Now we go from the city of Trenton, our capital city, to the city of Newark, our largest city. We are honored to have Mr. Samuel Convissor here. I know the mayor is occupied in Newark today on a tour with Commissioner Brownstein of the FHA. I wanted to be there, but my first responsibility was here. I am sure the mayor understands. The forum is yours, Mr. Convissor.

STATEMENT OF SAMUEL CONVISSOR, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT TO THE MAYOR OF NEWARK AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOUTH SIDE PROJECT

Mr. CONVISSOR. Thank you, Senator.

My full name is Samuel M. Convissor, administrative assistant to Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio.

I want first to state that I am speaking here today both for the mayor of the city of Newark, Hugh J. Addonizio, and as his administrative assistant and executive director of the Newark Citizens Planning Committee for a major project now being planned in Newark which is designed to expand the opportunities for Newark youth.

I am especially pleased to be here today and urge passage of this important legislation.

The National Service Corps idea represents to me an extension of the President's own words at his inauguration when he said:

Think not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.

I say that because the National Service Corps program will stimulate thousands and hopefully millions of Americans into doing more for their communities, their neighborhoods, and their fellow citizens, which in turn will help to keep America strong.

The proposed National Service Corps represents an outstanding oportunity for cities that are undertaking programs of either a physical renewal or what has been termed "human renewal." The proposed National Service Corps will stimulate interest in governmental activity at the local community level and will provide the much needed incentive for the development of civic leadership in big cities where in recent years we have seen a lessening of citizen involvement and civic pride.

In 1959 the Welfare Federation of Newark, Irvington, and West Hudson sponsored a communitywide survey into the many areas that are the responsibilities of the federation and council of social agencies. A major concern of this report was seen in the great need in the important areas of voluntary service and development of civic leadership. This could be met by a federally supported and locally administered program of professionally trained volunteers to encourage local action and local support. Of specific importance was the need cited by the survey for the development of increased community leadership among the residents of the community.

Newark, like many other cities, is experiencing a rapid decline in its middle-income population; and unless a program of physical renewal, which is being undertaken in our city in the form of some 14 projects and $45 million in Federal funds, is integrated with a program of social renewal there will be a detrimental lagtime before new civic leadership can take hold in the city and participate in

the physical renewal program. This becomes a major problem in the development of political leadership, economic leadership, homeownership, job development, and all of the other community characteristics which are necessary in order to make up the strength and fabric of a great city.

In order to speed the process of the integration of social and physical renewal, we in Newark have undertaken, at the instigation of Rutgers University, a major program to expand the opportunities for Newark youth.

I need not dwell on this program here at this time, but I can assure you that this effort will go a long way, and it has already, in stimulating an organization of community activity toward facing up to the problems at hand and developing greater interest in solving the problems of the city.

I am attaching a report regarding this project.

As part of this expanded opportunities for youth proposal, I am also attaching a request that has been submitted to the National Service Corps Study Committee for the use of National Service Corps members as part of this Newark demonstration project.

We in Newark see that the National Service Corps volunteers can work in organizing neighborhood activity in order to undertake important programs in the fields of neighborhood rehabilitation and conservation, increased code enforcement, and other urban renewal related needs. As we indicate in the proposal, rehabilitation of the older houses is still the most difficult phase of urban renewal. Fulltime staff assistance, professionally trained in architecture, community organization, human relations, and the techniques of urban renewal could speed the process of neighborhood rehabilitation immeasurably at a time when all other indicators point to the continual deterioration of the older cities.

In addition to urban renewal and related activities, the National Service Corps volunteers could be used in those important social renewal activities that are important and related to rebuilding the city.

I think it important that I emphasize to this committee that the National Service Corps volunteers are not to fill the positions already staffed by professionals and by unpaid volunteers. On the other hand, the National Service Corps can show the way, provide assistance, create greater interest within the community in undertaking a role of developing its own resources and own contributions.

I am sure that there will be no difficulty in securing the services of many thousands of college-educated and well-trained individuals to work in these communities as part of the National Service Corps movement, nor will there be any difficulty in selecting areas where National Service Corps members could help.

