It is then proposed that the Congress find that a yet untried and still to be studied method is a better approach and that in the meantime we are to abandon any approach. This is disgraceful. Despite the approximately 2 million families who have obtained decent housing under these programs over the past 4 or 5 years the Nation is now asked to abandon any effort in place of a possibility. The Congress is further asked to revert to what has not worked in the pastmaximum reliance on the existing housing stock and the disciplines and economies of the free housing market. It is further asked to abandon the 10-year housing goal enacted in 1968, as well as the goal of eliminating all substandard housing. It is even asked to authorize HUD to spend money to determine the definition of safe and sanitary housing. After being in business for 39 years, then I think we are in bad trouble if HUD does not know at this time what safe and sanitary housing is. If the Government is now to abandon its efforts to provide good housing for those who cannot otherwise afford it, as well as its efforts to eliminate substandard housing, then we are in even a sorrier state. While there may be better and more efficient ways of meeting the housing needs of the low and moderate income than those presently available, it is important that we proceed full speed with the programs now at hand until those better and more efficient programs are developed and fully funded. This is especially true today when the highest mortgage interest rates in our history have priced such a large segment of our population out of the housing market. Therefore, as our board of directors in another resolution adopted in New Orleans stated, we reaffirm our support of these programs, urge HUD to release all impounded funds, and urge the Congress to provide sufficient additional funds to keep these programs operating at a level consistent with the national housing goals until such better programs are in being, and I have attached a copy of that resolution to my statement. I would like to turn now to the basic premise behind the administration's proposal to abandon the present housing subsidy programs, that the present major emphasis on production of housing for the low and moderate income is wrong and wasteful and that we should instead rely on the existing housing stock. If we should abandon our present production orientation for low and moderate income, we would be the only Nation in the western world without a significant production element in its program to help house those who cannot afford adequate housing on their own. Beyond that, however, we would be placing our reliance on an illusory foundation. I have testified in the past about this. This is a chart that shows homeowner vacancy rates in 1973 as compared to 1960. There are actually less vacant houses available right now than there were in 1960, 13 years after 1960, when the population is estimated to have increased by over 30 million. There are slightly more vacant rental units available to move into now than there were in 1960, but the vacancy rate is considerably lower. Senator PROXMIRE. Do you have a table that reflects that, too, in addition to the chart? Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir, we can give you additional support information on that. Of the rental housing that is available, 44 percent of the units available and vacant were built before 1939, and 50 percent of these rental units that are so-called available have only one bedroom or no bedrooms at all. So to say we are going to turn the public loose with a check in their hand to meet their housing needs in the public market, is a sham. Source: Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Vacant Housing Units in the United States: Second Quarter 1973. |