Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I have great concern about the real crisis in housing.

Beyond that, speaking to the Chair as the chairman of Banking and Currency and extending its responsibilities into banking and finance, there is little doubt in my mind that housing is the key to the downward slide in the economy and the downward slide in productivity and that if we correct this erosion in the housing field, it will signal a major correction away from the danger of a serious recession, perhaps even a depression, which I think still haunts this country.

In order to accomplish this objective, Mr. Chairman, and the other objectives which I have stated, decisive action is needed. I think the first priority is that we should increase and extend the authorizations for and generally improve the existing programs which form the backbone of subsidized housing-urban renewal where I think Senator Pastore has produced a very fine result in an interim way in the conference report on H.R. 17548 which gives us $1,350 million for urban renewal, though I think we will have to push further in respect of supplementary appropriations, the section 235 and 236 programs which have turned out to be very useful, the housing rent supplements program, low rent public housing and the Model Cities program.

Now, of course, the big one is urban renewal, relied on by 1,000 cities across the country. There, Mr. Chairman, I urge that we provide an authorization of $3 billion a year for each of fiscal 1972, 1973, and 1974.

As to sections 235 and 236, there the authorizations, Mr. Chairman, are quite inadequate. The law now calls for only an additional $170 million authorization for fiscal 1972. New York City alone can use $40 million in 236 funds if the program was really pushed to what ought to be its full benefit. So I believe we need a 3-year authorization for each of these programs, and the level should be not less than $200 million, hopefully $300 million, for both programs for each of the fiscal years which the legislation covers.

Another problem relating to section 236 and to other programs under title II of the Housing Act is mortgage limits. Mayor Lindsay represents to me, Mr. Chairman, that this is one of the principal problems with respect to getting the full benefit for New York City under the housing laws and the housing legislation passed by the Congress. Now, my colleague from New York, Senator Goodell, has introduced, and I have cosponsored, S. 4093 providing for a 20-percent increase in mortgage limits and a 10-percent increase for projects designed for the elderly and the handicapped. I hope very much that these will have the earnest and favorable consideration of the committee.

Another important change in 236 I recommend is revision of the rent-income ratio. This is currently 25 percent. And, indeed, the percentage is so high that if we follow what HUD threatened to do, to wit, push it to that percentage, it would mean that many apartments would go unfilled; the families simply cannot spend that for their housing considering the unbelievably high cost of food and other absolute necessities.

And so again, Senator Goodell, Mr. Chairman, has introduced a measure, S. 4094, which I have cosponsored and which would reduce The rent-income ratio to 20 percent in section 236 projects. I hope this

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A HOUSE FOR EVERY AMER% AN PAM4A

It is distressing that in all of 21 years this country still has tule spiny micr_rhyt public housing goal that, back in 1949, it set out to meet in six Avais lens more distressing that much of the public housing we have built is mesful s teriorating for lack of proper maintenance, though the poor pay plopotrichadh higher rent for it that the average American spends on hour-ins

The goal of the 1949 Housing Act, vigorously supported by the late comps Fis Sen. Robert Taft (R-Ohio), was to build $10,000 units in six years at that wabin a foreseeable future every American family could "live in a decent bom Ipa suitable living environment." To date we have built only 500 000 pulib bordow units, although 400,000 families are waiting to get in and the mumlica of jupdy who cannot afford decent housing at the ever up going market pubic brope mi ing. In fact, as the Kerner, Douglas and other commissions have bom p ment programs such as urban renewal, federal freewaya and alloa puldi worka have, in the past decade or so, destroyed more homeling of the po tom fo been built.

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The public housing authorities of Washington, D.C., Newark and St. Louis are broke. Another 40 local authorities, says HUD, are running out of funds to keep their projects "decent, safe and sanitary," as that forbidding public housing phrase has it. And you can't blame it all on inflation or the fiscal squeeze or the war or warped national priorities or a callous Congress. The public housing directors from 19 major cities, who stormed into Washington the other day, blame it squarely on HUD.

