justice and commonsense. I hope the House will reject this provision of the housing bill.

In another particular, too, I believe the bill is deficient. During both subcommittee and full committee consideration of the bill, I proposed an amendment to require submission of proposed urban renewal projects in communities having a population of 150,000 or less to a referendum of local residents. This amendment was rejected. Nevertheless, I believe such an amendment would greatly strengthen the urban renewal program and encourage it to play the constructive role intended for it in programs of local community development. Public dissatisfaction with urban renewal has been growing rapidly in recent years not, I believe, because of basic disagreement with the purpose of the program but because of the failure of individual projects to accomplish the purpose.

Supporters of urban renewal pay lipservice to the importance of mobilizing community understanding, cooperation, and support behind a community development, including urban renewal, program. Too often, however, local redevelopment agencies proceed with their programs with only token efforts to involve the community as a whole in the planning and implementation of an urban renewal project, thereby encouraging widespread suspicion, disaffection, and opposition.

The requirement of a public referendum would force local agencies and governing bodies to take their people into their confidence, to solicit their ideas, to consider their needs, and to obtain their consent. It could help make urban renewal the democratic, communitywide program it was intended to be, and permit the program to serve the real needs of individual communities.

FLORENCE P. DWYER.

INDIVIDUAL VIEWS OF REPRESENTATIVES BILL BROCK AND ALBERT W. JOHNSON

Our views on the matter of title I, particularly as regards rent supplements, are contained elsewhere in these pages. Our supplementary views here deal with the establishment of an interest rate of 3 percent for three programs, the 221(d) (3) program apart from rent supplements, the college housing program, and the 202 elderly program. The merit of these programs, particularly that dealing with the college housing and 202 elderly housing program, is well known. This is beside the point. There is a principle involved.

The Government should not borrow money, especially while it continues its deficit operations and in face of its staggering balance-ofpayments problems, at an interest rate higher than that at which it lends. To do so is only to add to and increase the taxpayers' burdens, and complicate the Government's financing problems. It evidences an apparent desire to avoid responsibility.

Consequently, we oppose the sections of the bill establishing the subsidized 3 percent interest rate. This has, once again, nothing to do with the merit of the programs concerned. It is irresponsible for this body to authorize lending money for these programs at a lower interest rate than the Government's cost.

BILL BROCK.

ALBERT W. JOHNSON.

187

INDIVIDUAL VIEWS OF REPRESENTATIVE

BURT L. TALCOTT

I concur in the minority views, but believe more and special emphasis should be given to the objectionable features of the "rent supplement" proposals of section 101.

There can be little doubt that the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 was originally, and still is, aimed at centralizing the control and federalizing the operation of American housing. Fulfillment of these objectives would more nearly and more quickly socialize housing than the King-Anderson bill would socialize medical care.

Public housing has not responded rapidly enough to suit the social planners. Success appeared easier by making America's great middle class the target. "Rent supplements"-actual payments by fellow taxpayers to landlords of families earning between approximately $4,800 and $10,000 per year was proposed. When the real consequences of the original "rent supplement" proposals became generally known, the proponents simply reduced the lower qualifying limits to superficially include the poor-but the upper limits have not been reduced. Language may have been changed to include the poor, but the target and emphasis will remain, namely, the moderate income group. America's great middle class does not need or want part of its rent paid by fellow taxpayers.

When many within the administration are deploring U.S. housing (although far superior to any in the world), nothing in the bill was proposed for housing of the most disadvantaged family in the country-the migrant farm laborer. Proponents propose to give rent supplements to the moderate income group, but forget the poorest of the poor.

The proposed rent supplement program should be eliminated from the housing bill because it provides the vehicle for subsidizing_the rents of more than half of the families in the United States. The public housing program is being extended at twice the annual rate of construction for the past several years. The FHA mortgage insurance system is replete with special programs for moderate-income families. Obviously, these programs have enjoyed a measure of success in meeting their objectives, and the committee has expressed its confidence by extending these programs for an additional 4 years. There are at least 20 valid objections to this program, any one of which is sufficiently compelling to justify its rejection by the House by an overwhelming vote.

Some reasons why the proposed rent supplement program should be rejected by the House are:

1. It is a new program ostensibly directed at providing housing assistance for low-income families. Yet the same bill provides 60,000 additional public housing units for each of the next 4 years-almost twice the public housing rate for the past several years.

