title I of the Housing Act of 1949, but such obligations or such pledge shall not constitute a debt or obligation of either the United States or of the District of Columbia. "(h) Nothing contained in this section or in any other section of this Act shall relieve the Administrator of his responsibilities and duties under section 105 (c) or any other section of the Housing Act of 1949." 31. Page 84, line 6, strike out "508" and insert in lieu thereof "510"; and on line 10 strike out "509" and insert in lieu thereof "511". I. HISTORY OF THE LEGISLATION HEARINGS ON BILL H. R. 4009 is one of the large number of housing bills which have been referred to your committee on Banking and Currency during the first session of the Eighty-first Congress. The bill would establish a national housing policy, would provide Federal financial assistance for the clearance of slums, for low-rent public housing, and for rural housing, and would authorize a comprehensive program of housing research. These are, in substance, the unenacted provisions of housing legislation which, previously, have received extensive study by the Congress, have been passed three times by the Senate, and which were also approved last year by this committee in the Eightieth Congress (H. R. 6888, Rept. No. 2340). In view of the long consideration and widespread approval which these proposals had already received, and in view of the further fact that they are designed to meet several of the most urgent problem areas in the field of housing, it was the judgment of your committee that first attention should be directed to H. R. 4009 before taking up various other housing proposals consisting, in the main, of further improvements to financing aids for private housing. Hearings on H. R. 4009 were held by your committee during the period from April 7 through May 9. Your committee heard testimony by a great number of witnesses and was impressed not only by the overwhelming support of its provisions from spokesmen of a wide variety of citizen groups, but also by the increasing acceptance of its major objectives even by industry leaders who disagreed with detailed provisions. In addition, your committee had the benefit of evidence gathered by several congressional committees over a period of five years regarding the nature of the housing problem and various solutions which have been proposed. These studies and findings are summarized in the following paragraphs. SEVENTY-NINTH CONGRESS In July 1945 the House Special Committee on Postwar Economic Policy and Planning submitted its report on Postwar Public Works and Construction. The conclusions of this special committee with respect to the matters covered by titles I and II of the bill now being favorably reported were as follows: The Government should establish the legal basis upon which State and local jurisdictions may be encouraged to undertake a systematic program of community development in which the stimulation of low-rent housing occupies a major place. This program contemplates local initiative in construction, financing and opera tion. The responsibility of the Federal Government should be to provide incentives through the purchase of a percentage of the construction bonds, or yearly payments over a specified period to the local authorities of the difference between the income from rentals and the costs of operation, including interest and amortization on capital indebtedness. In 1946, during the second session of the Seventy-ninth Congress, the Senate, following recommendations both of its Committee on Banking and Currency and of the Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Redevelopment of the Senate Committee on Postwar Economic Policy and Planning, passed S. 1592, known as the WagnerEllender-Taft bill. The bill contained a declaration of national housing policy and objectives and provided for the establishment of a permanent over-all Federal Housing Agency, the continuance and improvement of Federal financing aids to encourage long-term mortgage financing, the establishment of Federal yield insurance for privately owned rental housing, the extension of Federal financial assistance for additional low-rent public housing under the United States Housing Act of 1937; the establishment of Federal financial assistance to help cities eliminate slums and blighted areas; the development of plans for an attack on deficiencies in farm housing and the authorization of a comprehensive Federal research program in housing. In the House, the Banking and Currency Committee was unable to conclude hearings on S. 1592 before the adjournment of Congress. EIGHTIETH CONGRESS Legislation closely parallelling the Wagner-Ellender Taft bill was introduced during the first session of the Eightieth Congress. Before acting on these bills, the Congress decided to conduct a further investigation of the housing problem. In July of 1947, the Eightieth Congress created the Joint Committee on Housing, consisting of seven members of this committee and an equal number from the Committee on Banking and Currency of the Senate. This committee held hearings in 33 cities in all sections of the country and received more than 6,000 printed pages of testimony. In addition, several of its members conducted special studies on specific aspects of the housing problem. The legislative recommendations of the