complish this objective, but this recommendation was omitted from the legislation, so far as we are able to discern.

The proposal that the FHA mortgage limit be raised from $16,000 to $20,000 is not desirable. A house with a $20,000 limit is purchased by people with enough income to make unnecessary the aid of governmental guaranties or insurance. This unnecessary drain on Government credit can be ommitted; in fact, there is always the danger that the effect of this kind of increases in price ceilings will encourage high-priced building at the expense of low-priced housing, a trend which would run against the needs of our times.

We call special attention to the proposals dealing with interest rates and related matters. In the proposed legislation, the President is to be given power to fix interest rates on FHA and VA loans up to 22 points above the prevailing yield on Government issues.

The spokesman for the President says there is no intention to increase interest rates; but we fear that this may not remain the case, and we know that there is strong pressure to impose extra service charges which, in effect, is the same as increasing interest rates.

But, in any case, Congress has already established ceiling rates. The entire history of this new proposal justifies fears that it may facilitate boosting interest rates and other charges to the detriment of both the consumer and the building industry, including the basic materials manufacturing industry which supplies the ingredients out of which houses are made.

Any increase in interest rates or service charges can only do serious harm to the people who need housing and the industry which must build them.

At a time when we should be stimulating production and eliminating excessive costs, any move to increase costs would discourage production and restrict the potential demand for new housing.

Throughout this bill, we find specified broad discretionary powers delegated to the President. Our objection to this is not based on any theory of Government, but is a practical objection to a situation which, by engendering uncertainty, would discourage the growth of enterprise and boldness in the industry.

If a builder or lender is uncertain as to what interest rates will be permitted, and what the allowable amortization periods will be a year or two from now, he is discouraged from making broad plans. Sound project development requires time; land must be assembled, often rezoned, developed.

Materials must be contracted for, a labor force organized. A careful market analysis must be made. Early sales are helpful in reducing costs and risks. Community facilities may be required. All this requires time and confident planning involving the integration of many factors, including actions by local government and many local business institutions. Uncertainty over interest rates or other factors would be most harmful.

In the light of all the foregoing comments, we conclude by urging this committee to provide in its bill a comprehensive program suited to the needs of our people and our times. A successful housing program will strengthen America. It will bolster our democratic spirit not only by improving housing, but by its good effect on the overall economy.

We urge a broad appreciation of what is really costly and what is not. A prosperous economy is good for everyone. If extension of Government credits in the housing field is necessary, and we believe it is, we should view the risk in true perspective. Depression is riskier to our credit structure than any suggestion we have made. Slums are costlier than the cost of good housing.

As always, we are anxious to be of assistance to our Government. We appreciate this opportunity to appear here; we are available to the committee at any time.

In conclusion, we present here, in summary form, our major proposals:

1. We must appreciably raise our sights, recognizing that a newhousing rate of a million a year would be wholly inadequate and that we can and should achieve a rate of 2 millions.

2. Increase home building requires a program aimed at the families with incomes below $6,000 a year.

3. The lowest-income groups now affected by public housing income limitations can best be served by public housing; 200,000 units a year should be built to fulfill the objectives of the Housing Act of 1949.

4. The families in the $2,500 to $6,000 income brackets are the best market for an expanded private home-building program.

5. Total housing costs should not be expected normally to exceed 20 percent of family income. Therefore, new housing available at a total cost of $42 to $90 a month, including untilities and maintenance, is needed. The proposed 40-year 100-percent loan program, in the main, misses these families because the $7,000 price limitation is too low, the restriction to relocation housing too limiting, and the proposed extra one-half percent service charge too costly.

6. The 40-year 100-percent program should be adopted without these features to serve the upper part of the $2,500 to $6,000 family brackets.

7. While housing prices should be reduced, a realistic program must be geared to present prices, which means $10,000 and up.

8. Monthly housing costs can be reduced by providing lower interest rates, longer periods of amortization, and other similar devices. To accomplish this, more direct involvement of Government in home financing is essential.

9. An addition of four to five billion dollars of investment funds beyond the normal anticipation would add 400,000 to 500,000 additional private homes and would restore full employment in the Nation.

10. A cooperative housing central mortgage facility would enable cooperative housing to serve the people more extensively and increase housing activity.

11. The need for rental housing requires 75-year mortgages and low interest rates to bring rents down to the level of moderate-income family ability to pay.

