(The information referred to follows:) Estimated monthly payments under section 221 as proposed in S. 3302. Senator CAPEHART. Of course, I have advocated this sort of thing for a number of years. There are two kinds of projects that you can build for low-income people. One is a big apartment building, and by necessity sometimes you have to build big apartment buildings. You certainly have to build one if you are going to build in New York City that is, Manhattan or the Bronx. The other kind of public housing help for the people that really need it would be an individual home. The question is: Is it better to have them pay rent, or would it be better to have them make a monthly payment which would be as small or maybe smaller than rent would be and at the end of 40 years own the home. Get them out into the country where they could have individual homes-on the basis that they were better off than they were to live in big apartment buildings that go up in the air maybe 20 or 25 or 30 or 40 stories. It seems to me that you are almost advocating public housing on page 5. Mr. BATES. We still have private ownership, sir, and they would pay taxes in accordance with the proportionate share Senator CAPEHART. I mean that is the big difference. As far as the Federal Government is concerned, it would be guaranteeing the $8,000. Mr. BATES. Yes, sir; that is correct. Senator CAPEHART. No downpayment, the mortgage being for 40 years. Mr. WILIAMSON. Senator, I think that the record of the no down payment under the GI home-financing program attests to the soundness of this moral equity Senator CAPEHART. I'm not quarreling with this. I am only saying you are advocating here what I have suggested a number of times. I remember I suggested it once in a speech I made before a CIO group here in Washington. That was that maybe the way to solve this problem was by building individual houses and selling them to the people who would normally go into a public-housing project-sell them to them on monthly payments that would be equivalent to or less than their rental would be in public housing. You are advocating that here except that you are talking about a couple of hundred dollars down payment. A couple of hundred dollars is not very much one way or the other. You talk about it. here in terms of settlement charges. It might well be we could have some other governmental agency loan the fellow the $200 over a long period of time. Does anybody know what the monthly payments would be? Mr. Scort. Without utilities. Senator CAPEHART. What would be wrong with increasing the 40 years to 50 years? I mean what I am saying is this: Would it be better to relocate these people in individual units and sell them to them and let them pay it out over a period of 50 years, let's say, than it would be to build a public project and rent it to them at rents that are no more or no less than their monthly payment? It may well be that you would need to have 2 kinds, because if you are going to build a big apartment building, as you possibly must do if you are going to do it in Manhattan or the Bronx, that possibly would be a public housing unit. But it seems to me that in the great majority of places in the United States, the smaller towns particularly, where they have a lot of ground, this other system would be better than what we commonly refer to as public housing, meaning an apartment building. Mr. BATES. That is certainly our feeling, Senator. That was the reason for these proposals. Senator CAPEHART. I have thought along these lines for a long while. You would get the pride of ownership. You would get them out into the country, or at least you would get them out where they would have a little grass and their children would be better off, I think. Elderly people I think would be better off too. So you come awfully close here to recommending public housing when you recommend this. Mr. SCOTT. Senator, I just want to point out it would not be necessary to force these people to vacate the area in which they are living. There are many homes for sale in that area in which they could relocate under section 221-existing homes. Senator CAPEHART. You certainly recommend that the Government finance it 100 percent excepting for the $200. Mr. Scort. Yes, we do. Senator CAPEHART. It might well be we ought to use some of both. I don't know. Senator LEHMAN. I do not want to continue this, because we have a number of other witnesses. Mr. BATES. We are very appreciative of the time you have given us. Thank you. Senator LEHMAN. The next witnesses are Dr. Ira S. Robbins, Dr. William L. C. Wheaton, and Lee F. Johnson, representing the National Housing Conference. STATEMENTS OF IRA S. ROBBINS, WILLIAM L. C. WHEATON, AND LEE F. JOHNSON, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL HOUSING CONFERENCE Mr. ROBBINS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, may I express the appreciation of the National Housing Conference for 75333-56- -38 this opportunity to express its views on basic housing legislation presently before this committee. My name is Ira S. Robbins. I am chairman of the board of directors of the National Housing Conference. For 11 years I served as a housing official of New York State in the administrations of both Governor Lehman and Governor Dewey. I am an attorney and presently am executive vice president of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council of New York City. Accompanying me today is Dr. William L. C. Wheaton, professor of city planning of the University of Pennsylvania and first vice president of the National Housing Conference. You will recall that Dr. Wheaton prepared for us the Housing Needs Study that we presented to the committee in 1954 and which was used as the basis for the overall housing program that we urged this committee to consider a year ago. With me also is Mr. Lee F. Johnson, the executive vice president of the National Housing Conference. The National Housing Conference is a nonprofit citizens' organization. In 2 weeks, our 25th annual meeting will be held in this city. The organization is supported by memberships and contributions. Our primary interest runs to the provisions of S. 3158 introduced by Senator Lehman and a group of distinguished cosponsors, and to the administration's proposed housing amendments of 1956 contained in S. 3302. We are gratified that a number of basic approaches to the problems of housing and urban redevelopment are before this committee. The defined objectives are identical, namely to carry out the national housing policy of 1949 which called for "a decent home in a suitable living environment for every American family." The achievement of that objective is essential to the continued social and economic welfare of the Nation. I would like first to comment on S. 3186, the bill introduced by Senator Sparkman, which would establish a Commission on National Housing Policy and which outlines the area for its investigation and report. We are sympathetic with the purpose of this bill to study ways and means to encourage adequate financing for residential construction. We would be extremely disappointed, however, if the creation of a commission would bring about a further delay in congressional action to encourage a stepped-up housing program geared to meet rapidly mounting housing needs. The last public address of the late Senator Taft was made in 1953 to the 22d annual meeting of the National Housing Conference. At that time he reaffirmed his support of a low-rent public housing program designed to produce approximately 10 percent of the total housing