involving evictions or rent increases. Baltimore has-and the District of Columbia has proposed-a tenant board with advisory functions. Boston has incorporated an elected tenants policy council as part of the authority's modernization program. The Boston council has the power to conduct hearings in cases of tenant eviction.

State Laws.-State laws passed last year in Rhode Island and Michigan (see No. 5 1968 Journal, page 259; and No. 8 1968 Journal, page 423) called for the establishment of tenant boards to be composed equally of tenant representatives and city appointees. The city appointees in both states are to be, in large part, residents of neighborhoods in which public housing is located. The Michigan law limited the requirement for such a board to the city of Detroit and implementation of the Rhode Island law has not yet been reported.

Senator BROOKE. The next witness will be Mr. Tony Henry, who will testify on behalf of the National Tenants Organization. Mr. Henry is the director of the National Tenants Organization. I know him personally. He has been most helpful to us in this whole area of housing. I am very pleased to welcome him before this committee this morning. Mr. HENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am the director of the National Tenants Organization, and accompanying me this morning are Mr. Harry Reese, a member of NTO's Washington office staff, and Mr. David Martin and Mr. Robert Brown, of the Urban Law Institute, which serves as counsel to NTO.

Senator BROOKE. Mr. Reese, Mr. Martin and Mr. Brown, we are very pleased to have all three of you.

Mr. HENRY. We are also accompanied today by many tenants of public housing from several cities, who are attending the hearings because of their concern about housing conditions.

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY HENRY, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL

TENANTS ORGANIZATION

Mr. HENRY. The National Tenants Organization is composed of local tenants organizations from cities throughout the country. As the only national organization of tenant groups, our purpose is to promote the economic, social, legal, and political rights of all poor and exploited tenants in the United States and its possessions.

I am delighted to have this opportunity to respond to your request for the views of NTO on this year's housing legislation.

Mr. Chairman, our Nation is assailed today by a social crisis of unprecedented proportions. This crisis arises from the fact that America is suffering from a longstanding severe housing shortage during a period of prolonged inflation induced by your Nation's chronic entrapment in a military misadventure in Southeast Asia. Any one of these conditions would by itself strain the welfare and patience of our Nation's disadvantaged citizens. The combined effects of these conditions-housing shortage, inflation, and war in Southeast Asia-have so aggravated the strains on our society that large numbers of our citizens from all walks of life throughout our country-rich and poor; black, white, brown, and red; of all political persuasions-have become divided, disputatious, and dissident.

There are no panaceas for the social crisis which assails us. However, there are steps which we can and must take in the direction of solving some of the problems which comprise that crisis. From these hearings we hope will come progress toward alleviating the effects of the housing shortage which has so long plagued America.

The severest aspect of the housing shortage is its effect on our poorest citizens-those who live in public housing and those who are eligible to live in public housing but for whom the Nation has failed for over 30 years to carry out the promises of the United States Housing Act of 1937 and other national housing laws.

This year, as last, the Federal Government is the Nation's biggest slumlord. Public housing tenants in major cities throughout the country are still living in substandard properties. The National Capital Housing Authority, for example, still has over 40,000 housing code violations. Public housing tenants are still facing massive rent increases for their slum housing. The situation has become so serious that substantial numbers of units in many public housing developments remain vacant at the same time as waiting lists to occupy public housing are steadily growing.

You may be asking yourself, "Didn't we hear about this situation and act to take care of it last year? Didn't we act to assure provision in public housing assistance for adequate operating and maintenance services, elimination of operating deficits, replenishment of reserve funds, and a ceiling on rents of 25 percent of tenant's income?"

Yes, you did recognize these needs last year, and you passed the Brooke-Sparkman amendments last year to meet these needs and public housing tenants across the Nation thanked Congress for recognizing their needs. Those tenants are no longer thankful. They are hurt and they are angry.

This change of attitude is the result of the callous and coldhearted refusal of HUD to carry out your intent. HUD officials so twisted and perverted the Brooke-Sparkman amendments that it became necessary for NTO to file suit against them. This suit, now in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, is aimed at correcting HUD's unlawful conduct.

