I believe I have shown that there is real need for the provisions that have been recommended.

I might say, Mr. Chairman, that I have no particular pride of authorship. I believe that everyone recognizes that there is a problem involved here and the principal thing that I am trying to do-I understand that Congressman Holifield, of California, has a similar bill-is to work out this problem and it is particularly acute in the smaller communities in the United States where these associations are the principal financing agents for home construction.

An expanded secondary market will free much-needed funds for new lending to veterans. These funds, especially those of savings and loan associations, would go into low- and medium-cost housing which is needed. In my opinion, there would be no dumping of mortgages, if the April 30 date were removed. Savings and loan associations, as a whole, are in a very liquid position. Only associations which have had to curtail new GI lending because of a lack of funds for new loans would be likely to sell old GI loans under the expanded secondary market.

Mr. BROWN. What we want to do is get more houses. Therefore, they could sell 100 percent of the new GI loans in the secondary market.

Mr. BOGGS. The trouble about that, Mr. Brown, is that a lot of them have large sums tied up in these old loans and if they are conservative institutions, their new loans will necessary be limited by the funds that are so tied up.

In my town, building and loan associations are really the most conservative lenders in the community. We operate under a central appraisal bureau, which makes all the appraisals of real estate in the community, whether old or new. Those appraisals, particularly on old construction, are based pretty much on prewar values. That means that many of those institutions are hedged in pretty generally and I have been told that none of those institutions have abused the secondary market in any sense of the word.

Mr. RAINS. Are you not a little afraid if you clear out all the old mortgages that they have, how do you know that they are going to put them back in new mortgages, and it seems to me that that might retard the building of homes.

Mr. BOGGS. I would not be adverse to writing some limitation or specification in that regard.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Ferguson testified for the United States Savings and Home Loan. He made this statement:

They had made one-third of the GI loans to the veterans, and they sold in the secondary market less than one-third of one percent of their loans.

The CHAIRMAN. Most of these old mortgages bear 4 percent, do they not?

Mr. BOGGS. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. Public Law 176, signed recently by the President, provides for an increase of $500,000,000 in funds available to Fannie May, supplementing the small amount which was on hand at the end of June.

As I understand, this authority is again extended in the current bill before the committee with an additional authorization of $500,000,000,

which I believe would be adequate to meet the demand even with the liberalization of the secondary-market possibilities.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement.

Mr. RAINS. Do you have any figures available as to how many of those mortgages are held by the savings and loan and other institutions?

Mr. BOGGS. I have some figures, but the Reconstruction Finance Corporation has a pretty complete break-down on those figures, and I would not

Mr. RAINS. Are you not afraid that the thing that would happen would be that they would sell their old mortgages, use up entirely the amount we have set up without getting any more houses? Naturally they are going to sell their old mortgages first.

Mr. BOGGS. I think you could write some limitation on that. I think you might require them to even "swap" them. I am thinking out loud. I realize that there are difficulties involved here, but at the same time, this date of April 30 was arbitrarily selected. I remember when we passed that act there was no good reason for picking April 30 out of the air and writing it into the legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the amount of the existing mortgages? Mr. BOGGS. I understand it is about $8,000,000,000. The GI's are $8,000,000,000.

Mr. TALLE. The amount involved in that period prior to April 30, 1948 is, roughly, $7,000,000,000, and I think you will recall that a bad situation had arisen in that a few builders, whether they were contractors or not, organized mortgage companies within themselves and they were collecting the one-half of 1 percent for doing nothing except writing their names and "without recourse. They shunted these mortgages off to the Government and some of those builders were not doing a very good job of construction. You remember there was a lot of complaint about the poor construction. That has certainly improved very much now.

May I say, Mr. Chairman, that it is a stimulus to my spirit to see the able and distinguished and handsome gentleman from Louisiana before us this morning.

Mr. BOGGS. Thank you.

You are very kind.

Let me say one thing, Doctor, about the comment that you made. I do not doubt for one moment that there were abuses in this program. As a matter of fact, a program as large as the housing program, the privately financed housing program, that we have had under way since the conclusion of the war is bound to have abuses in it. It seems to me that it is the duty of Congress to attempt to correct those abuses, but at the same time, in correcting them, not to unduly penalize the people who have not participated in abusing the situation and that is all I am trying to do.

The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have your views.

Mr. BOGGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. You are always a welcome guest at the Banking and Currency Committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Congressman George P. Miller. Please identify yourself.

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE P. MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, I am George P. Miller, from the Sixth District of California.

I

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to take up a great deal of time. merely wanted to address myself to title VI of H. R. 5631 and point out that in my district we have two of the hard-hit communities that seek some relief under this title the city of Richmond and the city of Alameda.

In the city of Richmond over 60 percent of the population live in public housing. This, unfortunately, in the greater portion of these buildings that are not located on land owned in fee by the Government but on land in multiple ownership-where, in many instances, one building will extend over the ownership of three separate pieces of property which greatly complicates the problem before us.

I do not know whether the act is the entire solution for the problem. In the instance of Richmond, I believe before we get through with that community it is going to take some special legislation to meet the conditions set up there as the result of the quadrupling of the population of the community directly as a result of the war.

Before the war, Richmond was a small industrial community of about 23,000 people. Today it has in excess of 100,000 people, over 60 percent of whom live in this public housing.

I merely want to appear there to thank the committee for its efforts and to point this up to them because I am afraid it is a problem that we will have with us for some time to come.

The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have your views.

Congressman Granger.