Joint Committee on Housing (H. Rept. 1564, 80th Cong., 2d sess.) corresponded closely with, and strongly supported, the major provisions of S. 1592 considered by the Seventy-ninth Congress, and of the successor bill S. 866 which was pending in the last Congress. S. 866, Eightieth Congress, was modified to conform to the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Housing and was approved by the Senate in April 1948. The House Banking and Currency Committee held further extensive hearings from May 3 through June 8, 1948. At the conclusion of these hearings, this committee reported favorably H. R. 6888, a substantially similar bill. This bill, however, was tabled by the Committee on Rules. In August of 1948, during the special session of the Congress called by the President, with comprehensive housing legislation as one of its principal purposes, the Congress enacted the Housing Act of 1948, which incorporated some of the provisions of the legislation, the history of which this report has traced. The enacted provisions included most of the private financing aids contained in the earlier legislation as well as a limited program for housing research directed at building codes and standardized measurements. However, the Housing Act of 1948 did not contain the proposed provisions of the earlier legislation for slum clearance, low-rent public housing, farm housing, or comprehensive housing research, nor did it contain provisions establishing national housing policy and objectives. The unenacted portions of these earlier comprehensive housing bills are the subjects covered by the major titles of the bill now being favorably reported by your committee. II. MAJOR SUBJECTS COVERED BY H. R. 4009 Your committee is convinced, from the evidence presented during the recent hearings and made available from previous studies of the housing problem, that this bill, in combination with existing legislation, will provide a sound foundation for a comprehensive housing program. The bill covers five major subjects. First, the bill would set forth a declaration by the Congress of our national housing objectives and the policies to be followed in attaining them. Such a declaration, your committee believes, is warranted by the importance of housing to the growth, wealth and security of the Nation. Second, the bill would authorize Federal loans and grants to enable communities to make an effective start on the clearance of slums and blighted areas. The overwhelming evidence, both from the lack of progress generally throughout the country and the testimony presented to the committee, is that Federal financial assistance is essential if local communities are to deal effectively with this problem. Third, the bill would authorize Federal financial assistance to communities in order that they may resume local programs of low-rent public housing. This assistance offers the only hope within the foreseeable future of providing adequate housing for urban and rural nonfarm families of low income who are inadequately housed. Fourth, the bill would authorize a comprehensive program of technical research and studies in housing, directed particularly at obtaining progressive reductions in costs which now prevent private enterprise from serving a larger portion of the need. Fifth, the bill would extend Federal financial assistance for the provision of decent housing for farm families who do not otherwise have means of obtaining adequate shelter. Your committee recommends the enactment of H. R. 4009 as essential to any effective housing program which will contribute toward increasing and improving the general supply of housing throughout the country. Your committee does not claim that this legislation deals with all facets of the housing problem, either alone or in combination with legislation already enacted. During its hearings on H. R. 4009 the committee received many helpful suggestions as to additional legislation and has before it bills which deal with other phases of housing not covered in H. R. 4009. III. THE HOUSING NEED There is little disagreement that housing constitutes one of the Nation's most serious economic and social problems today. Although the seriousness of the Nation's housing situation has been high-lighted since the end of the war by the urgent housing problems of returning veterans, the basic problem itself is not a new one. It has been building up over several decades. It results from the fact that over the years we have never been able to produce enough housing at prices which a large proportion of the American people can afford. Consequently, housing has never been replaced as rapidly as it should, and many families have been obliged to live in wholly inadequate and unsuitable accommodations. Unfortunately, the effects of poor housing leave their heaviest imprint upon the millions of children who are being obliged to spend their formative years either in dreary, unhealthful slums, or in overcrowded dwellings in which normal family life cannot be achieved. The maintenance of our way of life and our aspirations as a people and a democracy depend to a large extent upon these children whose attitudes and minds are being formed for the future in the homes of today. In attempting to get some measure of the magnitude of our present and prospective housing requirements, your committee