ess is still responsive to the needs of its citizens. The adoption of this bill will be a giant step in that direction.

Mr. BROWN (presiding). Thank you, Mr. Weinfeld.

Mr. MULTER. May I ask a question?

Mr. BROWN. Surely.

Mr. MULTER. I might say for the benefit of the committee that we, in New York City and State, look upon Commissioner Weinfeld as the foremost authority on the subject under discussion. I know that he has given a great deal of study to the subject.

You referred a few moments ago to the fact that there were some 400 municipalities and 41 States that have and are sponsoring publichousing programs. That brings to mind the argument that will be urged against this bill, that this should be done by the localities, the municipalities, and the States, and the Federal Government should not interfere with it. What are your views with reference to that?

Mr. WEINFELD. I think that those people who have studied the fiscal conditions of our States and municipalities are well aware that no State in this country can, on its own, cope with the problem because of its extent.

To take a very direct example, and one which perhaps, in modesty, I know best-at least comparing my own knowledge to my own knowledge of other States-in the State of New York. We have a very substantial program there. We have a very substantial program in the city. Now, to give you figures, this is the way our program sets up. We started out with a $300,000,000 State program which, as I related earlier, was adopted by a popular vote of the people following the Conconstitutional convention of 1938. That $300,000,000 program represented a loan fund, and in addition there was a subsidy provision, which permitted annual grants of subsidy at the rate of $1,000,000 a year up to the time a limit of $5,000,000 was reached. In other words, the maximum annual subsidy was $5,000,000. That program was developed during the administration of Governor Lehman, and there came a time when the loan fund was exhausted and there was very little of the subsidy money available for continuance of the program. The result was that an additional authorization of $135,000,000 of loans funds was passed by the legislature, which under our constitutional provision could not become operative unless approved by a vote of the people. That proposal for an additional $135,000,000, plus an additional subsidy amount, was submitted to the people and approved. So that we have, as of this moment, as far as the State itself is concerned, a housing program of $435,000,000, with a subsidy amount available of $13,000,000.

Now we have reached the point where that sum is inadequate to carry on the general program required in order to meet the State's needs. In consequence of that, the legislature, at this last session, after declining to do so at two previous sessions, has just passed another authorization of $300,000,000 which will appear upon the ballot this fall, and if accepted and endorsed by the people-or, rather, approved by the people-together with the subsidy amount, which runs to $12,000,000, we will have, if that proposal is adopted by the people, a program of $735,000,000, representing loan funds available, and $25,000,000 by way of annual subsidy commitment. Now, that covers the entire State. And that falls tremendously short of what the need is in the State.

Now, moving from the State to the city, New York City has its own housing program. Its housing program partakes of activity in three governmental fields. It participates in the United States Housing Administration program, as it was enacted in 1937, under which they have some 12,000 units. It participates in the State program, as far as it has gone, and there they have a program which I should judge runs in the neighborhood of $300,000,000. That is out of $435,000,000 of State loan funds. But in addition to that, I said that New York City has its own program. The constitutional provision to which I adverted earlier, which was passed following the convention of 1938, permits the cities of the State to contract indebtedness for housing purposes and under that provision the city of New York is presently engaged in its own housing program, which also approximates $300,000,000.

In all, the city's program, which I believe runs to about 41,000 units, representing its postwar housing program, according to Mayor O'Dwyer and General Farrell, the chairman of the housing authority, and according to all the studies which have been made, falls woefully short of meeting the needs of that community. And all that sums up to this: not the State of New York alone, and not the city of New York alone-just speaking in the case of a municipality like New Yorkcan hope to solve its housing problem unless there is Federal aid to the municipalities to carry out the purpose of the program. Mr. KILBURN. May I interrupt, Mr. Multer?

Mr. MULTER. Certainly.

Mr. KILBURN. In view of the national debt being about $650 per person, and the State debt average, which I think is about $16 per personthey go as high as $36, I think, and down to a few cents per person-it seems to me that the States are much better able to help than the National Government.

Mr. WEINFELD. Mr. Kilburn, with the greatest of respect, I may suggest that that approach is really an unrealistic one. I speak from experience. During the time when I was State commissioner of housing, we had this program of $300,000,000. Actually the authorization was up to $150,000,000 and later there were additional amounts, and from my study of the conditions in the State of New York, and of municipalities in the State, it is perfectly clear that those funds alonethat is, State funds and municipal funds alone-could not, if we are to do an effective job of slum clearance and housing of families with low income, meet the needs.

Now, I have given you the specific case of the State of New York, which some think is the richest State of the country, and it is unable to cope with the situation alone.

Mr. Kilburn, the city of New York, through its representative, at the Senate hearings on this bill, indicated that quite clearly, and certainly they need not only the benefit of the funds that can be made available under the public housing provision; they need the assistance and aid of the slum-clearance provisions.

Mr. BROWN. Are you through, Mr. Multer?

Mr. MULTER. Just a question or two.

From your study of the bill under consideration now, would you say there is no attempt in this bill to invade the State and local rights of the States and municipalities?

Mr. WEINFELD. I think the answer to that is so clear under the bill that there cannot be any dispute. I think I indicated in my prepared statement that you cannot originate a project except through the housing authority or the local body and then the local body has restrictions upon it because it must be done in cooperation with the city itself. And no Federal Government can go into a community and give it a housing project unless there is a need and unless the community wants it.

And the same thing is true of the State provisions in New York. We could not go in, for example, no matter how desperate one might think the need was, in a given community, if that community did not want a local housing program. It rests basically, essentially, and exclusively upon the local body. And you can write all the bills that Congress will pass down here and you will not get local programs unless the localities themselves want them.

Mr. MULTER. This program really should not be called a Federal housing program; it should be called a Federal aid to local housing program.

Mr. WEINFELD. That is correct.

Mr. MULTER. There is one other thing you mentioned in your statement that I would like to have you elaborate on briefly, if you will. You recommend that we eliminate from this bill the limitation on cost. Will you tell us why?

Mr. WEINFELD. My remarks on that will not be confined to housing alone. I have had some little experience in legislative matters. I think when a legislative body is undertaking to meet a problem, the solution of which requires a long-term program, and considering the fact that we are in a fluctuating economy at times, it is unsound to put a dollar sign in a bill, and from my point of view it does not make any difference whether it is a housing bill or any other kind of a bill. The members of the legislative body may, for example, have in mind that as of the moment of the passage of that bill, and for some reasonable time thereafter, based on existing economic conditions, that that dollar amount will have a given value. Yet within a year or two after it is inserted in the bill it becomes not meaningless but does not have the same value, either upward or downward, and I think that it is an unsound approach from a legislative point of view. You had the very definite example in the passage of the original act, when you had provisions in the cases of cities under 500,000 limiting the rooms to $1,000 and the unit to $4,000, and the case of the cities over 500,000, where it was $1,250 per room and $5,000. What happened? It was demonstrated by a statement made, I believe before the Senate committee and also before this body, where actually the program, to a degree, was paralyzed because they could not go ahead with intended projects, and it was in that connection that I made the reference to the Jacob Riis houses in New York where the municipality was called upon to pay $5,000,000 which was not intended originally, at the time the contract was first signed.

The increased cost of living was a factor that I am sure the Congress, in 1937, did not contemplate would effectively bar the development of some units intended to house people under better conditions. Mr. MULTER. That is all.

Mr. BROWN. I now recognize Mr. O'Hara, an outstanding and faithful member of this committee from the State of Illinois.

Mr. O'HARA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I feel that as this witness comes from New York, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Dollinger comes from there, that he will probably wish to examine him first.

Mr. BROWN. All right, Mr. Dollinger.

Mr. DOLLINGER. May I say at the outset that I have a high regard for Commissioner Weinfeld and I agree with everything he has said. There is nothing that I can ask him that will further increase my little knowledge of the subject, and I am perfectly happy to let his testimony rest as is. I have no questions of the witness at this time. Mr. BROWN. All right, Mr. O'Hara.

Mr. O'HARA. Mr. Weinfeld, I am interested in the part that the municipalities and the State governments are playing in the solution of the housing problem. You regard this as a partnership of municipal government, State government, and Federal Government in furnishing adequate public housing?

Mr. WEINFELD. I would go beyond that. I would also include private enterprise in the partnership.

Mr. O'HARA. A four-way partnership?

Mr. WEINFELD. That is right.

Mr. O'HARA. Do you feel that the municipalities have played adequately their part?

Mr. WEINFELD. I do not think they have, for the reason they have not had the means to do so up to now.

Mr. O'HARA. That is, up to the extent of their means, they have adequately performed?

Mr. WEINFELD. I would say generally that is so.

Mr. O'HARA. Now, you have called attention to the fact that 41 State governments have endorsed the public housing program. Have you found any States of the Union that have been opposing the thought of public housing?

Mr. WEINFELD. Well, my recollection is that California last year had a referendum on a public housing provision, and that provision was defeated. And, frankly, I wish I had known you were going to ask that question, because I would have preferred to have allowed some documents that I have sent for following that defeat to speak for themselves, and again to give some indication of the type of campaign that this program has been subjected to. I just acknowledge the fact and I do that such a proposition appeared as one of 17 or 18 on the California ballot, and was defeated.

Mr. O'HARA. Do you recall that the people of Chicago had an opportunity to vote a referendum on the issuance of $30,000,000 of bonds for public housing?

Mr. WEINFELD. I do not, sir.

Mr. O'HARA. Well, that did happen in Chicago in 1947-2 years ago. The people of the second city in America had an opportunity to express themselves on the matter of public housing, and that expression required the expenditure of $30,000,000, and the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the issuance of the bonds.

Mr. WEINFELD. I do not know what other factors may have entered into the consideration of that proposition when it was submitted to the people, but let me tell you what I have in mind, and I say to you in all candor that I do not know the facts. But this is what I have in mind: there was a statement made with respect to the proposal

to amend this bill by including a provision with respect to segregation and racial discrimination. I think you and I will agree that there are many people, in both Houses, who sincerely believe in this program, and believe in every aspect of it, who, if that provision were inserted, as strongly as they believe in the housing program, would, because of that provision, vote against it.

Now, I do not know if such a factor was present at the time the people of the city of Chicago rejected this housing proposal to which you refer or whether any other factor

Mr. O'HARA. You misunderstand me. The people of Chicago, by a large and overwhelming majority, endorsed the public housing and authorized the $30,000,000 of bonds for public housing.

it.

Mr. WEINFELD. I had understood you to say they had voted against

Mr. O'HARA. No. I said they had voted for it. Knowing that, would you say that that was an expression of the sentiment of the people of Chicago, the second city in America, on the problem of public housing?

Mr. WEINFELD. For the very same reason that I indicated a rejection would be an expression of opinion, of course, I would say that. Mr. O'HARA. No doubt about it.

Mr. WEINFELD. Just one item. With respect to the Metropolitan, some questions were asked me with respect to the project itself, and I indicated that I did have original opposition to it. I would like, with the chairman's permission to submit to this committee a letter which I wrote to the New York Times and which was published there, in opposition to the original bill under which the Metropolitan developed its project, and which outlines in detail the reasons for my objection to the bill.

Mr. BROWN. You may incorporate that in your statement. (The letter referred to above is as follows:)

NEW YORK'S HOUSING PLANS THREAT TO THE PUBLIC INTEREST SEEN IN PROPOSED CHANGES IN LAW

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Paul Windels' letter of March 26 is significant, not so much for its stanch defense of the amendments proposed to the existing redevelopment companies law, but rather for its failure to discuss the elimination of the beneficial and protective features now contained in that law. Fundamentally, the issue involved is not the clearance of substandard areas in decayed cities. All are agreed that the problem of rehabilitating decayed central sections of cities and towns of our State is one of the most serious which confronts us. If economic values are to be restored, if the financial structure of our municipalities is to be reinforced, means must be found for bringing private enterprise with its huge resources to this task. Both private enterprise and public housing programs are essential. The issue is not whether the power of eminent domain or partial tax exemption shall be granted to private companies. That is already provided for in the existing law. The real issue is whether the controls in the public interest now contained in the law, which grants the power of eminent domain and tax exemption, shall be weakened or eliminated to meet the demands of an insurance company which has indicated it would not invest its funds in such projects unless these demands were met.

The problem is passed by rather lightly by Mr. Windels in his statement that we may miss an opportunity for activity by an insurance company "while we carry on a debate over minor details." I do not consider the complete surrender of one of the three great powers of Government a minor detail. To justify the grant of this great power, as well as partial tax exemption, it must be clear that the longterm public interest will be served thereby.