I urge you to give careful consideration to the recommendations of the American Municipal Association, whose capable staff has assembled reports which reflect the basic needs of our citizens.

The workable program, section 701 planning grants, and community renewal programs are examples of the intent of the Congress to have local governments plan ahead with long-range schedules. This is important. I urge the same long-range approach in making monetary appropriations for long-term urban renewal programs.

We in East Orange have a big job to do. In the last section of our city's master plan, it is recommended that a comprehensive urban renewal program be formulated in order to effectively carry out the proposals. Only by combining the resources and powers of the Federal Government and our municipal government in conjunction with private capital can our dreams become a reality. Our planning board has made an application to the Urban Renewal Administration for planning funds to develop a community renewal program. This is one of the outstanding new provisions of the 1959 act. We have been told by URA that no funds have been appropriated for this purpose to date. I do hope that an appropriation will be made at this session of the Congress so that we may undertake this long-range study.

Do not tease us with long-range programs without appropriating adequate funds to carry them out. It is important that the supporting programs in the Housing Act be made available for immediate use.

Another section of the new Housing Act which has been approved in spirit but not with money is the direct loans for housing for the elderly.

East Orange has the largest population of elderly persons in the State of New Jersey. It has been estimated that over 17 percent of our population is more than 62 years of age and more than 12 percent over 65 years of age. Adequate housing for this group is a continual subject of discussion and concern locally. Therefore, the 1959 Housing Act provision, with authorized $50 million in loan funds for nonprofit organizations to erect housing for the elderly, was received with extremely keen interest.

Our housing authority sent a letter of intent immediately to the Newark office of FHA in order that East Orange might be one of the first to take advantage of this new program for the elderly. To date we have gotten only a telephone statement from FHA to the effect that no funds have been appropriated for the making of these loans, and therefore no regulations have been published to advise localities how they might participate in this program. I, therefore, urge the committee to see that the provisions to implement this with appropriations are made to make this program operative. It is a vehicle which can be used effectively to assist many senior citizens throughout our country who deserve a decent place to live in the waning years of their life.

I review the pending State and House bills on housing issues with our housing director and city planner. I find they have vital significance to East Orange as well as the entire country. The proposal for creation of a Department of Housing and Metropolitan Affairs, if passed, will be a forward step toward giving housing and municipal problems the proper consideration they need on the national level. In public administration it is not unique that the administrative struc

ture of government be subject to adjustment and revision as the needs of the people change with the times. Housing and urban affairs have reached a point in our Nation where they demand consideration on a Cabinet level.

Senator Sparkman's bill to establish a national housing goal and providing for a research and study program to improve residential construction techniques without increasing construction costs is progressive and should be very well received. Too often our architects are designing institutional-type structures simply to keep unit costs. Certainly in a country with the highest economic level in the history of man we should be erecting dwellings which do credit to our heritage. Senator Clark's bill, S. 3509, which provides for the extension and expansion of existing legislation should be given careful consideration. I support it wholeheartedly and recommend that it be expanded to include increased urban renewal funds for the next 10 years at the rate of $600 million each year and to provide for the 1949 act allocation of public housing units.

The requirement of the urban renewal laws that all families displaced from urban renewal projects be provided decent, safe, and sanitary housing within their financial means and reasonably accessible to their place of employment is moral as well as legal. Public officials, whether elected or appointed, must be charged with the duty to see that persons displaced by public improvements be given the opportunity for decent housing. I am thinking particularly of the Federal highway program. Only through the erection of public housing projects can the lower income families be provided an adequate living environment. It is therefore important that urban renewal and public housing be considered as inseparable partners working together to solve the housing requirements of our people.