Within the expanded opportunities for youth project in Newark, we have considered a number of possible services for persons enrolled in the National Service Corps program.

By way of illustration, permit me to suggest some of the following ways in which the National Service Corps can assist:

Tutoring sessions for students having difficulty in schoolwork; Supervising homework sessions for students after school; Teaching adult classes in basic arithmetic, reading, and civic affairs; Organizing indigenous teenagers to clear, equip, maintain, and supervise playgrounds for younger children;

Organizing and conducting trips and tours of a horizon-expanding nature for children and families;

Providing homemaking services and education for mothers; Organizing and staffing nursery schools, both to help working mothers and to improve the reading readiness of culturally deprived children;

Contacting all newcomers to the city to help orient them to urban

life:

Guiding, escorting, and referring families and individuals to private and public agencies specialized to meet their various needs;

Assisting teachers in the classroom, social workers in the field or office, and community organizations such as neighborhood councils, churches, Scout, and 4-H leaders and the like; so that those professional workers can more efficiently concentrate on rendering their expert services;

Organizing hobby centers, photography, sewing, woodworking, silversmithing, and so on in storefronts provided by the city or in places set aside by public housing authorities;

Organizing and training teenagers and adults to provide necessary help to such handicapped members of their community as the blind, aged, and infirm, and to families in need of babysitting services;

Help to organize and staff such recreational facilities as teenage canteens or coffeeshops, instrumental and choral musical groups, painting and sculpturing classes and workshops, social clubs, junior achievement activities, et cetera ;

Encouraging and facilitating parents to participate in PTA's and to confer with their children's teachers;

Organizing and staffing greatly expanded summer day camps and resident camps in State and National parks and forests;

Helping in the collection of information essential to understanding the nature of life in urban areas.

I want to point out that if the cities are to maintain their growth potential and provide the job developments that are necessary for our growing population, we must speedily inject into our society these new programs, these new ideas, this new strength, and this new idea for leadership training and civic development as an insurance against any future deterioration.

I would like to add here, Senator, that the statement made late yesterday, by Secretary Wirtz as to the unemployment picture among the teenagers is indicative of the tremendous need that would be met by the program of the National Service Corps in the major cities, where Secretary of Labor Wirtz indicated the problem is more acute. We must make those preparations today while there is still time. We cannot wait for people to catch up without providing the tools. We must take the leadership role in igniting the community with the spirit and the desire to help themselves.

The National Service Corps gives cities and the American community generally, a unique opportunity to present a stimulus to civic development of this kind.

Senator WILLIAMS. That was a very powerful statement and we are certainly very much indebted to you and to Mayor Addonizio. We certainly miss him in Washington. On a measure like this he would be a very effective advocate. I am glad to see that even though he

is not in Washington, he is still working with us on these worthy national programs.

I think you have very well spelled out the need and the opportunity for corpsmen to be of service to Newark. I think we have a very comprehensive description of how this program could be meaningful in the city of Newark. What is the exact population of Newark? Mr. CONVISSOR. 405,000, sir.

Senator WILLIAMS. There are a lot of young people, as you suggested, both out of work and out of school. I think also in the city of Newark there is a great untapped pool of part-time volunteers for some of the work that you mentioned. You have universities there, Rutgers, Seton Hall, and others. It has been demonstrated that people at the college level do have a desire to serve in some of these worthy programs. If their spirit could be directed by a few corpsmen, some of these necessary jobs would be done.

Mr. CONVISSOR. I would like to point out just one thing, Senator, relative to my remarks about Secretary of Labor Wirtz's statement on the unemployment rate. Within the demonstration project area in which we are working with Rutgers, the unemployment rate as opposed to the city average of 7 or 8 percent is upward of 18 percent. In this area, the educational level is just below the seventh grade, and while the median income of the city is about $4,500, I hear it is somewhat less than $2,800. What we are trying to do in this project is to take a disadvantaged neighborhood and lift it with the support of volunteers and some professionally trained individuals.

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you very much for your excellent testimony, Mr. Convissor.

