United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America. United Steel Workers of America. VETERANS American Veterans' Committee. American Veterans of World War II (Amvets). WOMEN American Association of University Women. American Federation of Women's Auxiliaries of Labor. General Federation of Women's Clubs. National Association of Women Lawyers. National Council of Catholic Women. National Council of Jewish Women. National Council of Negro Women. FARM National Association of Rural Housing. CHURCH AND WELFARE American Association of Social Workers. American Public Welfare Association. Christian Science Monitor. Council for Social Action of the Congregational-Christian Churches of the United States of America. Department of Christian Social Relations, Board of Missions of the Methodist Church. Family Welfare Association of America. Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. National Conference of Catholic Charities. National Federation of Settlements. United Neighborhood Houses. American Council on Race Relations. RACIAL National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, PUBLIC INTEREST AND OTHER GROUPS American Council on Education. American Education Fellowship. American Home Economics Association. American Planning and Civic Association. American Society of Planners and Architects. Committee on Housing, A. F. of L. Consumers Union. Department of Housing and Community Development, CIO. National Association of Housing Officials. National Board of the Young Women's Christian Association of the United States. National Committee on Housing. National Congress of Parents and Teachers. National Council of Housing Associations. National Lawyers Guild. National Mutual Housing Association. National Public Housing Conference. Shields & Co. on behalf of security dealers. Southern Conference for Human Welfare. 88368-46-20 LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS United States Conference of Mayors. National Institute of Municipal Law Officers. Monsignor O'GRADY. The depression of the early thirties brought the Federal Government into the field of housing on a very large scale. We well remember the meeting that Mr. Hoover called when the mortgage market was shaking and called this group together in Washington in order to make recommendations, what should be done about this shaky mortgage market. First, there was the Home Loan Bank System which was designed to provide more flexible credit for lending agencies in the field of home construction. There was the Home Owners' Loan Corporation designed to refinance the large number of home mortgages that were threatened by the deflationary process. There was the National Housing Act designed to bring commercial bank credit into the housing field by an extensive program of mortgage insurance. There was the United States Housing Act to provide temporary subsidies for housing for those who could not pay economic rents. Testimony presented before this committee during the past few days has drawn quite an artificial distinction between the activities of the Federal Government in the housing field. Why does the Federal Government enter into this field except as a part of a broad welfare program? The Government is not justified in entering into the housing field for purely business reasons. The Federal Government has no justification for entering the field of private business as such. Why did the Federal Government enter into the home-loan field except to protect the interests of hundreds of thousands of small owners? If private business had been able to provide them with the necessary protection, the Government would not have entered this field. Why did the Federal Government enter into the field of mortgage insurance? Such insurance was hardly needed to protect large owners. They have never used it and are not using it today. The only reason, as I see it, why the Federal Government entered into mortgage insurance was to protect those for whom private business could not provide the necessary protection. It was designed to increase the possibilities of home ownership for the great middle class who could not secure such ownership through ordinary private credit facilities. The Home Loan Bank System, then, and the Federal Housing Administration, are not credit agencies in the purely technical sense. They represent activities of the Federal Government carried out as a part of its large welfare activities. They have to reckon, therefore, with the interests not only of home builders and of lending agencies, but also of the great masses of the American people for whom housing should be provided at a price they can afford to pay. Under the United States Housing Act of 1937, the Federal Government decided to provide a temporary subsidy for families who could not pay economic rents. The program aimed to provide the subsidy on a temporary basis. It was assumed that with proper housing standards many of the families would soon reach the point at which they would be able to pay economic rents. The housing program for low-income groups therefore provided a solid foundation for a homeownership program. It is very important that this low-income hous ing program should be coordinated with other governmental programs in the housing field. Now, they had their chance before the Taft committee, which was certainly not a radical committee, and that committee made a unanimous report, we must remember. So this is highly a credible institu- . tion, certainly sufficiently credible to meet the approval of every outstanding committee of the United States Senators. You would never think that from hearing what these folks are saying around here these days. It is generally recognized that housing can no longer be separated from city planning. There is increasing recognition of the importance of such planning throughout the United States. Cities must soon decide what they are going to do about their slums. They must provide programs for redevelopment of their slum areas. It is inconceivable that the American people should continue to tolerate over a long period of time the conditions that prevail in the slum areas of nearly every American city. Such conditions are a serious menace to the welfare of the people. They make family life virtually impossible for millions of people. I wonder whether or not the American people want to continue situations making family life impossible. Now, from what I learned from the testimony of these gentlemen around here, one would think that they have no concern at all for family life. They are just concerned with credit. I think they had better do what they are talking about, and deal with private business and not with credit as a social institution. A number of people who have appeared before your committee have stated that the President's program for a National Housing Agency has not been carefully thought out. Surely these witnesses must be acquainted with the studies and conclusions of Senator Taft's committee on postwar housing. This committee recommended a large national unified housing program of which a central national housing agency should form an important part. It is very difficult to understand the reasoning of those who state that a National Housing Agency will seriously handicap the existing activities of the Federal Government in the housing field. Each of these activities has been set up by separate acts of Congress. One can hardly imagine how a National Housing Administrator would nullify acts of Congress; if anything, a