in housing on an economic basis by representatives of organizations who include in their membership aged persons. They asked if we could provide any answer to the very genuine problem of providing housing for some of their own number. In the course of many meetings, many conferences, many discussions, much reading, and much correspondence with persons interested in this problem we have evolved the above program. We have presented it at the Colorado governor's conference on problems of the aged and chronically ill, held in the legislative chambers in January. (Conference on Problems Relating to the Aged and Mentally Ill, Jan. 4 and 5, 1954.) We have presented it to the Denver Ministerial Alliance. We have presented it before the appropriate committee of the Denver Council of Churches. We have met with representatives of the following groups: The Congregational churches, the Lutheran churches, Methodist churches, Baptist churches, the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado, Denver Catholic Charities, the Jewish Family and Children Service of Denver, the National Annuity League, the nursing alumnae of Denver General Hospital, and we have been approached for meetings to come with the Disciples of Christ, with the Denver Area Welfare Council, with retired schoolteachers of the city and others.

Mr. Chairman, if we may say so in all sincerity, we have never yet presented this program to any committee, person, or group without having an immediate, warm response on the part of these persons who see in it the possibility at long last of solving a problem which has vexed them often for many years, and one which they have felt until now powerless to resolve.

There is a great deal of interest in the possibility of using section 213, not Just in Denver but in other places in the country. Mr. Skrivan works all the time with the building industry and real-estate people; and he sees in this, just as I do, the potentiality at long last of using FHA procedures to service a market which has been neglected almost completely by the building industry and by the real-estate people and by the Government, for that matter, in its housing program.

Let us suppose that only 20 percent of the aged ever have need of this type of independent rental housing facilities. This means right now that 2.8 millions of the aged would be potential candidates for this type of housing. This means better than 1 million rental units are "waiting to be born," waiting to be built right now. Moreover, the interest in creating housing on this basis is not confined to church groups although they are naturally among those first to be aware of the problems. Lodges and fraternal organizations and other membership groups are all interested in the possibility of sponsoring it and will all be potential sponsors for such corporations to create such housing. Indeed, as we look at the membership of veterans organizations we see the possibility that many veterans of World War I are approaching the age when they will desire precisely this type of housing facility, if they are not adequately provided for by their present quarters or by arrangement within the family.

Moreover, in our own State we know that if such housing is not created, pressures will be great on the State legislature for the Government to create such homes. There were pending in the 1953 session of the Colorado General Assembly 7 proposals for State homes for the aged in 7 different communities of Colorado. It would be far better, we believe, for the communities themselves