great strides such a cut back will greatly hamper him. If I recall correctly, in addition to $130 million to $140 million which is being authorized under the title I program for New York City, the slumclearance committee has under study projects that would probably total in the neighborhood of $150 million in addition to the $130 million to $140 million to which I just referred, and for which no authorization of any kind, even the $250 million additional which the Administrator originally requested, makes provision. I might say that in the State program we try to encourage the urban renewal, particularly upstate. In New York City they have enough know-how and enough experts, and so on, and are familiar with it so that they can get along on their own, but upstate we find a lot of smaller cities that do not have the money to pay experts and do not realize what this program can mean for them. We sell the program as a good financial invest ment. Take the Coliseum, in New York City, which was built under title I. In 1 year it collected for the city of New York over $2 million in city sales tax. I do not know the amount of corporation taxes that were collected on the business that was done there. I do not know the income tax collected because of the income that was generated, but I would be willing to guess that within a few years probably the Federal Government will have paid off its cost by the increased income taxes, corporate taxes, and amusement taxes. The value of all the property in the surrounding area has increased. The whole city has benefited. (The following was received for the record :) ALBERT M. COLE, Housing and Home Finance Agency Administrator, Washington, D. O.: APRIL 2, 1957. Walter Fried has officially informed us through William Lebwohl presumably authoritatively and with your approval that it has been decided in Washington to cut the New York City slum clearance program to ribbons. More specifically he has stated that the following projects must be abandoned because of the lack of Federal write down money: Riverside-Amsterdam Mid-Harlem Battery Park Gramercy Park Soundview Mr. Fried also stated that the Federal grant at Lincoln Square would have to be arbitrarily limited to $25 million despite the fact that our plans which are now in your hands may require Federal grant which may be approximately $40 million or $42 million. This would mean destroying the integrity of the project and in effect its abandonment. Mr. Fried indicated that it was your wish that this matter be discussed in our slum clearance committee. May I ask you to let me know in writing and in detail whether or not this is your program and whether or not Mr. Fried spoke authoritatively for you. I must know this in advance of the committee meeting and in order to inform all those involved including the mayor, the governing body of the city, other officials and the press. ROBERT MOSES, Chairman, Slum Clearance Committee. I have seen in the city of Pittsburgh the Golden Triangle, and I saw the new development planned up on the hill. It is so obvious that the economics of it make financial sense. This is the way government should operate. It should look at itself as a private corporation saying, "What is good investment?" And I think the title I program, if you look at it that way, makes a great deal of economic sense. As a matter of fact, it will bring revenue into the cities and into the States and into the Federal Government. And more than that, and most important, it will make it possible for human beings to live like dignified human beings rather than like animals, as some of them have to live. To take this one program and to say, "You are the one that is going to bear the burden of deflationary efforts," I think is rank unfairness. Senator CLARK. One last question. Mr. Cole attempted to persuade the committee this morning that this would not happen if he cut back to $175 million and continued his Regulation 91 in effect the balance of this fiscal year. I undertook to differ with him. I wonder if you would agree with me that the amount for the entire country of $175 million and the restrictions on further grants for the balance of this fiscal year come pretty close to bringing the whole program that was just about off the ground back to dead center. Mr. MCMURRAY. Exactly right, and I want to say this: During the year 1944 we were spending for war at that time at the rate of almost $2 billion a week, and as I remember the testimony we have not even spent a quarter of this amount on the whole program to date. Senator CLARK. Thank you very much for your patience and your courtesy. We do appreciate having you with us. Mr. MCMURRAY. Thank you very much. (The appendix to Mr. McMurray's statement follows:) APPENDIX HOUSING NEED ESTIMATES Table I below shows how the need for housing in New York State is estimated. Table II shows how the estimate of need will vary depending upon assumptions of replacement. Such replacement data are provided by the census of 1950, and their relative significance is indicated by the definition of terms and exposition which follows. The Census Bureau considers a dwelling unit dilapidated if it suffers from any critical deficiency, a combination of minor deficiencies so great as to give inadequate protection from the elements, or if the unit was inadequately constructed in the first place. Critical deficiencies include such things as open cracks, rotted, loose or missing materials over a considerable area of the foundation, outside walls, roof, inside walls, floors, ceilings, etc. Substantial sagging of floors, walls or roof, and extensive damage by storm, flood, or fire are included in the definition. Minor deficiencies include holes, open cracks, unsafe stairs or railings, broken or loose window frames, etc. The term inadequate original construction covers buildings with makeshift walls, without foundations, or with dirt floors, as well as inadequately converted cellars, barns and garages. There are, at present, 215,000 dilapidated units in New York, excluding those units which also lack some of the other elemental decencies of life. Some of these other elemental decencies are running water, toilet and bath, and hot water. There are 95,000 units without running water, 305,000 without toilet or bath, and 115,000 without hot water. In estimating housing need, it is also necessary to consider the number of good units demolished in clearing areas of substandard units. Thirty-three and onehalf percent is a conservative estimate. The percentage frequently runs much higher. Table II gives New York's minimum housing needs under a variety of assumptions: 1. That only dilapidated dwellings need to be replaced. 2. That, in addition, those without running water ought to be replaced 3. That, in addition, those without toilet or bath need to be replaced. 