National Housing Agency with an Administrator would help the Congress to get a clearer picture of all the activities of the Federal Government in the field of housing. This was one of the basic purposes of the Reorganization Act. It was designed to bring together related activities of the Government under a number of responsible executives so as to enable Congress to get a more complete picture of governmental activities and to plan more intelligently for the future. Those who are seriously concerned about the present housing crisis will welcome a unified approach to it. It is necessary to have this unified approach not only on the part of the Federal Government but also on the part of each local community in the United States. During the past 2 months I have had an opportunity of discussing local housing programs with the mayors of a number of cities in the United States scattered all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I have had a chance of discussing with them the functions of local committees set up to plan housing programs. I did not discuss the Federal Housing Administration, the Home Loan Bank System, the Federal Public Housing Authority, and the National Housing Agency as so many separate and independent entities. I cannot conceive of them acting as separate and independent entities in this serious housing crisis. As I talked to mayors of cities and to Federal officials engaged in housing activities, I found myself discussing common housing programs. I found myself asking questions like these: To what extent are housing materials used for the purpose of providing homes or rental housing for veterans at a price they can afford to pay? To what extent are veterans being encouraged to build houses on, which they will be unable to pay the service charges? To what extent are the people being given the.real facts in regard to the housing situation? On the basis of my exprience throughout the country, I feel safe in saying that the National Housing Agency set up by Executive order has made some real strides toward a coordinated housing program. I will say that, not only on the national level but also on local level. It has made these strides in face of most powerful and well-organized opposition. Those who are close to the housing crisis know very well that this emergency will be with us for a long time to come even if we should succeed in building the number of houses envisaged by the Wyatt program by the end of 1947. We shall still have very large unfilled needs in the housing field. The need for a national housing agency will therefore not pass with the war emergency. It will be an essential part of the continuing activities of the Federal Government in the housing field. It should provide the leadership necessary for a proper understanding of housing as a great national problem. It is clear now that there are as yet many unexplored problems in the housing field that cannot be met except by intelligent leadership on the part of the Federal Government. We must think more and more of housing as part of a general program of city planning. Our slums cannot be continued as breeding places of vice and crime and ill health and poverty. The American people must think of housing as an integral part of a program for the maintenance of family life. Are the American people willing to continue to tolerate conditions under which family life will be impossible? Are they going to permit family life in the cities to wither and decay? The American people must think more and more of housing for the ordinary middle class at a price they can afford to pay. There must, therefore, be less emphasis on $20,000 houses, and on $10,000, and on $8,000 or even $6,000 houses. We cannot be satisfied until we have adequate housing at reasonable prices for families with incomes between $1,200 and $2,500 a year. The groups with which I am associated all over the country must keep these fundamental housing problems constantly before the American people. We need the interest and the assistance of government in the interpretation of these fundamental housing problems. We cannot secure this necessary assistance from a number of isolated housing agencies, none of which envisages the whole problem. We need an integrated Federal housing program under a national housing agency to help us bring to the American people as a whole a better and a clearer understanding of their housing problems as they affect the proper and basic problems, including the maintenance and development of family life, the proper training and upbringing of children, the development of environmetal conditions under which right living will be possible. Mr. WHITTINGTON. As I understand, you confine your observations largely to Reorganization Plan No. 1 involving the national housing agency and you advocate the approval of that plan? Monsignor O'GRADY. That is right. Mr. WHITTINGTON. Do you care to express any views with respect to Reorganization Plans Nos. 2 and 3 involving other governmental agencies? Monsignor O'GRADY. Not at the present time, I may submit a statement for the record later in regard to plan No. 2, because I have some views about it, but I would rather submit that for the record, because I have to deliberate somewhat more about it. I want to do some clearing, so I am sure I know what I am talking about. Mr. WHITTINGTON. From your statement, I assume it is a fair conclusion that your view is that this Reorganization Plan No. 1, providing for the National Housing Agency, will promote sound policy of national housing? Monsignor O'GRADY. That is right. Mr. WHITTINGTON. And at the same time, do no injustice to the other agencies like the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the Federal Housing Administrator and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation and the Home Owners Loan Corporation, all of which for the past 3 years have been under no supervision of the National Housing Administrator. Monsignor O'GRADY. It is inconceivable how any injustice could be done to them. I think some of the witnesses made the impression that they could override the intent of Congress in passing legislation governing these agencies. That is inconceivable in that it is not in accordance with the facts. Let's be fair. I think they can bring them together for the purpose of objective discussion of the relationships of their different functions of one to another. That is important so all of us may be able to understand better. We have this large middle-income group that apparently nobody has reached in the housing field. We need to have that discussed out in the open in a democracy. That is not something to be decided by some bureaucrat in Washington. It has to be clarified for us, the representatives of everybody. I have no particular interest in housing except the interest of the people. That is the only reason I came here. Mr. WHITTINGTON. Whatever may be said about the so-called TaftEllender. bill are your views with respect to national housing, the fact remains that this reorganization plan does not make any additional appropriations or pass any additional laws with respect to housing except to provide for the grouping and consolidation under this agency of all existing agencies. Monsignor O'GRADY. In other words, that really brings together the thinking of most of the people who have thought about this over a period of, one might say, at least 8 to 10 years. This is not new. The impression has been conveyed around here that this plan |