had available to it the comprehensive studies and investigation of the Joint Committee on Housing. This data and other material made available to your committee leads to the conclusion that the Nation must be prepared to build or rehabilitate at least 1,300,000 nonfarm dwelling units and between 200,000 and 300,000 farm units a year each year from now to 1960, if substantial progress is to be made in bettering our housing conditions. The latest Census Bureau reports show that, in April of 1947, after deducting seasonal accommodations and houses held off the market for one or another reason, effective nonfarm-housing inventory for year-round use was about 32,729,000 dwelling units. When allowance is made for the fact that about 2,100,000 new and converted units were added to the supply since April 1947, the effective nonfarmhousing inventory at the beginning of 1949 is estimated at 34,829,000 units (table 1). Looking ahead to 1960, the Bureau of the Census estimate that there will be approximately 39%1⁄2 million nonfarm families which will require separate housing. When allowance is made for a sufficient number of vacancies to provide for reasonable freedom of choice in the selection of the size and type of home desired, this means there will be need for an effective housing supply of approximately 41,100,000 nonfarm dwellings in 1960. Just to keep up with the increase in the rate of family formation, therefore, we will require 6,300,000 additional nonfarm units to our inventory between now and 1960. If no more than this is accomplished, the quality of our housing supply would be worse in 1960 than it is today. No progress would have been made in eliminating the substantial number of units which fail to come up to any decent American standard. Nor would anything have been done to cope with those currently adequate units which will deteriorate during the years ahead. Currently available data does not permit a full statistical measurement of all deficiencies in the housing inventory. However, a conservative measure of the number of substandard nonfarm units which need to be replaced or rehabilitated is the number of nonfarm units which the Census Bureau data indicates need major repairs, together H. Repts., 81-1, vol. 3-73 with those units in urban areas which, although not needing major repairs, lacked inside private bath and flush toilet. In April 1947 approximately 5,600,000 units, both occupied and vacant, were in these two categories. This figure fails to take into account, however, substandard or inadequate housing in the densely populated suburban communities which surround most of our large cities but which are not included in the Census Bureau statistics for urban places. It also fails to include the effects of continued use upon old houses which today are in satisfactory condition. In this connection, your committee calls attention to the fact that the Joint Committee on Housing concluded that an allowance of 2,000,000 units is a conservative estimate of the additional replacement or rehabilitation needed to cover these two categories Allowance should also be made for the replacement of housing lost as a result of disaster or similar causes, and of temporary war and veterans' housing units not a part of the permanent housing supply. The replacement of these units, together with the rehabilitation and replacement of substandard housing, brings up to some 14,725,000 units (or an average of slightly more than 1,300,000 units a year) the total job that would have to be done in nonfarm areas by 1960 to make substantial progress in meeting the housing problem. Your committee appreciates the fact that the problem is not limited to nonfarm areas, and that a distressingly large proportion of farm housing fails to measure up to minimum standards for health and decency. Some of the worst overcrowding occurs in farm housing. Some of the most dilapidated housing is to be found in rural communities. In April 1947 the Census Bureau survey showed that 1,400,000, or roughly one-fifth of all farm dwellings, were in need of major repairs, and in addition, over half the units not in need of major repairs failed to have running water, bathtubs, or inside toilets. On the basis of the census statistics and testimony presented in the course of the hearings, it appears that between 2 and 3 million farm homes will need to be built or rehabilitated between now and 1960. All told, the total job, including both nonfarm and farm housing, involves the construction, conversion, or rehabilitation of some seventeen to eighteen million dwelling units (table 2). TABLE 1.-Effective nonfarm housing inventory as of beginning of 1949 (in thousands) Total number of nonfarm dwelling units, April 1947, according to Bureau of Census__. Subtract: 1 34, 248 Uninhabitable dwellings.. Seasonal cottages, hunting lodges, etc.-. 137 Vacant units held off the market (boarded up mansions, units sold or rented but not yet occupied).. 991 391 1,519 Add: Estimated additions to supply in 1947 and 1948 through new construction and conversion___ Effective supply of housing to meet nonfarm needs of as April 32, 729 2,100 Estimated effective nonfarm supply, beginning of 1949. 34, 829 U. S. Bureau of the Census: Current Population Reports, series P-70 No. 1. Housing Characteristics of the United States, April 1947, table 1. |