A PROPOSAL FOR THE USE OF THE NATIONAL SERVICE CORPS

Urban renewal throughout the United States has met with varying degrees of success. Physical redevelopment and rehabilitation in big cities, for the most part, has been limited to the central business districts. Any full-scale neighborhood redevelopment with significant improvement in middle income housing, social advances, level of education, and an improved standard of living in the neighborhoods of the urban core have been few. Physical programs of rehabilitation and neighborhood conservation have been limited both in size and frequency, and for the most part, where they hav been tried, have not proved successful. No effort has been made to combine the physical rehabilitation with a program for raising the level of motivation of the residents of the hard core slum community.

The proposed National Service Corps represents an outstanding opportunity to coordinate a self-help citizen program; a necessity for successful urban renewal conducted by the Housing and Home Finance Agency with another major governmental function; namely, that of neighborhood conservation and rehabilitation and social and human motivation as part of the goals of the National Service Corps.

The four goals of the National Service Corps are:

(1) To work with people in great need;

(2) To motivate other citizens to give service;

(3) To dramatize human needs; and

(4) To attract more Americans into helping professions.

These are all important contributing factors to developing a successful neighborhood conservation and rehabilitation program with necessary social support. In past years and in past experience, one of the major problems in any neighborhood home improvement program has been the inability to organize citizens on a block-by-block basis and to encourage those citizens with their own programs of home improvement. A major difficulty in developing home improvement has been that with families with problems of health and welfare, the problems of home improvement are secondary.

The establishment of a National Service Corps program gives urban renewal, and principally neighborhood rehabilitation and conservation and all its ramifications, a major opportunity to take a giant step forward in the development of a successful neighborhood improvement effort.

THE PROPOSAL

The city of Newark has underway many urban renewal programs. Also slated for future development are a series of programed efforts at neighborhood conservation and rehabilitation.

No city has been fully successful with this most important phase of urban renewal. The major reason is that in rehabilitation every community resourceboth physical and social welfare-city agency, and neighborhood activity must be brought together and phased in proper sequence in order to complete a neighborhood rehabilitation program.

To show how the National Service Corps could aid cities in this important area, we will select two sections of Newark similar in racial and socioeconomic characteristics.

(The two areas will be south-central and west-central ward boundaries. These two sections are both within urban renewal project boundaries; however, the south-central area will be the demonstration area as part of the total South Side project known as the "Human Aspects of Urban Renewal" to be conducted by Youth Opportunities Unlimited. Inc., a nonprofit community wide agency.) For comparative purposes National Service Corps representatives will encourage, participate in, develop, organize, and work on only certain phases of the program in order to determine what aspects of community development require assistance and what do not.

We expect also to use the National Service Corps in the hard core slum area for phases of the program that are not limited to those families that own property and require assistance in home improvement.

In one of the demonstration areas that is to be selected we will assign 20 National Service Corps volunteers. These people will work with the citizens of that area under the supervision of a local director1 in developing a neighborhood effort in home improvement and increased human and social involvement.

THE USE OF THE NATIONAL SERVICE CORPS

It is planned to assign individual National Service Corps members to individual blocks within the project. Careful weekly observation of the study area and the comparison area should be maintained in order to show signs of progress or decline if any.

The task of the National Service Corps would be to work with the citizens in the project area in all of the important areas of neighborhood rehabilitation and conservation:

(1) Encourage and explain through block and house meetings the importance of proper budgeting and the ways to secure proper financing for necessary home improvement.

(2) Advise the citizens of the neighborhood on important city services available for home improvement and those services available in the area of social welfare. (Different types of programs could be developed to see which works best.)

(3) Encourage group assistance toward do-it-yourself programs. Citizens could be encouraged to pool equipment and human resources.

(4) Encourage group architectural work for block home improvement. Develop programs to promote greater prestige of the area through group use of professional services.

(5) Work with neighborhood groups on group relations, community organization work, and other neighborhood social work.

(6) Sell the concept of home improvement and encourage support of code enforcement programs and housing conditions.

(7) Provide homemaking services and family education for the mothers and teenage daughters of the area.

(8) Conduct home maintenance classes for the fathers and teenage sons. NOTE. Consideration could be given to making it mandatory that children and parents attend these sessions together. This will encourage a closer family relationship and responsibility.

1 See report on south side project.