REINFORCING BROOKE-SPARKMAN AMENDMENTS

To right these wrongs, we support section 3 of S. 4086, the bill introduced on July 15 by Senator Brooke for himself and Senators Cranston and Goodell. This provision would require HUD to amend or supersede annual contributions contracts with local housing agencies to guarantee the low-rent character of public housing, adequate operating and maintenance services and reserve funds, and coverage of local housing agency operating deficits for the fiscal year which includes December 24, 1969, the date of enactment of the Brooke-Sparkman amendments. This provision will eliminate any basis for HUD's General Counsel to continue to raise doubt about HUD's authority to provide for operating and maintenance services through annual contributions contracts. It should also eliminate the pressure which has been placed on local housing agencies to raise rents to 25 percent of tenant's income in order to take full advantage of the Brooke-Sparkman amendments. We know that it was not your intent to move all rents up to 25 percent of income, but tying the subsidy to rent payment at that level constitutes an irresistible pressure on local housing authorities to increase rents.

TENANT PARTICIPATION

This is an appropriate moment for me to discuss an aspect of S. 4086 which NTO feels very strongly about. Section 8 of that bill would permit public housing tenants to serve on the governing body of their local housing agency. NTO enthusiastically endorses this long overdue proposal which at long last recognizes that those most affected by a public housing authority deserve a voice in its management. Congress endorsed this concept in other areas a long time ago. In the poverty program and in model cities it is called citizen participation. In urban renewal we call it the neighborhood development program. And in an age when everyone is concerned with tenant responsibility, it must come to public housing.

NTO would go further than does this bill. We recommend that public housing tenants constitute a majority on the board of all local housing agencies. Nobody knows more about the operations of a local housing agency than its tenants. Nobody knows better than they the need for reform and responsive management. Nobody has had the opportunity they have had to witness the weakness and wastefulness which characterize much public housing management, and to see and to feel the harsh and pointless policies imposed upon tenants by shortsighted managers who are blind to the destructive impact of their policies.

If Congress is serious about assuring responsible management and occupancy of public housing, there is no better way to accomplish this goal than to give tenants control of boards of local housing agencies.

WELFARE RECIPIENTS

Many tenants residing in public housing are welfare recipients. An unintended and extremely unfortunate consequence of last year's Brooke-Sparkman amendments was the creation of a caste system within public housing. What has happened is that public housing tenants on public assistance have been deprived of their Brooke-Sparkman rent reductions wherever welfare agencies have threatened to reduce their walfare payments by the amount of any rent reduction. The conference report on last year's Housing Act instructed HEW and HUD to solve this problem. Thus far they have merely established a HUD-HEW committee to study the problem until January 1971. Public housing tenants can wait no longer. Consequently, NTO urges this subcommittee to support section 1 of Senator Brooke's bill, S. 4086, which would forbid reductions in public assistance payments as a result of the receipt of rent reductions.

OPPOSITION TO S. 3639

For the reasons I have just outlined and because of a proposal I will mention in a moment, NTO warmly endorses Senator Brooke's bill, S. 4086. Because of the objections I am about to describe, NTO categorically opposes the administration bill S. 3639.

RENT TO INCOME RATIOS AND DEFINITION OF INCOME

In S. 3639 HUD proposes to establish a national, uniform rent-toincome ratio which will control the amount of rent public housing tenants will pay. This ratio is based upon a statutory definition of in

come under which the Secretary of HUD has the authority to permit certain deductions. NTO opposes this plan vehemently and denounces it as destructive of the hopes of all of the poor whose lives will be determined by it.

First, we denounce it because ratios proposed are too high. This bill envisions that 20 percent of a tenant's first $3,500 in income and 25 percent of the remainder of his income will be devoted to rent. A poor man can't pay this much for rent and still feed and clothe his family.

Why these figures were chosen escapes us since statistics show that few of the people who will be affected by these ratios now pay nearly this much for rent. At the present time rents in public housing average 19 percent of tenant income. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that typically a low-income family of four spends 16.4 percent of its income for rent. Consequently it should be apparent that the myth that 25 percent of a man's income rightfully is spent on rent has never applied to poor people. Other nations recognize this. In Denmark, for example, housing costs the elderly only 5 percent of their income. In Britain, families have to devote only 12 percent of their income to rent. Understandably, then NTO unalterably opposes the rent-to-income ratios proposed by HUD. If there must be a ratio NTO feels it must not require a tenant to pay more than 15 percent of his income for rent.

