due at the end of 1953, less than 1 percent had not paid the full amount due on their loan by January 31, 1953. These few are the families who did not have sufficient resources to meet the credit requirements of conventional lenders for a construction loan. However, as soon as they make sufficient financial progress to qualify for a loan from another source they will be required to refinance their Government loans with private or cooperative lending institutions. They only need adequate credit on reasonable terms and an opportunity to prove that they are good credit risks. When the construction work is finished and the loans become seasoned, private credit agencies can and will carry the remaining debt.

The farm housing program is not in competition with private and cooperative credit, but rather it is an integral part of our total credit system that will enable farm families to have homes comparable to those enjoyed by city residents. I think we will all agree that a high percentage of our city families are well housed today because they have been aided in their home purchase or improvement through Government financed, insured or guaranteed programs.

I take considerable pride in the fact that it was an Alabama World War II veteran who received the first farm housing loan made under the Housing Act of 1949. I wish all of you could have seen the transformation that took place on his farm when the ramshackle and dilapidated house that was too worn out to repair was replaced by a modern six-room home complete with running water, bath, and up-to-date kitchen.

Both the appearance of the farmstead and the efficiency of the farming operations were further improved by the addition of a new barn and the installation of a pressure water system.

All this was done with a $4,300 farm housing loan coupled with careful planning to use most advantageously the materials that could be salvaged from the wornout buildings that were replaced.

I mention this first farm housing loan because it is both a typical example of the shocking condition of many of our farm homes and a dramatic demonstration of how such a condition can be remedied by a soundly conceived and efficiently administered farm housing program.

Although the inadequacy of farm homes has been less conspicuous and perhaps less publicized than the slums in the cities, a far greater percentage of our farm families are living in substandard houses than is true of urban families. Nationwide 1 out of every 5 farm families is living in a house that is so dilapidated that it either needs to be replaced or else needs major repairs. In Alabama only 1 farm family out of 12 has the commonly accepted convenience of a private toilet, bath, and hot running water. One out of four families live in homes having less than four rooms. A high percentage of Alabama farm homes are not only inadequate, but 1 out of every 3 needs major repairs or needs to be replaced.

The economic and social problems associated with inadequate housing on a fifth of our Nation's farms are too great to be brushed aside. The idea that privation and hardship necessarily are a part of farm life was commonly accepted during the years when our country was being settled, but today farm families want, and I believe they are entitled to it, the same conveniences that city people enjoy.

Farm families for one reason or another frequently have deferred home improvements until they had paid for their farms. The idea has prevailed among both farmers and lenders that the house was something to be improved out of savings and that it wasn't prudent for the farmer to borrow to give his family a decent home. This postponement of home improvements frequently extended beyond the years of greatest family need-the years when the children were at home. Particularly during these years, the household duties of farm wives meant hard labor and drudgery without such commonly accepted conveniences as electricity, running water, and efficiently designed and equipped kitchens.

This postponement of home improvements was largely because of economic necessity and not by choice. All too frequently farm families never did accumulate enough money to build a decent home. The possibilities of obtaining a long-term amortized loan to build a new home were exceedingly scarce; consequently, many of these families were forced to patch and continue to live in rundown and inadequate homes.

Today, farm families no longer accept the notion that because they chose farming as a way of life they need to live in homes that are inconvenient and inadequate. To the extent that private and cooperative credit sources can meet the building credit needs of farm families they should be encouraged to do so.

Government loan guaranties and insurance have encouraged private capital to finance improved housing for our city families on a substantial scale. When private credit was not available direct Government loans have been provided. What farm families want and need is a like opportunity to finance farm building improvements.

The farm housing section of the Housing Act of 1949 gives this opportunity to the farm families who cannot obtain their financing from private or cooperative sources. The limited funds that have been made available under this act have proved its effectiveness in helping farm families of modest means improve their homes. We need to extend these authorities. They are an essential part of our national housing program which has as its objective the progressive improvements of our housing standards with the eventual realization of a decent home and suitable living environment for every American family.