construction each year. He pointed out that a new administration was in office and there was a need to reassess the entire problem of intergovernmental relations. He urged a year's delay to give a Commission on Intergovernmental Relations an opportunity to report. When such a commission had difficulty getting off the ground, the President's Advisory Committee on Housing was established to make an overall study on housing and redevelopment problems. It took 2 years for the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations to report. and when it did, little or no guidance was offered in the field of housing. The President's Advisory Committee worked faster and did a superior job, except for one thing. It failed to investigate the extent and quantity of housing needs and, as a result, a cornerstone of fact on which to build sound housing and redevelopment programs was missing. We have now experienced 2 major studies and 3 years of delay when the situation, in our opinion, calls for action. If a commission is to be created, we urge that its membership be broadened to bring together congressional and administration leaders and representatives of a cross section of industry, housing, planning, labor, and public interest groups to conduct a broad and intensive investigation as to what is wrong with our cities. Housing and housing finance would be an important part of such an investigation. The metropolitan areas of the country are faced with almost insurmountable problems that are only compounded by the flight to the suburbs. Last week in testimony before this committee, Housing Administrator Albert M. Cole and Public Housing Commissioner Charles E. Slusser dramatically, although possibly inadvertently, pointed up the issue as to housing needs. Each made it abundantly clear that the administration's bill, S. 3302, has no relationship whatsoever to housing needs. Commissioner Slusser stated: The recommendation of 35,000 units a year for the next 2 years may appear a very modest request to some of you and unrelated to total need. It is nevertheless our best and considered estimate of the current rate at which the local housing authorities throughout the country are able to plan and execute low-rent projects. Administrator Cole concurred in the statement that the request for 35,000 units a year of public housing for each of 2 years, bore no relationship to need but was based on what he terms the total demand from local communities. He also made it clear that his recommendation for 35,000 units was not based on need, but on his personal conviction that Congress would not approve a greater number. It is regrettable that the Administrator feels himself burdened with the responsibility of predetermining the decisions of Congress. What are the facts about housing needs? The National Housing Conference devoted months to assembling the facts on housing needs as they had been uncovered by the Bureau of the Census and other sources. Two years ago we presented our findings which, by the way, have never been disputed. Figures from the 1950 census show that there were approximately 7 million substandard homes in the urban metropolitan areas of this country that should be demolished. There were approximately 2 million subject to rehabilitation. That number, through obsolescence and overcrowding, is growing, not decreasing. Under our present programs we are making no headway whatsoever, because the rate of obsolescence and deterioration is far greater than any inroads we are making toward correcting the situation. Senator LEHMAN. That is only urban? Mr. ROBBINS. That is correct. It does not take in rural. Under the provisions of S. 3302, we shall continue to slip backward. An administration spokesman last week implied that a great many of the families living in the slums have incomes sufficiently high to pay for standard shelter provided through normal private channels. Mr. Chairman, millions of families living under slum conditions wish that that statement were true. It is true that approximately half of the families living in substandard shelter have incomes that are too high for them to be eligible for low-rent public housing under existing rigid income limitations. The vast majority of the other half fall in the lower-middle income bracket for which practically no standard housing is being built. These are the families in housing's no-man's land that S. 3158 seeks to assist. Under the present rate of public housing authorizations, it would take 100 years to rehouse only those low-income families which represent half of those families living in substandard homes that were subject to demolition in 1950. We submit that this is no program at all. If we do not have sufficient homes in which to rehouse both families of low and middle incomes, it follows that there can be no program of slum clearance and urban renewal of any substance. That is precisely the spot at which we find ourselves today. Administration spokesmen say that there is no local demand beyond 35,000 units a year. We challenge that statement. There can be no doubt but that the crisis operation that has affected public housing for the last 10 years or more has cooled the ardor of communities to apply for public housing units, no matter how badly they need them. Constant congressional attacks, more often than not with crippling legislation on appropriation bills, have made it practically fruitless for cities to spend the money, time, and energy in preparing applications for Federal aid that isn't there. The low-rent public housing program was conceived as requiring maximum local responsibility. It was to be a local-Federal partnership. Projects, in theory, are locally planned, owned, and operated. However, Federal controls have mounted to the point where the initiative, imagination, and desire on the part of local officials to move ahead are smothered. Oversupervision and redtape prevail. Any suggested deviation from what Federal officials determine to be good for a local community is treated as heresy and vetoed. The partnership concept has been destroyed. We believe that an on-theground investigation by this committee of any group of local housing or redevelopment authority operations would confirm this statement. I guarantee you that you would then understand why local communities, in recent years, have failed to stampede Washington for public housing or urban renewal programs. Slum clearance, urban renewal and public housing are programs that call for a dedicated, understanding leadership, both national and local. If Washington officials charged with administering those programs continue to take a defeatist attitude and serve only as apologists for them, there will never be a local demand that has any bearing whatsoever to housing needs. We recognize that getting an overall housing program underway is not easy. The acquisition of sites for low-rent public housing projects is becoming increasingly difficult. We know that families of minority groups are confounded on every side when they attempt to secure land on which to build their homes. We recognize the tensions that sometimes develop over open occupancy. We know that there are no easy solutions. But if these problems are ever to be met, we must begin with a program that will increase the supply of homes for families of all incomes. In public housing, it is incumbent upon local housing officials to give first preference to families with the greatest housing needs. It is a fact in almost every community in this country that minority families are forced to live under the worst housing condi |