4. That, in addition, those without hot water need to be replaced. For the United States, the census of 1950 revealed that 10 million nonfarmı dwelling units were dilapidated or lacked running water. Another 1.9 million units, although not substandard, were located in blocks containing more than 50 percent substandard dwelling units, and would be demolished in slum clearance. If urban standards were applied to rural housing, 4.9 million units would be considered substandard. However, in order to keep the estimates conservative. Department of Agriculture standards, which are lower, can be applied to rural housing. If this is done, 3.4 million dwelling units were, in 1950, substandard. Together, this gives a total of 15.3 million substandard housing units in the United States as of 1950. Not all of these need to be replaced. The best estimate is that 10.2 need replacement, 4.6 can be rehabilitated, and 0.5 million abandoned.1 Table III shows the rate at which construction, including rehabilitation of substandard units, should take place if progress is to be made in improving the housing inventory. Table I.-New York State housing need estimates, before considering replacement of substandard dwelling units Need before replacement of substandard units___ 1 1950 Census Bulletin P-B32, table 22 (4,329,699). 4,330, 000 100,000 490, 000 150,000 5, 070, 000 4, 400, 000 610, 000 5,010, 000 60,000 2 Approximately of married couples without own household reported in 1950. Census Bulletin P-B32, table 22 (281,805). 3 Average of 70,000 per year, on the basis of 1950 to 1955 population estimates. This figure contains adjustments for family formation by immigrants during the period, but not for migration itself. The 3-percent figure is the minimum necessary to assure some mobility. Source: From data made available by the Bureau of Research and Statistics, New York State Housing Division. TABLE II.-New York State housing need estimates under varying assumptions of replacement, Jan. 1, 1957 2 In clearing substandard units, it is necessary or desirable to demolish other units which are not substandard by the established criteria. These rarely represent less than one-third of the units on a given clearance site, and often are a greater portion. Source: From data made available by the Bureau of Research and Statistics, New York State Division of Housing. 1 William L. C. Wheaton. American Housing Needs, 1955-70, Housing Yearbook, National Housing Conference (Washington, 1954), table 2. TABLE III.—Projections of substandard dwellings remaining in use at various levels of construction and rehabilitation, 1955–70 Senator CLARK. Mr. Bernard Weitzer. May I express to you, Mr. Weitzer, my humble and sincere apologies for having kept you waiting so long. I do hope we have not seriously inconvenienced you. Mr. McMurray's statement was so full of meat I felt, at least from the point of view of this member of this commitee, that I would like a little more help from him on the record. Mr. WEITZER. I agree with you, Senator Clark. I have known him now for about 10 years, and I have always found him very helpful to me. Senator CLARK. Mr. Weitzer, we will put your testimony in the record without your reading it, or if you would like to read it go ahead. STATEMENT OF BERNARD WEITZER, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, JEWISH WAR VETERANS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Mr. WEITZER. On behalf of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America, I am happy to express appreciation for this opportunity to present the views of our organization on the legislation which you are considering to stimulate greater activity in the housing field. It is a personal pleasure, as well, to appear before the members of your committee with whom I have worked during some 10 years now on the housing legislation which has originated in your committee and which has been responsible for an era of housing production previously unequaled in our country. I am also pleased that you are considering bills which will implement the efforts of the House Veterans Affairs Committee and thereby help to fulfill the promise of housing for veterans, intrinsic in the wellknown GI bill of rights. That promise included the ability to purchase a home with a minimum downpayment, a low interest rate, and a low monthly payment for amortization and interest. As you know from my regular appearances before your committee during the past 10 years, the membership of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America are keenly interested in housing. At our 61st annual national convention in Milwaukee in August 1956, five resolutions were passed dealing with housing. They are titled as follows: "Housing" (dealing with the need for an up-todate general housing act), "Investment of VA Insurance Funds in VA-Guaranteed Mortgages," "VA Direct Loans for Home Mortgages," "Reduction of the Interest Rate on VA-Guaranteed Home Loans," and "Housing for Our Armed Forces." I shall not read these resolutions in full, but I ask that the resolutions be printed in your hearing record at the end of my testimony. Our general housing resolution really included support for the bill that was in the Senate in the 84th Congress. I think it was Senator Lehman's bill. As you know, that covered practically the whole gamut of the housing field. We feel that unless this committee does something by way of immediate legislation the goal of the Housing Act of 1949 will be foreclosed. The execution of this goal calls for additional legislation which will aid in surmounting the roadblocks that have been created by talk about antiinflation, actual imposition of higher interest rates, and opposition to the use of adequate Government credits for mortgage financing, through a debenture corporation to be established, as well as through the special-assistance program of FNMA for cooperative housing. Unless this is done, we will continue in a situation where the average head of a family earning from $70 to $100 a week cannot buy a home with a moderate downpayment and a low monthly cost of amortization and interest payments. Senator CLARK. May I ínterrupt you, Mr. Weitzer? Is it not true that in many sections of the country you cannot do it now? Mr. WEITZER. I say that it will continue what is true today. It will become increasingly true if you listen to the implorations of the people that have been here asking you to jack up the interest rate on VA loans, because every half percent increase in the interest rate means about a $1,000 increase in the cost of the home ultimately over a period of a 20- or 25-year mortgage. This is particularly true of veterans who have an implied promise from the Government in the GI bill of rights that they would certainly enjoy this privilege, especially as to a minimum downpayment. You can see that our views are quite at variance with many of those set forth by the administration as well as those set forth by the many organizations which have been opposed to, or at least lukewarm, on Government-aid housing unless a toll was paid at each wicket of the traditional organized groups engaged in promoting financing, buying, and selling housing. Many of those organized groups have forgotten the dire straits in which they found themselves after the smashup of 1929. I want you to remember that practically all of those groups have been against housing aids in general. They accepted the aid when it suited them, and now that they seem to be in a relatively comfortable position they want to get back to the collection of all of the fees and the higher interest rate. Some of them are almost at the point where they are ready to say, "Let's be done with Government aids." Of course, many of these people have forgotten the fix they were in when these aids were started back in the thirties. I happened |