STATEMENT OF HON. W. K. GRANGER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF UTAH

Mr. GRANGER. I want to take just a few minutes to discuss with the members of this committee the practical phase of this proposed housing disposal bill, especially as it concerns the State of Utah.

The

Utah has 12 out-of-quota housing projects in 12 different counties which have been developed under title V of the Lanham Act. county commissioners of each of these 12 counties entered into contracts (designated as VN-4225) with the Public Housing Administration in order to obtain basic structures located at the various wartime Government installations for these projects. These basic structures consisted of abandoned Army barracks, and the county commissioners took possession on site, but the eligible individuals who were allotted these housing units assumed the cost of moving the basic structures to permanent locations. Since that time, these individuals have been doing their utmost to bring these basic structures up to standard before the present deadline of January 1950.

So far as I know, every one of these basic structures were moved onto farm land or into farming communities so that they might properly be classified as reuse farm housing. In other words, they were actually dismantled and removed from their original sites, and are now serving as farm housing units, where the remodeling is sufficiently advanced.

These veterans have been spending every spare minute they have had, and every cent they could raise, to bring these units up to the local housing standards. Some of these young men have told me they have already invested over $2,000 in these units, but are still needing more to meet the standards, and yet because they do not hold title, no lending agency will give them a loan. This is a pretty serious situation, since we provided for those eligible to obtain these units under the obligation they be brought up to standard, and yet we have not given them title to these basic structures so they might borrow the necessary money to do the job in the time given.

I am frank to admit that some of our county commissioners did not abide by the "letter of the law" regarding the eligibility of veterans only. But knowing these officials personally, I can assure you that they acted in good faith and only when all veterans' applications for these structures had been filled, and then with the permission of the Public Housing Administration. This number is negligible in the State of Utah. For the most part, the persons who obtained these abandoned basic structures have given their best to make of them decent homes for their families, and I personally think the least we can do now is provide for the transfer of title to those county commissioners who have served as agents of these county projects so that they, in turn, might transfer title to those individuals who have made an honest effort to conform to the contract for improvement.

I might add that there is a real housing need in all of these counties and there are approximately 700 housing units which have been moved into the 12 counties, as follows: Cache, Box Elder, Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Sanpete, Sevier, Millard, Beaver, Iron, and Tooele. It seems to me that we have been far more concerned with the housing in urban areas than in rural areas, and yet from my own observation, I think the veterans who attempted to find living quarters in the rural areas encountered just as much difficulty, and in some instances even more, because of their distance from the markets. It is, therefore, in the interest of these 700 Utah veterans who have put their all into the improvement of these abandoned barracks that I plead with you members for speedy action on this bill. These men are hesitant about doing more unless they are assured that they are going to be able to complete their individual project before the dead line, and I have been told that there are virtually as many such cases in every State in the Union as in Utah.

There is another provision of this proposed housing disposition legislation in which I am vitally interested, because under the provisions of section 603 of the Lanham Act, as it would be amended by this bill, a very definite procedure has been provided for the disposal of such war housing projects as Washington Terrace housing project, Utah-42014, located in Weber County, Utah.

More than 3 years ago, the tenants of this war-housing project began negotiations to purchase these units either individually or collectively, and during that long period, I have attempted to be of some assistance in these negotiations. On several occasions, negotiations were to the point where final agreement could have been reached, but because a very definite procedure had not been outlined for the disposition of such a project, the officials of the Public Housing Administration have repeatedly delayed. Of course, they always found reasons

for their stalling, but it is generally known that certain personnel purposely delayed a final decision because they were influenced by real estate lobbyists. At one time, they even sought the advice of a mayor's committee in an adjoining city rather than the advice and recommendations of the county commissioners, who were the governing body of the territory in which this project is located.

This is one of the saddest experiences of my congressional career because this unprecedented dilly-dallying was premeditated delaying tactics. Some officials managed to spin more red tape rather than to assist in unraveling it. The result has been that those tenants, many of whom are veterans, have been forced to live in those units where not 1 cent has been spent for upkeep for some time. There are no other accommodations available in this particular vicinity, and those veterans are not financially able to purchase new homes at present prices. On the other hand, they are interested in purchasing their individual units and have formed a nonprofit housing cooperation in an effort to purchase the project so that they could improve the buildings and bring them up to the standards of the community.

Most of the residents of this project were former residents of other localities in Utah who came to Weber County when it became a defense area, and who are now seeking to make this locality their permanent residence. So they are people who can very well fit into that area where a housing shortage still exists because of the tremendous influx of workers during the emergency.

The Weber County commissioners, and the mayors of every small town in Weber County, have recently advised Administrator Foley of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, that they recommend that this project be disposed of to the present tenants, with the provision in the purchase contract that the project be brought up to the housing standards of the area.

Mr. Foley has assured me that under this proposed housing disposal bill, a very definite procedure has been set down in black and white, so that a final disposition can be reached with these tenants in this particular project. I am told there are numerous other projects of a similar nature which can be disposed of in a reasonable time, and thus clear the way for the improvement of these projects, which are rapidly deteriorating because of the lack of care.

In the light of my experiences, I certainly want to most humbly urge this committee to act promptly on this measure so that the Government might be relieved of further responsibility with reference to all the war housing covered by this legislation, and, at the same time, give the tenants an opportunity to improve the property and make of it respectable homes of which America can be justly proud. The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have your views. Congressman Javits.

STATEMENT OF HON. JACOB K. JAVITS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. JAVITS. Mr. Chairman, I have no prepared statement. I intend to take but a short time of the committee's time graciously accorded me.

I would like to emphasize, first, as was evidenced very clearly in the debate and vote on the public housing bill, that if we are to do