2. It is limited to new construction, yet the largest source of housing for low-income families is the existing housing inventory. The rent supplement program is premised on the mistaken belief that everyone regardless of income-is entitled to a new dwelling unit.

3. It involves 40-year contracts between the Federal Government and mortgagors with no way of determining the ultimate financial impact on American taxpayers.

4. It makes meaningless the sacrifices of millions of low- and moderate-income families who today own and occupy or rent adequate shelter (according to the 1960 census, 72 percent of families who earn less than $4,000 per year, and 92 percent of families earning between $4,000 and $8,000 per year, live in adequate housing.

5. It holds out a false hope to 8 million low-income familiespresently living in adequate shelter-that they too are entitled to have part of their shelter costs paid by the American tax

payers.

6. The upper income limits for determining eligibility for rent supplements are vague and subject to arbitrary decision by Government officials as to the ability or inability of a family or individual to obtain standard shelter with 25 percent of income. The bill contains no maximum rent supplement for any one family or individual. The Administrator would have the authority to extend rent supplements to families of moderate income.

7. It would propose a "means test" on low-income families and cause Government employees and neighbors (according to HHFA Administrator Weaver's testimony) to pry into family income sources to make sure that the rent supplement is of proper amount.

8. It provides no ceiling on the subsidy per unit, thereby permitting rent doles in excess of public housing subsidies.

9. It would provide rent supplements based on income alone. Nothing in the bill would bar supplements to a family of low income having substantial assets.

10. It makes individuals eligible for rent supplements without regard to age or ability or willingness to work. The Administrator could qualify an able but indolent 21-year-old for a rent supplement.

11. It was advocated by the Administration to permit the phasing out of the FHA section 221(d) (3) below-market interest rate program (presently 3% percent)-an objective sought by the Budget Bureau because of the impact of the latter program on the budget. Yet the committee has approved a 4-year extension of the program with a 3-percent rate, thereby removing the primary motivation for the rent supplement program.

12. It would authorize the Housing Administrator to contract with private agencies for services in the selection of tenants and delegate to such private agencies the authority to issue certificates of eligibility to receive Federal rent supplements. This delegation of Government responsibility to non-Government entities in selecting the beneficiaries and the amount of a Federal rent dole is without precedent. It was conceded in committee

that the Pinkerton's National Detective Agency would qualify as "such agency."

13. It would increase the complexity of housing statutes which already include public housing for low-income families and several FHA programs for moderate-income families. The housing standards of low- and moderate-income families have improved steadily during the past 20 years. There is no justification for grafting a multibillion-dollar rent dole on top of the existing structure of housing laws.

14. It would provide rent supplements for elderly and handicapped persons; yet there are three Federal housing programs for such persons already in existence, i.e., (1) public housing, (2) direct submarket interest rate loans, and (3) FHA section 231 housing.

15. It would provide rent supplements for persons displaced by Government action notwithstanding the existence at present of a variety of housing programs and other benefits for these people, i.e., public housing, FHA section 221(d)(2), (d)(3), and (d)(4), and relocation allowances.

16. In its inception the rent supplement program was not intended for low-income families. To insist now on the program as one also for low-income families is to cling to the form when the objective is no longer in view. A new multibillion-dollar housing program, committing the American taxpayers to 40 years of disbursing a rent dole, should rest on firmer foundation and be the product of more thorough staff preparation.

17. It would stifle incentive by confronting a tenant family with a reduction in its rent dole to the extent of increases in family income.

18. It is premised on the false assumption that the integration of diverse economic groups (i.e., welfare recipients, upper middleincome, etc.) is necessary to achieve a Great Society.

19. By making rent supplements a permanent long-range (40 years) housing program to neutralize high rent levels flowing from high interest rates, the Congress would materially impair the many years' effort by some industry and public interest groups to bring about a reduction in interest rate levels. The proposed rent supplement program reflects a surrender to high mortgage interest rates.

20. As originally submitted the program was under bipartisan attack because it was designed for families of moderate income. The committee-approved version removes the floor-makes low-income families eligible but eligibility of moderate-income families remains in the measure. It therefore provides the mechanism for extending rent doles to more than half of families. in America.

I strongly recommend that the House reject this ill-advised proposal for rent doles to millions of American families whose housing needs are adequately provided through private enterprise and the several Government housing programs which have met the test of time and which are extended in this bill.