The Relocation Assistance Act of 1960-and I am happy to say my own Congressman, Mr. Addonizio is a cosponsor-is a positive proposal. It is another step toward providing for the families uprooted from their home due to urban redevelopment. I would like you to consider that there exists a lack of consistency in the Federal public improvement programs. Under urban renewal, displaced families are given careful consideration. The public housing statute permits assistance on a more limited bass, and the Federal highway bill and other Federal programs which displace families have no provisions in them to help alleviate this relocation problem. Perhaps the Relocation Assistance Act could be the vehicle to abolish this inequity. It is quite difficult to explain to an underpriviledged family that they will have to shift for themselves in a highway dsplacement program when other local famlies moving from urban renewal areas are being given maximum assistance to find a new location. In our country of equal opportunity certainly everyone should be treated with equal consideration.

Of special interest to us is the proposal contained in the Housing Conservation Act of 1960 which would liberalize the FHA program for mortgage insurance for property owners in older neighborhoods, and I might say at this point we have homes that average about 41 to 50 years of age. As of the end of 1959, less than 15 mortgages had been signed for existing houses under FHA section 220. Obviously, that program has not provided and is not providing a mortgage

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vehicle broad enough to assist property owners in areas where rehabilitation and conservation is contemplated. Our city, like many others, has large, old, but still sound residential areas where pride of homeownership runs high. Home purchase and home improvement in such areas is often hard to accomplish because of reluctance of many institutions to make loans on terms which owners or home buyers can afford. These areas need the benefits of mortgage financing on a par with what is made available for new developments under FHA and VA programs. These bills give recognition to this fact. They cut mortgage financing in older neighborhoods from detailed urban renewal planning by making available this feature outside renewal areas on a realistic basis.

I think these proposals if passed will be received enthusiastically by residents of East Orange and other older cities, who feel they have been lost and forgotten in the postwar rush to the suburbs.

I am proud to tell you gentlemen that in 1959 East Orange won the national award for the cleanest city in the United States with a population category of 50,000 to 100,000 people. Our citizens are proud of their community and cooperate to the fullest with our municipal clean up, fix up, paint up, plant up program. We have a fine local staff of public administrators in our government. They are capable of making programs successful when given the proper tools with which to work. I, therefore, again urge you to give us the assistance we need by passing a long-range, comprehensive housing program in 1960. This will avoid costly and unnecessary delays in carrying out our local programs.

Time and again Congress has reiterated the goal of decent housing in a good neighborhood for every family. It is our job as public officials to see that this mandate is carried out.

I wish to thank you gentlemen for your time and interest in this important subject.

Senator SPARK MAN. Thank you, Mayor Kelly, for a very fine statement. Senator Clark?

Senator CLARK. Thank you, Mayor Kelly, for your usual splendid

statement.

I would like to explore for just a second your troubles with your public housing applications with the Agency. I think some of us on the committee would feel somewhat of an obligation to help you get that through and get the redtape knocked out. Did you have any trouble with your selection of sites?

Mayor KELLY. No. We have not come to that point yet, Senator Clark. Our trouble with our public housing application was that in 1947 the city of East Orange created a housing authority. Some years later they abolished it, for reasons best known to themselves. Prior to my taking office in 1957, it was re-created. In 1958 and 1959 we made application for urban renewal as well as public housingpublic housing in May of 1959. In the examination by the New York and Washington offices it was found that we were probably one of the few cities, but not the only city, that had ever created a housing authority and abolished it.

The thinking on the part of some of the people in PHA was that our present authority was not legally entitled to any funds because of the previous abolition of it. Our bond attorney told us otherwise,

but PHA refused to go along until it was cleared up. We are now having emergency legislation passed in Trenton-we hope to have it accomplished today-to try to clear it up.

Senator CLARK. But your bond counsel was satisfied you had the legal authority?

Mayor KELLY. Yes, sir.

Senator CLARK. There was some legal officer in the agency who disagreed with your bond counsel?

Mayor KELLY. That is right. Since PHA was going to give out the money, we thought we had better satisfy them rather than our bond attorneys.

Senator CLARK. Have you picked your site?

Mayor KELLY. No, sir, it is in process.

Senator CLARK. Are you going to have trouble getting your city council to approve the site when you pick it?