Though perhaps extreme, the charge is not without justification. In its 1969 Housing Act, Congress authorized the funds-$75 million-to keep existing public housing solvent and in decent condition without passing more of the increased cost on to the tenants than seems fair. No public housing family, it legislated, should pay more than a maximum of 25 per cent of its income for rent. The average public housing tenant now pays 18 to 19 per cent of income, which is already quite a bit higher than the national average 16.4 per cent of income.

HUD itself estimated that the current operating deficit of the public housing authorities alone is $100 million. Yet it only requested $33 million for operating costs, maintenance and services from Congress. And in its directive to the local housing authorities it interpreted, or rather misinterpreted, the intent of Congress to mean that they must raise their rents to 25 per cent of income to receive federal help to make up for operating deficits. In other words: either price the poor out of public housing or turn it into a slum.

The first reply of the White House to the housing directors' complaints was to pull two task force reports out of the hat that had been prepared in January and which were dazzling with their lack of novelty. But HUD seems to have thought better of it and the interpreters or misinterpreters of the law, general counsel Sherman Unger and renewal and housing manager Lawrence A. Cox are on their way out.

Sen. Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass.), who had largely drafted the '69 rent-income ratio provision, furthermore has just introduced a bill that restates the congressional intent in a way that can leave no further bureaucratic doubts. He also introduced a bill that would, on an experimental basis, subsidize low-income people rather than low-cost buildings. In other words people who are eligible for public housing but can't get it, could move into any privately leased apartment they can find and the government would pay the difference between 25 per cent of their monthly income and a fair rent. To prevent landlords from unduly raising rents to exploit this program it would, initially at least, be confined to cities with a high vacancy rate. The idea is certainly worth a try.

But until we can either raise the income of the poor or lower the cost of housing there is no choice but to make public housing work. It has come a long way since those first dreary projects. Much of it is now attractively designed, built by private builders under the "turnkey program" and scattered throughout the city. But until every American family is housed in suitable environment, the urban environment will hardly be suitable for any American family.

Senator JAVITS. Turning now to the model cities program. We have a good deal of experience with that, and I think it is a very useful program. I would like to give the Chair just one major example.

We have really four terribly blighted areas in New York City. The first is Bedford-Stuyvesant, which has shown the most progress under a very gifted program in which I and the mayor joined with the late tragically lamented Senator Robert Kennedy. I think that is now the leading progress area of the four. The others are Harlem, the South Bronx, and Brownsville.

Those are the areas which are the most seriously blighted in New York.

Now, I have great personal experience because we are working very hard to do something with the South Bronx which, incidentally, is an interesting area because it borders on Fordham and NYU, two of the great universities of the country, and threatens to blight the areas in which the universities are themselves located. That is how serious the South Bronx situation is. The population is half of Puerto Rican exraction and half black.

We have found Model Cities to be tremendously valuable even in so bleak a situation as that. And so we urge, Mr. Chairman, a 3-year authorization for fiscal 1972-74 with a provision of $1 billion per year for Model Cities in each of those 3 years.

Finally, turning to the section 23 leasing program, which we feel also has become a very important element of our effort to deal with the housing situation. Unfortunately, HUD has not looked favorably on this program because of its budget ilimitations and other reasons. Drastic action is needed now to save the program from a slow demise. So I recommend that there should be specific statutory language committing a stated percentage of public housing contribution assistance funds to the leasing program.

And, lastly, Mr. Chairman, we urge that section 23 leasing program be extended to newly constructed housing as well as to existing housing as provided in S. 4086.

