Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

public housing has become the whipping boy at these annual affairs. We run the gauntlet.

Periodically, all the old housing bogies are dragged out by NAREB for public display the old chestnuts are refurbished.

Eight years ago NAREB was saying that public housing was a "fascistic, communistic, socialistic doctrine." Public housing, they said then, "is a danger to freedom, a danger to home ownership, and a danger to our form of government." In 1947, a NAREB spokesman told a Senate committee that public housing could destroy the country's entire private housing industry.

They have kept it up. Last year NAREB alleged from Washington, D. C., that public housing failed to house needy families; it was a special privilege and a political racket; it was a Russian custom; it herded families together into ghettos, and it is an unfair burden on home owners.

In 1955, NAREB's tune is largely the same. The lyrics are but little different in the May 2 editorial. They said this year that public housing is a form of mental sickness. It does not eliminate crime and delinquency. It is not public. Who wants it? And has it done any good?

The passage of time has not had any visible effect on NAREB's public housing views.

Not much. NAREB asked the hackneyed question: "Does public housing take care of the needy?" Earlier in my remarks we examined their statement concerning the National Capital Housing Authority. What is the national picture? Our records show that during the first half of 1954, the recheck of over 142,000 families living in low-rent public housing showed an average annual income of $1,852 after allowable exemptions. For families admitted during that time, the figure was $1,810. We have no data yet on rechecks for the rest of 1954, but the 30,000 families moving in during October, November, and December 1954 had average annual incomes of only $1,803 after exemptions, $7 less than those admitted in the first half of the year.

These families then were existing on an income of $150 a month. I say they needed help from public housing. Further, 30 percent of the families admitted during the last quarter of 1954 were receiving public or private relief or some form of public benefit.

What is NAREB's definition of need? What are they doing about it? Beyond pious platitudes, have they any practical solution for getting these people out of slums into decent, livable housing?

Take a long look at NAREB's oft-repeated assertion that public housing means the extinction of the private home-building industry. A look at the figures leads me to question the plaintiff note in the May 2 tirade, "Public housing strikes down a large element of the construction industry, always a main source of investment and jobs."

What is the record?

The housing census of 1950 showed there were 46 million dwelling units in the United States, a net gain since 1940 of almost 9 million units. Of the total number, 39 million were classified by the census as nonfarm units, with the balance classified as rural farm dwellings.

A large part of the increase in nonfarm housing was accounted for by 5.7 million new units constructed between 1940 and 1950.

How many federally aided low-rent public housing units were started in that decade? About 150,000. Who's being shoved into oblivion?

Now, let's take a look at housing starts for the past 5 years.

Private enterprise started construction on almost 6 million dwelling units in that period.

Local housing authorities started construction on a total of 204,000 low-rent units.

Elementary arithmetic will show low-rent public housing accounted for just about 3 percent of the total nonfarm housing starts. If this 3 percent is scaring 97 percent, it is the wonder of the age. The only people we're really scaring are the slum landlords.

Obviously, public housing is neither throttling private enterprise, nor dooming the private building industry to extinction—a charge trumpeted by NAREB. NAREB's Washington editorial also asked "Does public housing eliminate crime and delinquency?" And it answered, "All the news we get is that both are on the increase everywhere in our cities, regardless of public housing." Public housing will not solve every problem of the current age. Just as the police departments, the fire departments, and the welfare departments of your cities do not eliminate crime, fire, and disease entirely. But without any of

these municipal agencies, you can conjecture with horror the state we would be in. We have not eliminated crime and juvenile delinquency, either, but we have bettered the record that was in existence before us. Certainly, there is less crime and juvenile delinquency in our projects than there were in the slums that we replaced.

There is also another side to the problem.

As you know, the Congress has been devoting considerable attention to the problem of juvenile delinquency.

The Senate Judiciary Committee selected a subcommittee to investigate juvenile delinquency in the United States. Earlier this year, the committee released an interim report on its findings. I believe you will find the following of interest: "Although physically deteriorated and socially disorganized neighborhoods, usually termed 'slum areas' contribute disproportionately to the delinquency caseloads of police and juvenile courts, economically well-to-do communities also produce many juvenile delinquents. As a matter of fact, certain forms of delinquent conduct appear more prevalent in the latter type of neighborhoods." It is not just our problem.

Public housing is not the sole panacea for the Nation's social and economic needs. But as a businessman, a realtor, a former mayor of a good-sized city, I can assure you that public housing is good business, both socially and economically.