12. Housing for minority housing must be provided as a condition of success of the program, because a large market is found here, the need is great and urgent, and the difficulties confronting these groups, if unaided, tremendous.

13. Builders warranties should be required of builders using Federal aids.

14. Rent limits should be required for all new or rehabilitated rental properties receiving Federal aids.

15. Interest rates should not be increased directly or by imposing service charges, and the proposed new interest rate ceilings should be rejected.

16. The proposed increase in FHA mortgage limits to $20,000 should be rejected.

17. Unnecessary grants of discretionary powers to the President should be replaced with definitive legislative actions.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes our prepared statement that I had for you, and I would like to have, if you will, Mr. John Edelman present another bit of testimony.

Mr. EDELMAN. Mr. Chairman, my name is John W. Edelman. As Mr. Thimmes said, I am chairman of the legislative subcommittee

on

The CHAIRMAN. Will you yield just a moment? You are going into this supplemental testimony on public housing?

Mr. EDELMAN. I will just file it.

The CHAIRMAN. I was going to suggest that if you were going into it we might want to ask some questions on the other statement. If you are going to file it, go right ahead.

Mr. EDELMAN. Mr. Chairman, if later on in the testimony there is a moment or two, I might call attention to 1 or 2 of the features. The CHAIRMAN. You can do so now.

Mr. EDELMAN. This material, sir, is a compilation, roughly speaking, of some 18 statements, most of them fairly brief, from typical communities throughout the United States. The material has been compiled by our local industrial union councils, some of it on the basis of information supplied by local, municipal, or housing agencieshousing and sometimes social agencies. It includes human-interest stories, a great deal of statistical data, and some material in addition to that bearing on the problem of public housing.

There is a good deal of supplementary information involved, here, on the question of the middle-income housing.

For instance, in the Los Angeles testimony, there is a page at pags 32 which gives a list of the typical prices at which homes built by private builders are sold on a particular Sunday, and included therein, I will file with the clerk, sir, a list of the distances which these tracts are from the downtown areas. It is a factor which, I think, the staff of this committee should study in relation, particularly to this whole problem of new housing and in relation to its actual cost, over and above rentals. It is a factor which I think has been disregarded, or neglected, rather.

Might I say that we have filed a very succinct section, here, on housing in the Chicago area.

I would like to make available, if Senator Douglas has not already done so, for the committee's consideration, two very remarkable documents which have been issued in the last several months in the city of Chicago which I think are frightfully apropos.

Could I also call the committee's attention to 3 or 4 typical reports issued by-2 reports issued by housing authorities in this country, 1 in Buffalo, N. Y.; 1 in St. Louis, Mo.; 1 report from the Council of Social Agencies in Buffalo, and a report issued by the Philadelphia Housing Association, a citizen group.

All of this, Mr. Chairman, is material which has been frightfully neglected. They are completely objective and revealing and contain some of the most, if not the most, supplementary evidence available on the subject of public housing and housing for middle-income groups which is available, but which seldom is referred to, either in testimony before these committees or that comes to the notice of Members of Congress.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the supplemental statement. will be included in the record.

Mr. EDELMAN. Might I just ask, Mr. Chairman, could you give me, say, 4 days in which to file the statements from 4 other communities which we are a little late in getting in here?

The CHAIRMAN. We will place in the record what you have prepared at the moment and at any time between now and when our hearings close, which will be at least a couple of weeks, you can file any supplemental information you care to. You can file any supplemental information you care to any time between now and the time we close the hearing.

(The supplemental information referred to follows:)

SUPPLEMENTARY TESTIMONY ON PUBLIC HOUSING PRESENTED BY THE CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS

On a subject which has been and continues to be as bitterly controversial as public housing, it is essential that even an organization like National CIO, which is completely committed to this program, should constantly check back with its local affiliates so that we will be able to have complete confidence that our membership is solidly behind the positions CIO takes in their name here before the committees of Congress.

If there should be a shift of sentiment or new thinking on this problem of public housing in the local communities, where our active people keep closely in touch with conditions, we would feel it important to be immediately aware of such modification or alteration in the views of our people. Consequently, from time to time we take steps to canvass our State and local industrial union councils on specific issues such as housing. These State and local councils represent our local unions in matters having to do with the general problems such as legislation or relationship to all types of community organizations, schools, churches, recreational or welfare bodies.

Housing is a subject on which a city, county, or area council of unions, representing bodies of workers who live and work in those places, usually keep well informed and exceedingly active. In preparation for this presentation to the 1954 session of the 83d Congress, we decided to make a quick check with typical city CIO councils as to what their feelings are in respect to the slum-clearance and low-rent program and related matters. We asked our local councils to give us what they considered to be the best and most correct data on the number of slum or substandard housing units in their particular city and such facts as they could quickly collect showing the need for continuance of the program, substantially along the lines of the 1949 Housing Act.

We wish to ask this committee and all Members of Congress who are willing to take the time to give some considerations to a summary which we offer herewith of typical replies from city CIO councils in various parts of this country. A quick glance at this material will indicate at once that these local CIO officials have studied the housing problem carefully and that they base their emphatic and militant arguments for an extension of this program on solid facts and figures which have been collected, usually with the assistance of local municipal officials.

Included with this impressive body of solid factual and statistical data are many case histories of wretched and even dangerous slum conditions and many other materials relating to the human tragedies and sufferings that are the direct result of these substandard housing conditions.

These reports and statements are amazingly alike in their analysis of the basic conditions; also the strong feeling expressed by the men and women who

have collected the materials. On the basis of these current reports and expressions we can testify to this committee that among the several millions represented by the CIO there is a stronger sense of outrage than ever before at the dismal and inexcusable failure of this great country to deal adequately with its basic housing problem, despite the enormous economic and technical advances made in so many other directions.

We attach herewith the reports we have received from widely separated cities. These reports were all prepared and written within the past 10 days to 2 weeks and describe conditions that actually exist at this very moment.

REPORTS ON HOUSING FROM VARIOUS CITIES

AKRON, OHIO, AND VICINITY

Submitted by Leo Dugan, Secretary, Summit County (Ohio) Industrial Union Council

On March 1, 1954, the following persons appeared before the Independent Offices Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee to testify on behalf of an expanded public housing program. The following were present: Mayor Leo Berg of Akron, Ohio; Mayor Elmer Wolf, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio; Mayor Robert Carson, Barberton, Ohio; Attorney Robert Shuff on behalf of the A. F. of L. Trades Council of Summit County; George Brettian, ex-secretary, Akron Chamber of Commerce, and Leo Dugan for the CIO Council.

Herewith is the written statement agreed to by the above group which was presented to the House subcommittee:

"We are here in support of President Eisenhower's recommendation that Congress appropriate sufficient funds to permit construction of 35,000 units of public low-rental housing per year for the next 4-year period; or a total of 140,000 units.

"Believing that this is a proper area for governmental intervention, the fundamental question arises as to whether there is a need for additional lowrental units. We, of course, can only speak of the need as it relates to the Akron area.

"Upon the basis of information and data available to us, we conclude that there is a definite need in our community for additional public housing for low-income families.

"We believe, however, that public housing should be restricted to the lowincome families for whom private interests are unable to profitably build suitable housing. We do not believe that public housing should compete with private enterprise in furnishing homes to those families above the minimumincome level. Above that level, we think private builders can and should meet the existing need. We are confident they can and will discharge this responsibility in our community, particularly if Congress enacts into law the recommendations of the President's Housing Advisory Committee.

"Akron is a community of some 283,000 population. The metropolitan area of Summit County which includes the neighboring communities of Barberton and Cuyahoga Falls, has a population of about 428,000. There are, in the metropolitan area eight public housing projects, all operated by the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority. Three of these projects are permanent low-rental units for low-income families, and the remaining 5 are Lanham Act projects not restricted to low-income families. Two of the low-income projects are located in Akron proper, having been built in the years 1939 through 1941, furnishing a combined total of 550 units, and having a rental from $21 to $54 per month, including utilities.

"The Ohio Legislature has specified that the income limits which apply for admission to low-rental housing shall be $2,400 per year, plus $200 per child. We are here concerned then, with the housing needs of those families whose income is not in excess of this prescribed limitation.

"The most recent study made in our community relative to the housing needs of such low-income families, was conducted in November 1953, by the research committee of the United Community Council of Summit County. The occasion for the study arose from an order issued September 10, 1953, that 469 families living in temporary mobile housing units, must vacate before February 28, 1954, or face eviction. A detailed analysis was made by the research committee, not only the families involved, but also of all other pertinent data.