Mr. Chairman, the next measure to which I wish to refer is a measure which I introduced, S. 3025, the Urban Land Improvement and Housing Assistance Act, which I commend to the the committee as very important. I would like to remind the Chairman that one of the greatest advances we ever made around here when I was a member of the committee and Paul Douglas was a member of the committee was when we conditioned housing programs on building code reform. We had to defer the requirement for a number of years. I think it was 3 years, maybe even five. But ultimately, the clock and the calendar rolled around, and we had something on the books even though we had to yield a lot of ground in order to get it. For the first time it gave us a handle on the parochialism of so many communities in respect to these measures which are so restrictive in our effort to enlarge and improve the housing stock.

Now, S. 3025, Mr. Chairman, is that kind of a measure. And I hope very much that it will have very serious attention from the committee. Among the things which it seeks to accomplish is to have a carrot; that is, grants up to 50 percent of costs for a locality in respect to the particular measures which we are seeking to reach, to wit, urban land improvement and development, the grant being conditioned on a reformation of zoning ordinances or property tax laws so as to bring up the use of nonutilized land and also, again, to seek to strike a blow for building codes which are comparable to nationally accepted standards instead of the traditional archaic product-by-product type of building code.

Also, we seek to use the grants to bring about the adoption of a program of property tax abatement for low- and moderate-income. housing.

The bill would deny Federal assistance to localities which excluded publicly assisted housing for low- and moderate-income persons through restrictive land use practices. These include zoning and other land use restrictions, again in an effort to break up this parochial attitude which feels that public housing or moderate-income subsidized housing depreciates a neighborhood with which we have so often to contend.

We also seek to encourage in the bill State land development agencies like New York State's Urban Development Corporation. And I

think that this is a desirable step toward a policy of bringing about a greater utilization of land through State self-help means.

The bill also contains a provision expecting consideration in the location of Federal buildings and offices to be given to the social impact of such an establishment. For example, by putting such structures in a slum area, it is often possible to redeem the whole area. We have an example of that in the so-called State office building in New York's Harlem, at 125th Street. Although it has been very controversial and a big headache, it will be a tremendously beneficial center from which ripples will spread out for improvement in the whole area.

Now, finally, I would like to call the attention of the committee to the terrible blight of abandoned buildings. In New York City alone, it is estimated that we have 13,000 abandoned buildings containing about a quarter of a million units. Much is within the hands of the municipality, and it seems to me that we ought to do something to induce the municipalities which are mainly broke, including my own city of New York, to write down those properties so that they may be utilized, rehabilitated, or even if they are bulldozed down to be replaced with something else.

This is a longstanding problem, and I hope very much it will have the attention of the committee. It is not only the subject of my bill, S. 3025, but also the bill introduced by Senator Brooke and the bill to be introduced by Senator Goodell.

Mr. Chairman, I also would like to commend to the committee the bill of the Chair itself and Senator Muskie, S. 3640, the Urban Growth and New Community Development Act of 1970, as being very imaginative and a bill in which I would consider it a great honor to be able to support on the floor.

Now, finally, by way of finishing up, Mr. Chairman, there are a few things which New York City is uniquely interested in. That is the rent-income ratios in S. 3639, the administration bill. In New York City, the use of a 20 percent on the first $3,500 of income and 25 percent on all income above $3,500 would result in many families paying increased rent for their housing right now.

Also, the income eligibility formula of the bill would exclude many working class families in great need of housing.

We also have some problems with the definition of income in the bill which limits the deduction of the $300 child allowance to one per family and also the use of the concept medium income for the area which creates problems with regard to New York City if the area is defined as New York City alone rather than the metropolitan district. Finally, Mr. Chairman, then I am through, I would like to suggest for the subcommittee's study and possible inclusion in any housing legislation, a proposal to beef up section 236(d) of the National Housing Act to deal with a rather special problem. The change would provide authority under the 236 interest subsidy program for HUD to subsidize certain mortgage loan costs imposed upon mortgagors by State and local mortgage lending agencies which costs are collected by banks and other private lenders as "interest" but are designated as "fees and charges" by State or local law. As a result of this designation, to wit, "fees and charges," the charges are not included in the mortgage.

I have prepared language which would solve the problem and result,