You are all too familiar with the pros and cons of federally aided low-rent public housing for me to repeat them. You live with them 7 days a week. I only wish that those who seek to discredit and destroy public housing could spend a week, or at least a day in a slum house. Or to spare them this mild horror, let them merely tour a slum area on a hot summer day. They'll find out soon enough whether families want to escape from their slum hovels into the decent public housing that NAREB has tagged a ghetto and the cornerstone of the socialistic state.

NAREB has tried through the years to make public housing a synonym for socialism, for communism, for something un-American. Tell me, is it unAmerican to want to live in decent homes? Do we force families from slums into clean, bright accommodations at rents within their means? De we hold them in public housing, against their will? I know of no pressure-political or otherwise which binds an American family to a low-rent lease. Basically, Americans of low income are the same as you and I. We all seek constantly to improve our station in life. We can go as high as our opportunities and our abilities permit us. That's the American way. We all want a decent

home for our families.

By the way, the title of NAREB's editorial was "Let's Stop It Now." I agree wholeheartedly.

Mr. MILLS. I will now go on with my prepared statement.

Senator SPARKMAN. I wonder if I might offer a suggestion, that we print your statement in full, and perhaps you can summarize it, because it's now 12:30.

Mr. MILLS. I appreciate time is of the essence, Mr. Chairman.

In our analysis of the current public-housing scene, five basic issues arise in considering S. 1800, S. 1412, and S. 1642: The relationship of this program to the overall urban renewal program; the number of units that the program should cover; the number of years allowed for planning; how to adapt the public-housing program to meet the special and growing needs of the aged; how to adapt the public-housing program to meet the special needs of single-person families, with no reference to age.

Senator, as you well know, the purpose of the bill is to orient the number of public housing units and to maintain the basic purpose of meeting the relocation needs of families of low income displaced by sum-clearance and urban-renewal projects.

The 1954 act made it mandatory that only housing for those people could be housed in the projects, and that has been a stumbling block. As a result, during this year, when you have allowed 35,000 units,

there have only been two contracts signed under the Housing Act of 1954. One of those was in Clarksville, Tenn., and the other in Somerville, Mass., and neither of those projects are under construction. All that have been built in this year are those previously under contract with the Housing Act of 1949.

Senator SPARK MAN. You are aware, I am sure, that none had been started until just recently.

Mr. MILLS. They haven't been started yet, Mr. Chairman.

Senator SPARKMAN. I think I am correct in saying that not a singleunit had been processed until by administrative procedure the Public Housing Administration virtually broke away from the restrictions that were placed on it in the act of 1954.

Mr. MILLS. That is correct.

Senator SPARK MAN. I will say this. The matter was taken up with the Banking and Currency Committee of each House in order to make certain that such procedure as proposed would be acceptable.

Mr. MILLS. Certain administrative determinations were made in the light of legislation so that they were able to sign those contracts, but to this date you are right in saying none has been built.

Senator SPARKMAN. You understand under this proposal we do propose to project the excess of the 35,000 for the current year, which we are not able to get under contract, into the next 2 years.

Mr. MILLS. I hope that will be the case.

I am delighted to see you are also recognizing there are other public actions, such as the clearance of lands for expressways, for highways, for schools, for playgrounds, any number of things, and buildings on slum sites and clearing them themselves, which is a public action which would let this program go forward. Senator, I think that is very important and I am certainly delighted to see you are giving consideration to that.

Senator SPARKMAN. Let me ask you a few practical questions, if you will agree just to incorporate the rest of your statement in the record. You have had a great deal of experience in public housing. How long have you been connected with public housing?

Mr. MILLS. Senator, I was appointed chairman of the housing authority of Gadsden, Ala., in 1938.

Senator SPARKMAN. And have you been with it continually? Mr. MILLS. I have been with it continuously except for those years when I was in the service.

Senator SPARK MAN. During the war.

Mr. MILLS. Yes, sir.

Senator SPARKMAN. Later you were president of the State organization?

Mr. MILLS. I was president of the Alabama State Association of Housing Authorities.

Senator SPARKMAN. And you have had connection with the national organization all the way through and now you are president of the national organization?

Mr. MILLS. Yes, sir, I am.

Senator SPARKMAN. You have had wide familiarity with housing programs generally all over the country.

Mr. MILLS. In fact, Senator, as I told you I have been attending the annual conferences of the various regional councils of our association.

I was in California last week, and this week I was in Galveston, Tex., where the seven southwestern States were represented.

Senator SPARKMAN. Do you believe that these so-called public housing projects have contributed to juvenile delinquency or do you believe they have cleaned up juvenile delinquency?