NTO notes that Senator Goodell's bill (S. 4094, sec. 1) would put a ceiling of 20 percent of tenant income on all public housing rents. Although we do not feel that it goes far enough in rent reductions, it is at least a step in the right direction.

We also denounce S. 3639 because of its definition of income and the authority it gives the Secretary of HUD to determine income. The definition itself is disturbing. It includes all income from all sources and grants deductions only for minors in excess of two. No deductions are given for the first two children or for dependents who aren't minors. Deductions aren't permitted for medical expenses, for caring for children of working mothers, or for other essential expenses.

What is HUD attempting to accomplish with this definition? Does it believe the first two children cost nothing to raise or that adults can't be dependent? Is it encouraging families to have more chilren? Is it trying to discourage mothers from seeking employment?

Surely this is not what HUD intends, yet just as surely this is what they will accomplish if S. 3639 is passed.

Likewise, we oppose the income provisions of S. 3639 because of the discretionary authority given the Secretary of HUD to exclude certain items from the statutorily defined income. If he feels like it, he may exclude from income money earned by minors or income unlikely to recur. We distrust any provision which places this decision in the hands of HUD. Far from the cries of the tenants whose lives they control, HUD bureaucrats will refuse to exclude these items which are excluded routinely today by housing authorities all over the Nation. This provision is a great leap backward from the present practice of these authorities since many items they allow as exclusions or deductions are omitted here. What constitutes income and what may be deducted from it are decisions which historically have been made by local housi

borities based on local conditions and needs. Given

the present situation, we feel that tenants will get a fairer deal from their local housing agencies, and favor returning the authority to define income to them.

HOMEOWNERSHIP IN PUBLIC HOUSING

Under present law and in S. 3639 if a public housing tenant wants to, he can purchase a unit in public housing. NTO suggests giving tenants this choice, but prefers the present provision to the proposed one, provided certain safeguards are added to it. We believe that the tenant who purchases such a unit must be given certain assurances. Nobody will purchase units from local housing authorities if they begin breaking down as soon as they are purchased. Consequently, if there is any hope for this program to be a success, potential purchasers must be assured that the agency which sold them the units will be responsible for repairing them for a reasonable period after purchase. Likewise, since the expense of taxes, insurance, and maintenance falls on the purchaser under these provisions, assurances must be made that the purchaser will not lose his home if, by reason of illness or unemployment, he is temporarily unable to meet these expenses. Buyers should have the option to remain as renters with their equity protected, until the emergency passes and they are able to resume their purchase of the unit.

We have one other recommendation with respect to the purchase of public housing units. We believe that any program under which tenants purchase such units ought to be planned largely by the tenants themselves. Locally, democratically elected tenants councils must be given veto power over the entire process-site selection, design, admission and income criteria, management policies, and the transfer of title and control. To accomplish this, such groups must receive funds for planning and feasibility studies. We are convinced that giving this sort of control to tenants will result in the creation of better, longer lasting units, located in strong neighborhoods which contain the municipal services necessary for a healthy environment.

TENANT SERVICES

NTO strongly urges this subcommittee to extend the life of section 15(10) of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937 which enables HUD to contract to provide tenant services for occupants of public housing. These services which include bookkeeping and household management, are badly needed by large numbers of public housing tenants. NTO feels the most logical organizations to provide such training are tenant groups composed of public housing tenants. To accomplish this, NTO recommends that the fourth sentence of the present section be changed so that such groups are given priority. By giving priority to tenant. groups seeking to train other tenants, Congress will insure that this needed training is planned and run by persons aware of the problems of public housing tenants and sympathetic to their most pressing needs.

LEASED HOUSING

NTO also recommends passage of sections 5 (b), 6 and 7 of S. 4086 which would expand the section 23 leasing program by extending it to newly constructed housing, by lengthening the permitted rental