Other Federal Programs

Two additional Federal housing programs deserve mention. They arepublic housing, one of the oldest programs, and housing for the elderly,the newest. The former is the only major Federal housing programin which Government plays a direct role in both construction andmanagement. Although public housing is relatively small in terms oftotal housing starts, it is a key program and of particular significanceto minority groups. It will have continuing importance as urban renewal endeavors to use all available tools in creating a balanced metropolis. Housing for the elderly is of particular importance because itoffers means to deal with an urgent and increasing urban problem: Anexpanding elderly population.

Both programs present familiar civil rights problems. After 24 yearsof public housing, critics contend that while it has improved the physical surroundings of the nonwhite population, the program has intensified racially restrictive residential patterns. The housing for elderlypersons program shows signs of adopting features of the FHA and PHAprograms that will bring it under similar critical attack as soon as itsupplies a significant volume of dwelling units.

1. PUBLIC HOUSING

   As of December 31, 1959, the Federal Government's permanent publichousing program had produced (in cooperation with local governments) 3,217 projects with a total of 585,212 dwelling units throughout the continental United States, the District of Columbia, PuertoRico, and the Virgin Islands. 1 The program started with the passageof the United States Housing Act of I937, 2 after the Public WorksAdministration 3 had entered the housing field in a limited way 3 yearsearlier. 4 Today the Public Housing Administration (PHA), a constitu-109

   ent agency of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, is directly responsible for administering the low-rent public housing program.

   Public housing is intended to provide standard shelter for personswhose income prevents the purchase or rental of standard housing inthe private market. To this end Federal and local government havecombined their resources.

   The low-rent public housing program is local to the extent that themunicipality concerned picks out the site for plans, designs, constructs,owns, and operates each project. But all of the local housing authority's standards are subject to PHA approval, the prerequisite for projectplanning grants to the local public housing authority. A municipalbond issue generally finances the project and is repaid from the project'srental income. PHA pledges its credit as security for repayment andmakes yearly contributions to maintain the low-rent nature of thedevelopment.

   Public housing and civil rights

   The following figures suggest the public housing impact on minorities.As of March 31, 1961, there were 456,242 public housing dwellingunits occupied or available for occupancy. 8 These units are includedin 2,639 projects. 6 Of these, nonwhites occupied 210,280 units in1,534 projects, or 46 percent of the total units, 7 an increase from 1952when non-white-occupied units were only 37.9 percent of the total. 8

   Richard G. Coleman, director of the Springfield, Ohio, Metropolitan

   Housing Authority, told the Commission's Ohio Advisory Committee atits housing conference of public housing's importance in terms of meeting his city's minority housing needs: 9

   I do not believe that an immediate cessation of all racial bars in

   relation to rental and sales discrimination would resolve this problem [of inadequate housing for minorities]. . . . The real hope ofproviding adequate housing to the minority groups .. . is the Federal aid public housing program.

   In Detroit, where nonwhites make up 29 percent of the population,

   51.3 percent of the 7,700 public housing tenants were nonwhite, asof September 30, i96o. 10 In Los Angeles, where nonwhites make uponly 15 percent of the population, 86 percent of the total families (35,000people) occupying public housing units were nonwhite, as of September30, 1959. Negroes, who comprise only 12 percent of the city's population, constituted 65 percent of this total. 11 In Baltimore, where nonwhites make up 41 percent of the population, they occupy 75 percent ofthe 9,500 public housing units. 12

   no

   Although low economic status, in itself, is undoubtedly a major causeof this disproportionate nonwhite use of public housing, one Commissionwitness contended: 13

   This focuses attention upon the unrealistic, undemocratic, and

   unjust practices of the housing forces in the private real estatemarket who cling to outmoded patterns of racial segregation. Inability to secure housing in the real estate market on an openoccupancy basis and the accumulated effect of employmentdiscrimination are directly responsible for the disproportionatenumber of nonwhite families in public housing.

   Federal public housing legislation, like other Federal housing legislation, contains no guarantees for minority homeseekers. But as DavisMcEntire, a University of California economist, noted: "

   .. . in striking contrast to the FHA, which for years seemed tothink of minorities only as a threat to real estate investments, theadministration of public housing has always operated on the principle that the minority groups were entitled to share in the program. . . . The [AJdministration supported its racial relationsofficers [intergroup relations officers] in working for a maximum degree of equity for minority groups, community by community.

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