Mr. JONES. Again let me state to the committee I appreciate the opportunity of appearing on behalf of rural housing. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lantaff.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM C. LANTAFF, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Mr. LANTAFF. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity of appearing before this committee to call to your attention a very small and somewhat minor bill that I introduced last year, pertaining to military housing. With it in connection with a work of which I am a member, we ran into quite a problem at various military installations with reference to the construction of bachelor officers quarters. Bachelor officers quarters cost approximately $240,000. Normally, that is one of the first things that is stricken from the appropriations bill. In many of our installations and bases there is a great need for these bachelor officers quarters, but as I have mentioned before, they cost some $240,000, and normally in an attempt to cut expenses the Appropriations Committee eliminates that item from the bill.

When Homestead Airbase was reactivated in Miami, Fla., on a permanent basis, 2 years ago, and construction was started there, the same thing happened. The bachelor officers quarters were eliminated, and I received letters from one or more individuals in my community suggesting that the title VIII provisions of the Wherry Act be extended to cover bachelor officers quarters.

The question was posed to me as to why private enterprise couldn't go in and build these BOQ's under the provision of title VII of the Housing Act, on the same way that multiple-family housing was being constructed, and that private enterprise was willing to do the job and it would save the Government having to appropriate that money in the public-works program of the military budget.

I then took that idea up with the Air Force, because the Air Force was involved at the Homestead Airbase, and the Air Force said that no particular thought had been given to it, but about a month later came back and said there was no reason why it couldn't work. The only minor objection that they had to it was the fact that if the BOQ requirements, on a base, dropped under the officers' requirements for BOQ quarters, that there might be a problem of renting to civilians on the base or outsiders. But they thought that the advantages to the Air Force of being able to go ahead with their BOQ program, utilizing private enterprise, would more than outweight those advantages.

847

And so this bill which you have before you, H. R. 6667, was actually prepared for me by the Department of the Air Force.

I talked with some of the officials in the Air Force this morning, as to whether or not they had any change of heart about this particular bill, and they said no, that they thought it would be a very helpful amendment to the title VIII of the bill.

That, Mr. Chairman, is about all there is to that bill. I think that it will enable private enterprise, however, to construct a needed facility for the Air Force without the requirement of our having to appropriate approximately $240,000 per BOQ, which, as I pointed out, is always stricken from the appropriation bill, and that is one of the great needs of all the services today.

Mr. BETTS. Did you say $240,000?

Mr. LANTAFF. The cost varies. That is about an average cost for a 40-unit bachelor officers' quarters.

The Secretary of Defense, as I recall it, has stated that the cost per unit should not exceed $6,000. In this bill, it states $9,000 per unit-up to $9,000 per unit-which, as I recall it, is the same per unit cost authorized for the multiple family housing.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Lantaff.

Mr. MULTER. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Multer.

Mr. MULTER. Mr. Lantaff, I am sure we appreciate your calling this to our attention. But tell me, are there any parts of the country where the cost of the unit may run as high as $9,000? I am not talking now about Alaska or outside of the continental United States, but within the United States; are there any areas where it would run that high?

Mr. LANTAFF. No, sir. I think, in fact, that the $9,000 figure is an outside figure. The $9,000 figure was used to track the other provisions with reference to multiple-family housing.

Actually, the most expensive bachelor officers' quarters that we ran into was out at El Toro Air Force Base. Calif., where the cost was $7,076 per man.

After our report the Secretary of Defense issued a directive that no bachelor officers' quarters housing would be approved which exceeded the cost of $6,000 per man.

Mr. MULTER. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for being here, Mr. Lantaff. Mr. LANTAFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Watts.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN C. WATTS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF KENTUCKY

Mr. WATTS. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity of appearing before this committee for a short time this morning. I am here in support of H. R. 7743, which I introduced in the House, and S. 2937, which was introduced in the Senate by Senator Sparkman, and which passed the Senate on March 1, 1954. These 2 bills are identical except in 1 minor particular, in that they seek to amend section 15 of the United States Housing Act of 1937.

In the 1949 amendment of that housing act, a proviso was laid down, under which people could apply for admittance to public housing. It was divided into two categories. First, that they had to have an income under or between certain limits, and, secondly, that they had to come from what is known as substandard housing.