Mayor KELLY. No, sir, I do not think so. That will be left entirely to the housing authority.

Senator CLARK. Are you having any trouble with respect to cost? Mayor KELLY. No, sir.

Senator CLARK. You think you can pick a site, and get the city council to agree, and can build the units within the $17,000 unit cost? You are not worried about that part?

Mayor KELLY. So far as the $17,000 cost is concerned, Senator Clark, we have not explored

Senator CLARK. The only thing that worries me is once you get by this legal problem you have only begun to fight with the Agency. They have about seven more roadblocks they can throw in your way before you get this authorization.

Mayor KELLY. I am sure this committee will overcome that.

Senator CLARK. I do not think we can do it, but maybe next year something can be done.

The only other point I wanted to make, Mayor Kelly, was to explain to you why we are only going for 1 year on urban renewal. I am not sure we can get even that by the White House. But if we tried for the long-term program that you recommend we unquestionably would have a veto and cannot override the veto. So as a practical matter we have got to try to get what we can this year, on the theory that a quarter of a loaf is better than none, and hope for a long program later on.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator SPARK MAN. Senator Bush?

Senator BUSH. No questions.

Senator SPARK MAN. Senator Muskie?

Senator MUSKIE. No questions.

Senator SPARK MAN. Senator Williams?

Senator WILLIAMS. I just wish to say it is always a pleasure and privilege to receive one of our mayors of our great State of New Jersey. I want to thank him.

Mayor KELLY. Thank you, sir.

Senator SPARK MAN. Thank you, Mayor. We enjoyed your appearance very much.

Now we will begin consideration of S. 3279, which is a bill introduced by Senator Williams, of New Jersey, and we will call on Senator Williams for the first statement.

STATEMENT OF HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, JR., U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could, I would like to say a few things about S. 3279, which I have introduced with 12 other Senators, which would help State and local governments improve their metropolitan mass transportation services.

I have attempted to highlight the national implications of the urban transportation crisis that, to me, justify and require Federal action. Frankly, it is difficult to understand how anyone can call this merely a local problem, as some people still seem to view it.

To me, there are so many justifications for Federal action, any one of which would be sufficient, that I can't help thinking of the story of the artillery captain who was called upon by his colonel to explain why his battery failed to fire a salute for a visiting foreign dignitary.

The Captain replied:

Sir, there are five reasons why we failed to fire. In the first place, there was no ammunition. * * *

Perhaps the first sufficient reason for Federal action to help solve the transportation crisis is because there are so many people whose daily lives are affected by it.

As an associate professor of transportation at Hofstra College, Charles E. Stonier, recently wrote in the April 28th issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly:

In most instances the urban transit problem has been viewed as a local issue. Our concepts of Federal participation are based almost entirely on geographical acreage rather than numbers of people involved. Yet it is well known that more than 70 percent of our population lives in urban areas and that aid to this group could hardly be considered "local" in scope. In terms of sheer numbers of potential beneficiaries, Federal aid can be substantiated.

Another way of looking at it is to consider the fact that 53 of our 180 standard metropolitan areas either cross or border on State lines. The interstate character of the urban transportation problem has obviously outstripped the capacity of local jurisdictions alone to cope with it in these areas.

Commenting on this geographical fact, the American Enterprise Association here in Washington concluded that "metropolitan transportation problems have become a national problem."

The association went on to say, in a study it has made, that "the combination of highways and high-speed rail transit is necessary to serve the need of the metropolitan areas," and added that it may be necessary to spend public funds to keep the commuter railroads in operation. The Interstate Commerce Commission came out with an even stronger statement in support of Federal aid, in its report to the chairman of the full committee on this bill.

It said:

In our opinion, the provision of adequate mass transportation facilities is essential to continued healthy growth of large metropolitan areas, and ranks equally in importance with, and bears a close relationship to, the provision of adequate housing. Considering the Federal aid which has been and is being given in the housing field, we see no reason why similar aid should not be given to mass transportation.