What must be done; Housing

Hello my name is pretty Stockton. I'm the president of the Manhattan and the City of New York. For the next 30 minutes I'll be moderating a different kind of panel program. It is one of a series called What must be done. The title of these programs what must be done has two meanings. First it poses a demand for urgent solutions to America's greatest problem the crises of the urban ghetto and the black community. But it also refers to what can be done and what must be done by you the listener because nothing stimulates. Back then as effectively as the demand of an aroused population this series of programs takes as its point of departure. The award winning issue of Newsweek magazine published last November 20th. On the Negro in America Today's topic is how obscene the members of our panel are. Mr. Casaubon Elliot the editor of Newsweek magazine Mr. Jack and Wood Jr. executive co-director

of the National Committee against discrimination in housing. Mr. Thomas F. Murray vice president equitable insurance company. Dr. Frank Horn assistant administrator for equal opportunities New York City Housing and Development Administration and Mr. Raph Taylor assistant secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Now I should turn the microphone over to Mr. Osbon Elliot the editor of Newsweek magazine who will lead today's discussion. Thank you Mr. Last fall when Newsweek did a special. Edition on the Negro in America what must be done. We came to a certain broad conclusion. First of which of course was this is our biggest domestic problem. Another conclusion was that it would require a national commitment at every every level of the society to solve. And the third conclusion was that

this problem rested on a tripod of three individual problems in valving jobs housing and education. Now on other programs we've talked about both jobs and education. Today's program as Mr. Sutton said has to do with housing in a way these three areas are interrelated because if somebody doesn't have a job he can't afford to get the kind of housing that might put him into a geographical area where he might get decent schooling decent schooling. He can't get the job so it is a vicious circle. I'd like to turn first today to the assistant secretary of AQ day in Washington Mr. Ralph Taylor who from his federal location has had an overview of this whole situation. And to hear from him. A little sketch of just what the housing problem is and

to define define the dimensions of the problem before we start picking it apart. Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you Mr. Elliot. The job of summarizing the major problems very quickly is it is a tough one. I would focus on three things. First we have over six million sub standard units in this country housing close to 20 million people. We are increasing the volume of substandard units faster at least in big cities like New York and Chicago and some others faster than we're able to replace them with standard housing. We second element in this is that. Programs have not lend themselves to production of volume. Particularly at the lower end where the need is

greatest. We have less than 700000 units in all of federal law and public housing in this country and that's our production total from the start of the program in 19 hundred and thirty four. We have been building an average of nearly two years of federally hated housing of all kinds of public housing and the FHA subsidized housing the blown market interest rate program this year as a result of a very hard push. We may get up to $100000. As I said a moment ago the natives S.A. it so that we desperately and urgently need the legislative tools in the local institutions that will let us build in the Guardian the housing legislation that's before the Congress it's on the floor of the House today as we talk. Has the potential given a spot on you.

Unless the conservatives wrapping themselves in the cloak of let's do this for the poor people or people only got it so that it can't produce fodder. The third. Aspect of the problem I'd like to mention is the need to recognise the distinction between a slum in a ghetto or a ghetto is when the people who live in it have no other option. Islam is the physical problem. Too often they're connected but we aren't going to solve the slum problems in this country while we still have the ghettos. Well now let me ask you gentlemen why is it in this richest of all countries. Why can't we How's all these people decently Why has it been impossible to get the legislation that Secretary Taylor talks of. What's what's the matter here. What what's wrong with the system that we haven't been able to provide proper housing maybe Mr. WOOD. You could talk to this point.

Well in my judgment some of the answers really were provided by Newsweek and its analysis. Indeed. Our commission report so the source there has been some question of the will. Permit. Citations ourselves of the house these. People. Low and moderate income structure. We failed as a nation really in the course of the last Marxist to really do anything more than contribute to the construction of about 1 percent of the nation's housing supply for. War. But. I think we were about to turn the corner of this whole history I think with the enactment of a very significant piece of legislation by the Congress most particularly with the very historic decision by the Supreme Court to fully complete open occupancy

below and more recently the consideration by the Congress of the Urban Community Development Act of 1968 which brings into play in our whole magnet. Of tools and resources I think with these three following tools we now are in a position to do the things we gave last Sunday and now as never before. We are really going to be charged people with housing interest. These are all citizens of this country. Dr. Horn you've been involved in this whole field for many years. Do you take this relatively optimistic view that Mr. Wood has just expressed that we are perhaps putting the tools into our hands to solve these gigantic housing problems.

I wish I could but I can't. I've only in my lifetime seen my own country kind of excited love to make what people called you commit. One must wonder the Japanese dropped a lot. It didn't seem to take a whole lot more motivation to win lots also what was unique. And second time I can remember why the way you acted with that I was sitting in a hotel room with a group of businessmen. When the president. Than trying to broker on the W needed somewhere to the right quick and up a false idea of me said he may not be quite going to make it 300 by about two years later I was out in Texas watching him

auctioned off playing crucial largest buyer. The second time I got a letter signed it was putting us splitting the education area on the rugs Russia is putting up with it although some people call playing with footballs. We did get a look inside these sites had suddenly risen to this. Take a lucky team book publish what we had. Well we didn't solder on the full run but what do we got the greatest technical help you get for all over the world economy. We find a lot of money in the mix in doing that we talked about before and we got busy getting the sport to come here. Well this guy couldn't have not yet taken whole what the secretary told the kind of need is so great. He even speaks about the way we're producing we're actually getting overtaken by Tift deterioration in the process and

we see the troubles leading to and he still is the type of Congress up there yap about cutting some down to do some to some peace up. I just do not see this but he's right that the the Congress is an accurate reflection of the mood of the country you are and you think the Congress is so far behind the move the country wouldn't be relevant only to the degree that it chops programs. Well it's a little complex I don't want to over simplified but I would say that Congress generally reflects a more as a country. If you follow football there that of course the Congress is still so largely and heavily role is for protection. It's so heavily led by Chairman of the committee will come from sudden deaths are so largely to have their own axis of grime. But generally speaking. This failed I would say yes. Sadly yes. Congress lot may be a little behind

the time the last three years we vote to cut one out. You talk about the lack of a national commitment or will to do something about this it seems to me that in recent months and particularly there have been encouraging signs. In particular from certain larger private companies corporations in the country there at long last waking up to the dimensions of the problem that confronts us here including very specifically the housing problem that we're talking about today we have with us today is has been previously introduced as to Thomas Murray who's a vice president charge of mortgages at the Equitable Life Assurance which is the third biggest life insurance company in the country. And as such he is here representing an industry that has pledged one billion dollars

to the rehabilitation of these ghettoes to combine the two words secretary Taylor wanted us to distinguish. Tell us a little bit about this Mr. Murray. What is what is your role in it and how is this money going to be used and specifically I believe your share of it at the Equitable was 83 million dollars. Where is this where is this money going who's going to get it this is an interesting question and I'll try to answer. When we started this program in September of last year I sort of assumed that what we would be doing would be providing new song with urgency which is hearing more urgent anything connected with the program that we were in a refinancing program or the financing purchasing of homes these homes or existence in our small areas

that. We consider. I think this is one of the key things and it was a point if the owners already are. Sorry if this is one the one great contribution to the theory that we can make. We have done everything we can do this this this idea. Push forward. When I may I just clarify this point a little bit a little bit confused. Instead of your using this money to go out and build new housing. You are using it to enable people already living in that housing to buy it for themselves and it is for us we felt that way. A year or two years to develop a plan. Thank you very large trucks. Work it out to get clearances to get the necessary government finances and everything take too long. We probably best serve our. Purposes of our. Remember I mean again going into this program may bring some of these

residents to our own priorities. One of the Geishas of this event the cases that I know of specifically the folks who. Were there are home already. First every assignment sometimes a third mortgage it was such that their payments Army's buying mortgages were so great that they had an online life to do it spent in my car at all can you give us a specific example of a house owner who was paying a large amount of interest and principal payments and who by being refinanced under this program has found himself to be in better financial condition. Well. I didn't exactly specific on that but the order. Probably something like this on a mortgage of say $10000 or more combined debt of $10000 on property which would be high in this area maybe $5000 you better every 10 lends itself to

fish. OK. Mortgage this homeowner might be paying. Say 7 percent on the first mortgage 90 percent on the second mortgage and 10 percent on the 30 mortgage interest only. So you see he's got charges to $100 a month just in interest along now on the mortgage guaranteed by the government. Combining into one. This this results in his payments of interest under the original program six percent now six and three quarters. Six hundred seventy five dollars a year or so dollars at least a third saving in case you go and he had a very heavy. Station third mortgage and they were trying to you possibly have to be renewed so he had he was passed in fear of losing his house. So therefore. Not only has he had savings cachaca

also in total pain for the money so therefore he now has a few dollars left over to his house and I think this is this is a very important thing. We considered it very bizarre. What do you gentlemen think of this program. I don't agree. TAYLOR I think the insurance company program has been very helpful. When they announced this program. With the president in the president and the fish from I think. The White House secretary waiver. Mr. Fitzgerald you were there Mr. Marri everybody was very happy we were extremely curious and eager to see it work. We get the sense of importance that. Mr. Murray places upon opening up purchase opportunities in the inner city. The reason for the heavy debt burden that Mr. Murray is describing under the existing power is that solid mortgage

money didn't used to go into the inner city. If they wanted to buy a bike from the sharks I had to take second and third paper purchase money paper. Short. Amortization people have gotten rich on foreclosing and selling the same house five six eight times meanwhile making 10 percent me while making 10 percent on it. The debt the. Burden of debt on a lot of these properties was such that it couldn't possibly be carried no matter how they subdivided the property. Contributing to the decline of the area meanwhile. F A K A. I admit it was a little slow in moving into this area part because of the legislative pattern. But when. The Congress last year I guess a year ago last August gave us legislation that said we could go with an incurable whether it was riot Palme.

The Department of Housing has picked this up and running with it and we're now ensuring open to 5000 mortgages a week through FHA under the used house program in several city areas. Well now there's a zero a week 18 months ago. Does this kind of a program tend to perpetuate the slum ghetto instead of rebuild it replace it this kind of a program meets a short term need. It is not the long term solution unless it's matched with an increase in supply. To think that we're going to reach out to people by taking and letting them take in each other's washing so to speak family moving from in excess of living within the existing supply is just. Preposterous. We need to increase the supply of housing. We need to increase the supply of housing at the lower income levels and we need to recognize that the jobs are now going to the suburbs. If you look at the pattern of industrial location you'll find that 90 percent of the

jobs that have been created in any neighborhood are out in the suburbs. Are you suggesting then that a kind of a quota system or a dispersal system do move people out of the ghettos into the suburbs. I don't think you call it a quota system I'm suggesting that people are not a politician. No I'm suggesting that people are to have the freedom and the opportunity to move so they can go where the jobs and go freely break up irrelevant considerations like color. Well Mr. Wood may I ask you a list very much should get into your field. How big a barrier is discrimination and we are talking about moving into the suburbs getting jobs they're getting housing there. How much of a problem is this today. 1968 in this country it's so big a problem this really is that we are now calling for want of another means as constituting the crisis of the solution to the crisis of the racial bills of urban America. I want to test

to our solutions on the Stormers current and really Second the observatory's Tiller's just first of all seems to be the issue. It's understood a service to be complimented on having made this billion dollar commitment. I think really actions like the that has been taken by the insurance industry coupled with a leadership that now appears to be coming out of the early Polish coalition of lower industry leadership the direction of Doctor these are socialist We are going to make a very major part of vision I think the behaviors of Sardar situation is that I think Mr.. Murray will certainly expresses on the surface is that there is the threat that Negro American families and other minorities long lockdowns of the inner city racial ghettos may in fact be even further entrenched in this segregation. If we fail to

broaden our sights beyond the mere rehabilitation. Within hours our secretary jealous comments about the exodus of jobs of the decentralization of industry reminds me of a study that my own organization the National Committee basis for Mission housing undertook for the whole of last year. And in this report on jobs and housing demonstrated that this decentralization of industry to suburbia the course of the last of the new areas been such a rapid pace that we now find the jobs are going to suburban communities and they happen to be the precise jobs that are not just below that and so we still devils that people so desperately need a large tract of the inner city ghettos like access to lack access to the opportunities. Now if we fail to broaden our horizons and if we fail to begin to expand housing supply broadly dispersed throughout the entire metropolitan area

we instead of this concentrate on the rehabilitation of housing for people where they are not by their choice but by containment then what we're going to do is to build up our arms and our walks and I bet. The stars are one size one feel economically and what we will do is just to continue it. A third of a century of playing games with people's lives. We fail to see this is the problem. Perspective we fail to expand supply and meaningful choice in areas where the jobs are where the schools are where the non defacto segregated educational facilities are where the opening for more desirable recreational facilities are where there is a complete absence of performing businesses. We failed to expand housing opportunities for people to reside in these areas as we did away some 40s and 50s. Then we will have failed our purposes as a nation and I think our cities if not indeed our entire society will crumble.

You know we've been talking to sources of money private and public. Dr. Horn. How much of this job is going to have to be public funds and how much from price. That's the U.S. called $64 question. I'd like to join in the pool of what buyers are doing by putting money into the truck to cover as a toll on somebody said me the other day because the Pentagon by the way I would first place and those get so bad places it to go to get to Fox they can to take and always say this country very didn't recognize the area. And I'll get busy about fraud. But there's no sign yet that so-called Pirate prize on the road by the unaided by the tax money this taken away by a bid to buy private bridges in the street by the federal government to actually have to depend so largely on federal

funds which will not be important. So what I want to say and excuse me I was just going to ask what kind of money is involved here what are we talking about over a billion the silence 10 year period. How much is this I try figure over 10 years. So you're going to go for every million dollars I think you've got to figure there since Little Rock but I suspect we're talking somewhere around 10 billion of it. Yes I would think so if we're talking section 8 in units of 60 billion dollars. We're talking 10 billion this law I think you got a figure closer to fifteen thousand a year at the camp. So we're talking on the range of 90 to 100 billion in housing investment along. Now the dichotomy between public and private to me is a completely unrealistic dichotomy. The private market is stimulated and fueled by the availability of public guarantee access with the Federal Housing Administration

guarantee of the mortgage. That's the basis on which the insurance industry is moving into these areas. They need it and they recognize the importance of the government role. It's also fueled by private by public subsidy money that in effect deepens and broadens the market so that the people who are living in these units can't afford. Through their own income aided by subsidy the fills the gap to meet the economic cost of rental or ownership so that the very substantial private investment that will come in will be money that is attracted and project it by the public investment. Now investment of 100 billion in housing isn't going to be worth very much unless it's a company by investment in schools security and all of the infrastructure that makes up our civilization. So we're talking very very substantial figures you know the way you're going to get to

it for the people you say it to straight from analysis and so on. On the one side if there had been required to realize their vision of fall guy Goldman all the old guy left because the guy took the faulty guy paid to calmly put straight mine. And be a fall guy. You seem to have been sold a protected areas of the Covenant on the basis that was something prestigious of sale got it and then on that somebody saying by trying to run to exploit the slum and to get all by doing all new blockbuster hits on gold on the ghetto. Now on top of that brave soul he began to walk take advantage get all he could eventually go on sell out to the Government to you. I'm going to elaborate. So I placed a recount I could walk out wait if you want come here that's what I like with the bike and begun to work your font and so on.

So he's been looking all around inside and watching their growth that's all he's got to. To really understand some of these dogs being cracked across negroes and not negro anymore I just can't say big roles. BUT GUYS LOOK AT qualify you on the Smart program. So I'm going to poke at them and they get down to levels we're talking about on the slump they get all of that's another good trying to book problem. You probably haven't met but he's going to crack. And we would certainly like to encourage him to kick a ball hard. But I'm not like that because it was all my coming. I'm always the way to go because the door avoidance old boy and hopefully brutal. You will also assist all of the increased use of legal architects and desirous of life sleep specialists a mock Laurie's extra caution. And disposition fully functional area code is all you have to do is

enable you to talk to us. Thank you very much gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen this concludes today's edition of WHAT MUST BE DONE. Today's discussion was led by Mr. Osbon Elliott editor of Newsweek. I will Pamela swer Mr. Jack Wood Jr. executive co-director of National Committee against discrimination in housing. Mr. Thomas F. Murray vice president equitable insurance company. Dr. Frank Haun assistant administrator for equal opportunities New York City Housing and Development Administration and Mr. H. RATH Taylor assistant secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Please listen for the next program in this series where we will cover another aspect of America's urban crisis and what must be done to solve it. What must be done was created and produced by Sam case for Debbie ally B Radio in New York with the cooperation of

Newsweek magazine. I am Percy Sutton. ST thank you for I will peril this program was distributed by the national educational radio network.