Way to a Permanent Housing Boom

SLUM CLEARANCE

DESPITE the biggest construction boom in U.S. history, the nation has notably failed to clear its slums.

Instead of growing smaller, the nation's slums are getting bigger and worse than ever. One reason is that real-estate men have repeatedly raised cries of socialism against Government housing projects that often accompany slum-clearance projects. Another is that do-nothing municipal governments have ducked the problem.

Now mayors and city councils are learning that slums are not only festering eyesores and schools for crimes but heavy burdens on city budgets. For example, Baltimore's slums produce only 6% of the city's revenues but take 45% of all the city's total budget. They account for 45% of Baltimore's major crimes and 55% of juvenile delinquency.

In the past five years the Federal Government has allocated almost $500 million for slum clearance and urban redevelopment. Now President Eisenhower has asked Congress for another $500 million. If Congress votes the money, the funds would spur a partnership program combining public and private spending for the betterment of all.

Slum rehabilitation would give the current construction boom such a powerful boost that it would virtually guarantee a high level of building for decades. The Housing and Home Finance Agency estimates that the federal and municipal governments' share in the cost of slum clearance and urban rehabilitation would run at least to $24 billion. And for every $1 spent from public funds, HHFA estimates that private enterprise would spend $4 to $5. All told, 20 million urban dwellings need to be replaced or rehabilitated. Over a 20-year spread, the bill for public and private spending could reach $5 billion yearly, about one-seventh of what the U.S. spent last year on all construction.

Until last year slum clearance was tried in bits and pieces which, said President Eisenhower's Advisory Committee on Housing, "simply will not work. Occasional thrusts at slum pockets in one section of a city will only push slums to other sections unless an effective program exists for attacking the entire problem of urban decay." Part of the problem lies outside the worst slums, in neighborhoods where middle-income homeowners have let their property become shabby.

To combat the overall problem, the President proposed this package plan: 1) stop the spread of blight by strict enforcement of occupancy and maintenance standards, 2) rehabilitate areas that can be saved by remodeling, repainting, building parks and playgrounds, etc., 3) raze and redevelop slums that cannot be saved. By building centers of health in declining neighborhoods, the Government hopes to spur home and apartment owners to repair, repaint, clean up, fix up.

The new federal approach is to help the cities help themselves, and to harness private enterprise for the long pull. Federal aid is conditional on each city's presenting an overall plan for preventing as well as destroying blight. To become eligible, a city must convince the Housing and Home Finance Agency that it has adequate building codes and is equipped to enforce them. a city plan for zoning, streets, land use, a sound financial program to pay its share of the cost, arrangements for rehousing families displaced by slum clearance, and assurance that the citizens of the community support the plan. Eight cities (including Chicago, Clarksville, Tenn., Somerville, Mass.) have already qualified for federal aid under the 1954 Housing Act, are thus eligible for such benefits as 95% mortgage insurance for low-cost private housing, grants up to two-thirds of the cost of projects, including improvements such as schools and parks.

Already Chicago has begun four slum-clearance and redevelopment projects and is planning three others. All told, they will generate about $95 million in private investment. Baltimore, which has received more than $9,000,000 to help clear some 80 acres of slums, has borne down on building violations, forced the owners of 6,000 houses and apartment buildings to repair or remodel. New Orleans has started a nine-year program to require the repair and modernization (mostly by private financing) of 5,000 houses a year. Civic groups, e.g., the new nonprofit American Council to Improve Our Neighborhoods (A.C.T.I.O.N.), are readying all-out campaigns to help cities improve housing.

The President's housing committee, after studying ten cities, found that tax receipts in slum areas rose two to ten times after redevelopment. In seven of the ten cities studied, the cost of slum clearance and redevelopment could have been paid off in 15 years or less, with only 75% of the increases in tax revenue. If the savings in police, fire and public health protection were added, all ten could have paid the cost of slum clearance.

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