The 1949 act provided that the second section, that is requiring that they come from substandard housing, would not be applicable to veterans for a period of 5 years after March 1, 1949. Of course, that expired this March, March 1, 1954, and I introduced this bill on, I believe it was, February 4, 1954, for the purpose of trying to prevent that from expiring.

The local housing people that I have talked to have told me that this was worked very well, that it has provided needed housing for our veterans, and I think that there is a real need for continuation of it. If it was good law in the first place, it certainly seems to me that it would be good law to extend it for three reasons.

We are having many veterans now who are returning from the Korean conflict who have never had an opportunity to occupy public housing. Another thing, many public housing units I know one in my own community of Lexington, Ky., is only now being completed-some of the units are even not yet available for occupancy, and veterans have never had an opportunity to apply for admission to those.

Many veterans who are just recently married have never needed a home before, and will be needing those homes, and if the President's program of constructing 35,000 new housing units is carried out, there will be more units that I think should be made available to veterans.

I know of no opposition to the bill. I would like to presume on the good nature of the committee by making a couple of suggestions, however. One is that the bill could be handled in the Housing Act which is now before you.

The other is that you could pass the Senate bill, which I referred to, and I believe the latter would be the better procedure, because while it appears that your committee is about ready to report this bill to the House and probably will get rather prompt action on it, we don't know what the situation will be in the Senate and it may be some 3 or 4 months before the bill clears the Senate, if the committee sees fit to include a provision of this kind in the Housing Act.

In the meantime, for those 3 or 4 months, veterans have been stopped from-not stopped from applying, but this waiver has become noneffective as far as they are concerned.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that is all I have to say about it. I hope the committee will give it earnest consideration. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. SPENCE. The veteran has been in a peculiar disadvantageous position because of his absence from the country and not being able to make any provision for housing, isn't that true?

Mr. WATTS. That is true, and too many housing units are just now being completed in many communities.

Mr. KILBURN. Is this public housing?

Mr. WATTS. Yes, sir.

Mr. MULTER. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Multer.

Mr. MULTER. What you are seeking to do here is to continue the provision in existing law with reference to whatever public housing has been built or may be built?

Mr. WATTS. That is right. I am trying to renew it. It has expired. It expired March 1, and at the present time is not operative, and the local managers tell me that they have received instruction from the housing officials in Washington to no longer honor that provision.

Mr. MULTER. Congressman, did I understand you to approve the President's suggestion that we build at least 35,000 new public housing units each year for the next 4 years?

Mr. WATTS. Yes, sir; I do.

Mr. MULTER. Do you realize that in this bill we have no provision for public housing at all, as of this moment?

Mr. WATTS. Well I haven't made a comprehensive study of your bill, as the members of your committee have."

Mr. MULTER. I think the committee will agree that there is, as of now, nothing in this bill calling for any additional public housing, and I don't know whether you were in the committee room this morning when I said that the off-the-record opinion as of yesterday was that the Appropriations Committee would appropriate no money for new public housing starts. So if your area needs it, and you think the country needs it, I suggest you go to work on the Appropriations Committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there further questions? If not, thank you, sir. Mr. WATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. We have the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, Mr. Fernós-Isern.

Commissioner, we are very glad to have you proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. A. FERNÓS-ISERN, RESIDENT COMMISSIONER OF PUERTO RICO

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. Mr. Chairman, in the first place I thank the committee for this opportunity to present my views on this bill, really only on one particular aspect of it.

In general, of course, I would say that Puerto Rico is one of the areas where laws like this have shown their worth. The work done in Puerto Rico has been splendid. But I am addressing myself this morning to just one particular aspect of the bill. I refer to H. R. 7839, page 87, where the word "State" is defined, to include the several States, the District of Columbia, and the Territories and possessions of the United States.

Since the 25th of July 1952, Puerto Rico has been organized as a Commonwealth, and there has been a question raised as to whether laws that make reference to Territories and possessions apply or do not apply to Puerto Rico, since the Commonwealth status is recognized as something by itself.

As to laws that were in effect in Puerto Rico before July 25, 1952, I think there would be little question that unless they are inconsistent with the law that created the Commonwealth they would continue to apply. However, that matter has not been solved as yet, and is under study.