Mr. MILLS. Of course, I would like to amplify what Mayor Clark just said who just preceded me here. I have personal knowledge in my own town, as well as observing what has been accomplished in combatting juvenile delinquency throughout the United States, and I have been told by municipal judges, by police officials, by mayors of towns, that no other tool given to them in history has helped them to combat juvenile delinquency as well as public housing.

In my own town, for example, we have provided recreation areas and supervised playrooms for children who otherwise would be dumped on the streets, because a great many of their parents are domestic workers where both have to work. We have been able to supervise them in a child-care center, and we have put them in a happy living environment, sir, which has not been conducive to the vandalism which runs rampant throughout the country. I am familiar with the story of Houston.

Senator SPARKMAN. Yes. Would you state to this committee that just because perhaps one housing project has had a considerable amount currently of juvenile delinquency and lawbreaking generally in it, that that is in any sense typical of the country as a whole?

Mr. MILLS. I would say that is not typical. It is rather the exception. You know, in taking in low-income families oftentimes you take in problem families as well. They have to be rehabilitated.

Senator SPARKMAN. That is where you find the highest incidence of problem families, isn't it?

Mr. MILLS. That is right, and in Houston it's exaggerated—

Senator SPARKMAN. Wait, I want to be sure my question was complete there. I mean in the slum areas from which you draw your people generally, and whom you usually replace with these public housing projects, from those slum areas is where you find a high incidence of problem families.

Mr. MILLS. Oh, yes, definitely so.

Senator SPARK MAN. And a great many of those naturally come into your public housing project.

Mr. MILLS. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.

Senator SPARKMAN. But you believe that the net effect is helpful

rather than harmful?

Mr. MILLS. Very helpful, sir. In that particular instance in Houston, they had a peculiar problem in which they had some Latin American children who contributed to this who didn't speak English. That story is well known throughout the country. We understand the problem at Houston, and we would try to match that against the good throughout the United States and the good that is being done presently in Houston itself.

Housing for elderly and single persons

There are one or two things not in the prepared statement that I would like particularly to call your attention to, Mr. Chairman, if I may. Of course, one of those is housing for the aged which you are

considering. We think that is wonderful and we would like to have you go forward with it..

We would also like to have you give special consideration to the problems we have faced in administering this program of a singleperson family. All too often you will find a widow of 50, for example I notice a great many times they are trying to get admission of single persons to social security, but you will find a great many widows whose husbands have died and they are 50 or up and they are destitute. They can't draw social security until they reach 65, and if they have no minor children they have no old-age survivors insurance. They become a problem in the community. They may not even receive public assistance. They may have to depend on savings and contributions from friends and family. I would certainly recommend this committee give very serious consideration to lowering that age to a more realistic age. I think it would be wonderful.

Senator SPARKMAN. Is there a provision now at all for single persons?

Mr. MILLS. No, sir, they are denied.

Senator SPARKMAN. What do you mean by lowering the age?

Mr. MILLS. There are several bills, that have been proposed in the House and Senate, sir, to admit single persons. In your consideration of all these bills we would like to have you give thought to that. Senator SPARKMAN. When you said lower the age you mean lower than provided.

Mr. MILLS. Than provided in the proposed legislation, that is right. Farm housing

I would like to point up one other thing that I am sure you are quite familiar with, Mr. Chairman, and that is the rural nonfarm section of my testimony where I ask that this legislation be reestablished and that it be allowed. In a great many States rural nonfarms are not exactly what it sounds like.

In Alabama, for example, any city that does not have a population of 3,500 or more has to fall into the rural nonfarm program. They are urban places of small size, and they are rural areas that need help just like all the rest of them. I would certainly like to see the amendments which were proposed by Congressman Jones, from Alabama, in the original act of 1949, reopened and reestablished here. I would like to point that out because there is a great need for it.

Senator SPARKMAN. You are referring to the rural nonfarm housing?

Mr. MILLS. Rural nonfarm, sir. It's under consideration.

Senator, I have a resolution which was passed by the Pacific Southwest Regional Council of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials which concerns itself with the farm labor centers for the housing of migratory and permanent agricultural workers, particularly in the fast-growing California valleys.

I have seen houses, or would-be houses would be a better word, where they are not allowed to make capital improvements. The wind and the rain and the years have taken their tolls, where the beaverboard sides have fallen off. Under the present program they are under a 20year deal where any residual receipts have to be given to the Federal Government, and any deficit has to be undertaken by the local people. I saw wooden frames exposed with blankets hung up for siding so

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »