Senator MAGNUSON. And concentrate on large-family housing? Reverend WATT. Very much so. This is a major problem. There is a 2-percent vacancy rate or less, which is just a turnaround rate in the existing housing.

UNEMPLOYMENT IN GENERAL PROSPERITY

Senator MAGNUSON. And you say-this is startling-even though there is general prosperity in the area, 30 percent of the Negro men are without employment?

Reverend WATT. This is both 1960 census and a study that was done by Southern Illinois University last year.

Senator MAGNUSON. Across the river they are doing better, aren't they?

Reverend WATT. They are improving there a lot. I work both sides of the river for the Presbyterian Church, so I look at this from both viewpoints.

Senator MAGNUSON. We have placed your statement in the record in full, and also that of Reverend Walker.

Reverend WATT. I appreciate that very much.

Senator MAGNUSON. Senator Allott, do you have any questions?

AREA PUBLIC HOUSING

Senator ALLOTT. What public housing do you have there, Reverend? Reverend WATT. I can't tell you as to units. I don't know the details on this but I do know that the existing waiting list on public housing is about 500 applications.

There are some vacancies in high-rise buildings. There has been no vacancies in low-rise public housing, and this has been the situation in St. Louis. This is a historic situation. It has always been full.

NEGRO UNEMPLOYMENT

Senator ALLOTT. How do you figure 30 percent of the Negro men are out of employment? I am taking your figures for granted.

Reverend WATT. I had taken this figure from a Southern Illinois University study.

Senator ALLOTT. I take your figure for granted. I take it as the truth. Why? Why, with all the demand for employment?

NAACP EFFORTS AND WORK FORCE CHANGE

Reverend WATT. Well, in East St. Louis, and I am talking specifically about the East St. Louis complex inside the metropolitan region, there has been a continued decline in industrial opportunities. There simply have not been jobs in the East St. Louis community.

This is beginning to change a little bit. This past year the NAACP has worked very hard at trying to get job opportunities for Negroes, and there is a decided change in the constitution of the work force from last fall even until the present time. There is an increased number of Negro men involved here. I think that this is a combination of bad education, lack of any real opportunity to advance in skill over the years, and I think that these people are simply caught at a point where low skills are simply not salable.

63-054-66-pt. 2-24

Senator ALLOTT. I am sorry to say I have never been in East St. Louis. What percentage of the population is Negro?

Reverend WATT. About 58 percent. This is a community which historically has had major housing, educational, and economic problems.

Senator ALLOTT. As I say, I have never been in it. I have driven through it in driving across country but that is all.

Reverend WATT. Well, it is changing. I feel a far more positive trend in East St. Louis today than I felt 9 months ago when I started to work.

Senator ALLOTT. Thank you.

FUNDS LIMITATION

Senator MAGNUSON. Reverend Walker in his statement, just to illustrate how tight this appropriation is, stated that the initial appropriation for the current year will allow about 20,000 units for the whole United States.

Reverend WATT. Right.

Senator MAGNUSON. There is a need, and a study has proven it, that there is 2,000 units of low-rent housing needed in the next 5 years in East St. Louis alone.

Reverend WATT. That is correct.

Senator MAGNUSON. Which shows the need nationwide.

Reverend WATT. Right.

Senator MAGNUSON. How little this will do, but it will be a start. Reverend WATT. I think that the real thing that we are feeling at this point as a very positive emphasis is the fact that private groups can really tackle the housing issue now, and there has been at this point a feeling that they simply couldn't touch it.

LARGE FAMILY UNITS

Senator ALLOTT. They are going to have, in my opinion, if I may say so, I think they are going to have just as much difficulty in this area even with the rent supplement, assuming it is passed, with two- threeand four-bedroom housing.

I think they are going to have just as much trouble as we have got now in the general housing field, and we spent a whole day on this thing just a few days ago in this committee. I don't know whether the rent supplement is going to enter this even if it works.

Reverend WATT. I agree that this is going to be very limited still in terms of the amount of money available to pay for large family units, but at this point our architect indicates that he thinks we can do this under the existing rent supplement program for many families, and we are really going to work our hardest to come out in this area, because this is where it is needed the most.

Senator ALLOTT. And you point up, too, there is approximately 500 who would be eligible for public housing if we continued public housing.

Reverend WATT. Yes, sir, that is at this point.

Senator ALLOTT. Thank you very much.

Reverend WATT. Thank you, sir.

STATEMENT OF FATHER BELLARMINE WILSON, CYRIL CATHOLIC CHURCH, CHICAGO, ILL.

Senator MAGNUSON. I want to say to my friends who have been waiting that Senator Ellender is in the radio room cutting a program, and as soon as he is through he will return. We will now hear from Father Wilson of the Cyril Catholic Church, Chicago, Ill.

We will be pleased to hear from you.

CHICAGO'S ROUGHEST NEIGHBORHOOD

Father WILSON. First of all, I would like to thank you very much for the honor to be present here and to express the views of our particular community.

I am Father Bellarmine Wilson, a Carmelite priest, assistant pastor, St. Cyril's Roman Catholic Church in Chicago. We are located on the South Side of Chicago.

Chicago is a mass of city, as you are well aware, and it is made up of many smaller neighborhoods which are well knit together. Perhaps one of the roughest neighborhoods in Chicago, and perhaps even in the country, is Woodlawn.

Senator MAGNUSON. That is such a pretty name, too.

Father WILSON. It is a wonderful name. It is located in the eastern section of Woodlawn. That is where we are located, right on Lake Michigan.

NEIGHBORHOOD TOTAL AND NEGRO POPULATION, LOW INCOME AND UNEMPLOYMENT

In our particular section of Woodlawn we have 31,743 people presently residing. So you can imagine our density problem. In this particular community, too, there are some 30 percent of the working force unemployed. There are also some 30 percent of population which receives an annual income of $3,000 or less. Ninety-seven percent of the community is Negro. About 65 percent of the housing is below standard.

NEIGHBORHOOD ADVANTAGES

Woodlawn is ideally located in the sense that it has all the arteries of communication passing right through it, so that you could go from one part of the city to the other from Woodlawn without any problem at all. You could cross the country, going down to Louisiana, Florida, and many other places. We have the great facilities of Jackson Park with its bridle paths, tennis courts, golf courses, the beach on Lake Michigan.

DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION FORMATION

Woodlawn, indeed, was a beautiful locality, and it is the hope of the interested people in Woodlawn who have formed the development corporation, not for profit, soon to be an incorporated group in the State of Illinois, that we have once again been able to make Woodlawn a community which is going to be desirable, stable, one which we can be sort of proud of.

In order to accomplish this task, we have approached the archdiocese of Chicago, the Office of Urban Affairs, and we have received their wholehearted support. We have also received the support of the

Conference on Religion and Race in Chicago and their professional associates, and with their help we have made efforts to implement the recent Housing Act of 1965 in our particular area.

HOUSING FOR POTENTIALLY DECENT PEOPLE

Now we intend to make new housing available to potentially decent people of all financial incomes in the community. We also would hope to provide them with the other necessities which they need for selfimprovement.

SELF-IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM

First of all, on the need for self-improvement and what would be necessary: In this endeavor we have received the cooperation of Dr. William Gorman, the head of the Department of Guidance and Counseling of the University of DePaul. We have also received the cooperation of Dr. Carl Mees, the head of the extension section of the University of Illinois. With their help we will incorporate into our first site and we do hope to have many more sites because we hope to, as the bill says, re-do the neighborhood, not just put up a particular building, but we hope, with your cooperation, to be able to put a whole new community into our particular community. We will then incorporate into this first site a home economics lab, home maintenance room, multipurpose room, counseling room, so that the people then, as they come to be potential tenants, would be encouraged to participate in the programs that will be provided right in the site itself, how to take care of a house, how to have a proper diet for your children, physical hygiene, how to do ordinary general repairs in the apartment, get acquainted with the machinery, and what have you, in the apartment, how to defrost a refrigerator, take care of a gas stove, other things that perhaps many people might take for granted.

COMMUNITY-MINDED TENANTS

These things we intend to incorporate right into the program, and, also, the stimulus to make all of the tenants community minded, that this is our community, and that it is going to improve as we improve, and it is going to move us along the line in that particular direction.

COMMUNITY FACILITIES

Now it is our firm conviction that as we continue in this vein, and as successes are seen, that the people themselves will be even further motivated, and to continue this motivation in future sites, we would like to incorporate other community facilities such as child day-care centers, diagnostic clinics, recreational facilities, anything that will satisfy or implement a need of the people in the community.

LAND AVAILABILITY

Now to avoid the problem of relocating large numbers of people, we realized that we had to find vacant land, and we were very fortunate in finding such land facing right out onto Lake Michigan across from Jackson Park, if you are familiar with Chicago. On further investigation, we found that this land was owned by the city of Chicago and was allocated for a police station.

The community group met with the mayor and the other city officials. We explained our program to the mayor and to the city officials. He wholeheartedly endorsed it and has made the land available for the Federal Government or the FHA to investigate and to inspect this particular site for our project. His only remark at the time was that he regretted that we were starting 20 years late. He had hoped that had our program been in effect maybe 20 years earlier, a lot of things may have been avoided in the city of Chicago.

COMMUNITY ACCEPTANCE OF HIGH-RISE CONSTRUCTION

Now you are well aware, too, that most groups, especially Negro groups, are very, very strong against high-rise buildings. The Negro community gets the impression that we are stacking them one on the other, so that they will not move to the suburbs. Now our particular group has worked hand in hand with the professional people right along the line, and when it came to the point-and it was explained to them that garden apartments would not work in our community because of the high cost of land and construction, that we would have to get involved in some sort of high-rise construction, being aware as the patient who goes to his doctor is aware of his problems when they are explained to him, they then supported this particular matter of high-rise buildings.

APARTMENT SIZES

The further plan was that we could construct on this site 290 units, 45 percent of them being three bedroom, 40 percent being two bedroom, 10 percent being one bedroom, and 5 percent being efficiency. Now the people are most proud of the fact that they have been involved in this all along the line. There are some nine other groups in Chicago working in other communities that are attempting to do similar projects, but our own people have been very, very satisfied in seeing the efforts that they have put into this come to some sort of accomplishment. They are also very gratified in the rent supplemental program. They are hoping that it will be able to grow as time goes on. They realize that it is a beginning.

FIRST CHANCE FOR SELF-IMPROVEMENT

In the back of their minds is the fact that if this program does go, it will give human beings, many of whom have never had a first chance in life, a chance to see something new, not to be going into something that is left behind or something else that other people have rejected. They will be able to see something fresh. It will give them, I think, a taste to improve themselves, and so that in improving themselves, in a very short time I believe that they will not be in need of rent supplements, because they will become vital figures in the community of tomorrow. And in that community of tomorrow then they will not find themselves on the receipt rolls but they may find themselves on the tax rolls, where they will be then paying into the Government instead of receiving from the Government.

That is all I have to say at the present moment. If you have any questions I would be glad to answer them.