We are looking forward to the passage of Federal legislation which will ease the situation by making possible low-rent public housing. The slum areas are a disgrace to the city, and in many cases are a health and social menace. We had over 4,000 units before the war that were unfit for human habitation. These units have been increased in number, bringing practically no revenue by way of taxation, and costing our city a substantial amount of money to maintain. We can see no way of correcting this situation, other than through the enactment of a slum-clearance program by our Congress. I do hope that the Eighty-first Congress will give us some help on the matters mentioned herein, and would appreciate being advised by you as to the progress of the housing legislation now pending. Very truly yours, EDWARD K. DELANEY, Mayor. DALLAS, TEX., April 16, 1949. PAUL V. BETTERS, Executive Vice President, United States Conference of Mayors: Regarding general housing bill, Senate bill 1070, in December 1944 Dallas filed an interim application for 2,800 additional low-rent public housing dwelling units which represent a small portion of present need. Conservative minimum estimate of substandard dwellings now 40,000. It is further estimated that a minimum of 10,000 additional families live under overcrowded conditions, doubling up in single-family dwellings. Greatest housing need in Dallas is for rental units under $50 for families of low-income and modest-income. Reduction of excessive expenditures for municipal services to slum areas and reduction of basic causes of disease, crime, fires, and juvenile delinquency can be effected by participation in proposed program offered in Senate bill 1070. RODERIC B. THOMAS, CITY OF LOUISVILLE, KY., Mr. PAUL V. BETTERS, United States Conference of Mayors, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. BETTERS: The housing situation in Louisville is still very acute for low-income families whose budgets will not permit the payment of rent between $30 and $50 per month without utilities. We have approximately 5,000 applications from veterans for 567 units of temporary veterans' housing. All of these apartments are presently filled. We have 3,000 units of public housing, all of which are filled, and our lists show a backlog of approximately 2,500 applications for public housing. Of these two lists in excess of 500 families have been evicted and are presently living with relatives or friends under dangerously overcrowded conditions, or have received eviction notices and are unable to find a place to move into within their means when the eviction becomes a reality. Families who are doubled up because they cannot afford to pay rent for such housing as is presently available are conservatively estimated at several thousand. The larger part of these families are ineligible for public housing but are looking for a home to buy or rent as soon as private enterprise can supply it within their means. No actual survey has been made but one is contemplated. But based on the applications for veterans' temporary housing and public housing in which we have actual information as to their incomes, we estimate conservatively that Louisville needs approximately 1,500 units of public housing for whites and Negroes, and several thousand units of housing to be provided by private enterprise for rent at $40 to $75 per month with utilities, and for sale with a small or no down payment at prices from $5,000 to $7,000. Just prior to the building of our first public-housing project in Louisville in 1935 our planning and zoning commission made a survey of 12 city blocks in a slum area, which were subsequently cleared, and found that police, health, fire, and other city services in that area cost the city $65,000, whereas it collected approximately $14,000 in taxes. Very truly yours, CHARLES P. FARNSLEY, Mayor D'ALESANDRO. I might also say that the Conference of Mayors supports section 502. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions? Mr. BUCHANAN. Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Buchanan. Mr. BUCHANAN. Just one question, Mr. Mayor. You stated the United States Conference of Mayors has gone on record regarding the amendment to the Banking Act. How do you personally feel? Do you believe a wider market would be afforded? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. I believe it would be more competitive, and would result in lowered interest. Mr. BUCHANAN. That is all. The CHAIRMAN. Did the conference take a position on that question of the flotation of the securities? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. That is right. Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cole. Mr. COLE. Mr. Mayor, I think Baltimore is to be commended for its fine approach to this problem, but I do not believe that most of the people who question some of the methods of approaching the solution of public housing would say that the Baltimore plan is a solution of it. I have not heard anyone say that it is a solution of it. What we believe, Mr. Mayor, is that all cities should do at least that much before coming to Washington to ask for funds, and do additional things locally. We feel that there is a possibility that it might be too easy to come down here and that other cities should do what you are doing. Do get my point? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. I agree with you, Congressman, but the enemies of the housing bill are using the Baltimore plan as a substitute for housing. Mr. COLE. No, sir; I respectfully disagree with you. Some may. Mayor D'ALESANDRO. Some are. Mr. COLE. But I think those who are really concerned with the problem of slums and slum clearance and redevelopment do not understand that plan as a substitute. Certainly I do not think anybody could possibly feel that it could be a substitute. One other thing I want to comment on in connection with your testimony is this: I do not want to detract from the fine work the conference of mayors has done, but is it not true that the conference of mayors, generally, approves projects of Government aid and assistance, assisting the cities in arriving at a solution of their problems? By that, I mean is it not easy for them to approve a resolution through which they get their money from the Government rather than locally? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. Congressman, when I was in Congress, I believed the way you do; but since I became Mayor, and I found out how difficult it is to get any assistance from the States, we have to get it where we can. Mr. COLE. I realize that, and I appreciate your position. I want you to understand that I do appreciate your position. I know it is hard to get it. But the fact that it is hard to get it does not necessarily mean that I believe it should be done that way. You can see our problem here, too. Mayor D'ALESANDRO. Yes, sir; but I think that if we do not get assistance from the Federal Government it is going to be just too bad, so far as the housing problem is concerned, because with the housing problem goes the health problem. Mr. COLE. There is one other thing which has disturbed me and which results in one of my great objections to the method in which this legislation approaches the problem, and that is the discrimination between people who are similarly situated. After you have completed your projects in Baltimore, under this bill, under this legislation, you will have I do not know how many thousands of people in Baltimore living in slums, in exactly the same circumstances in which those people lived who have moved into the project, and I doubt whether, within the next 50 or 100 years, you will ever cure that. That is the discrimination which this legislation provides, which disturbs me. Does that enter into your thinking, as to a privileged class? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. I do not know what you mean by a privileged class. Mr. COLE. Well, one is privileged in that he lives in a fine home at the expense of the other people who are so similarly situated. Mr. PATMAN. Is that situation not eased somewhat, though, Congressman, by reason of the fact that there is a turn-over? These people do not necessarily stay in these residential units. They stay in them up to a certain point and then become home owners themselves and move out, and other people move in. Is that not true, Mr. Mayor? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. That is absolutely true. Mr. PATMAN. So, it is not just a number of units accommodating a definite number of families for a certain period of time. The situation improves. Mr. COLE. I think that is somewhat true. I do not doubt that it is. But I do not think you will have very favorable consideration of that by the people who are sitting outside these projects and are not able to get into them. They will take that into consideration. There is one other thing I would like to comment on: In connection with the different methods with which these different projects are handled, I would like to call attention to the Omaha project. There is one housing project out there which, last year, had 164 families, out of 522, whose income was above $2,500. Seventy of those families had an income of between $2,500 and $3,000. Seventy-three of them had incomes from $3,000 to $4,000. Five of them had incomes from $5,000 to $6,000. One family had a $6,000 income and one family had $79,000. Only 14 families had incomes of less than a thousand dollars. I understand that that may be a peculiar situation. But it causes us to pause a little bit and causes us to wonder where we are going, because there is such a lack of balance in the situation with reference to the lower-income group, those with an income of under a thousand dollars. That disturbs me, too. Mayor D'ALESANDRO. Well, in Baltimore, we are eliminating them as fast as we can, those who have higher incomes. The CHAIRMAN. What would be the capacity of the city to eliminate slums without Federal assistance? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. We have very little financial capacity, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. All the American cities are limited in their indebtedness, limited in their tax rates, and expenditures; are they not? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. That is right. In Baltimore, the budget for schools was $11,000,000; today it is $23,000,000. Over 100 percent increase. The CHAIRMAN. And you have a limitation on your indebtedness under the constitution? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Are you close to that? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. Yes, sir; we are close to the top. Mr. COLE. One pleasant thing about the Federal Government is that we have no limitation, and our expenditures now have arrived at about $50,000,000,000 for the next fiscal year. So, it is delightful that we can come down here and not worry about our limitations. Mayor D'ALESANDRO. Congressman, if we do not come to the National Capital, where would we go? Mr. COLE. I think you could go home and do it. Mayor D'ALESANDRO. If we went back to the mayor of your town and told him to fix the slums and make all these improvements, what would the tax rate be in your town, and would the people stand for it? After all, it is taxpayers' money, whether you get it from the people in your town or from the National Government. The people pay for it in the end. Mr. KUNKEL. Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kunkel. Mr. KUNKEL. If you do not have a pretty good standard of enforcement of health and sanitation provisions, such as you do in Baltimore, can you possibly avoid the continuing creation of additional slums? Mayor D'ALESANDRO. You could not. Mr. KUNKEL. The point I am trying to make is that the key to the final solution of this whole problem is the enforcement of proper standards on existing residential property, because otherwise you keep on building new houses to eradicate existing slums, but in the meantime new slums are creeping in and getting worse as time passes on. Mayor D'ALESANDRO. Congressman, everybody tries to better himself. They try to move into new homes. They rehabilitate themselves and try to get into new sections. Nobody likes to live in the slums. I was born and raised in the slums, and I still live in the slums of Baltimore. And I did the best job of redevelopment in my section, by doing it with my own home, with my example, I tried to get people to fix their homes up and keep the old section alive. Mr. KUNKEL. I mean you have to have the standards enforced in order to keep the property from deteriorating. Mayor D'ALESANDRO. We do, yes. That is the Baltimore plan.. Mr. KUNKEL. Yes, and that is essential everywhere if you are going to go toward the eventual elimination of slums. Mayor D'ALESANDRO. That is the point I am making; that that is your starting point, no matter what you do from there. Mayor D'ALESANDRO. That is right. It costs us $14,000,000 a year. The CHAIRMAN. If there are no further questions, you may stand aside, Mr. Mayor. We are very glad to have your views. Mayor D'ALESANDRO. Thank you. Mr. PATMAN. Mr. Chairman, may I have a minute to suggest the presence here of Mr. Richard C. Nongard of Dallas, Tex., an investment banker, and Mr. H. H. Russell of New Boston, a commercial banker, and I would like permission for each of them to file a statement in the record in support of the provision in the bill providing for commercial banks to take part in the purchase of bonds. The CHAIRMAN. Permission is granted. Mr. BUCHANAN. Mr. Chairman, before these statements go in and at the close of the mayor of Baltimore's testimony, I would like again to call attention of the committee to the statement of John Taylor Egan on April 7, which was read into the record, and which had some very interesting data on the income limits under the present program, and I think again this should be emphasized. The CHAIRMAN. That has been inserted in the record. Mr. BUCHANAN. Yes. It is a very excellent break-down and will probably answer a number of questions for members of the committee. The CHAIRMAN. Very well. Congressman Javits will not be able to be here Monday, and he would like to make his statement today. STATEMENT OF HON. JACOB K. JAVITS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE TWENTY-FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF NEW YORK Mr. JAVITS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before the committee out of turn, because I have to be in New York on Monday. I would not have sought this privilege except for the fact that I testify in support of a bill which I hope the committee will consider in connection with marking up H. R. 4009. The title of the bill is H. R. 1973 and was introduced by 10 Republican Members of the House and supported in a statement of endorsement by 9 additional Republican Members, making a total of 19. I think it is probably the most eloquent illustration we have had so far that public housing, as well as the effort to do something for the middleincome groups, is bipartisan, and I would like to submit for the record. if I may, as part of my statement, a list of the Members who have introduced that legislation and who supported it by a statement of endorsement. The CHAIRMAN. That may be done. Mr. JAVITS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make just one or two very brief observations on public housing and then proceed to the main point that I would like to concentrate on, which is housing for the lower of the middle-income groups. The bill, H. R. 1973, proposes that there shall be 800,000 publichousing units authorized for construction over a period of 6 years, and is very much like the Senate bill. As a matter of fact, I rather feel that the Senate profited a good deal from similar legislation introduced by our Republican Congressmen. It contains this acceleration and deceleration clause, which we recommended in the Senate bill, and I would like to call the attention of the committee to this point. The acceleration or deceleration contained in the Senate bill is not premised on the situation in the general economy. In other |