Housing for the Poor

Report Outline
National Policy on Housing for the Poor
Role of Public Housing in Aid to Poor
New Ways to Add to Housing for Poor

National Policy on Housing for the Poor

President johnson has renewed a request that Congress vote a supplementary appropriation of $30 million to launch the controversial rent subsidy program which it authorized in July 1965. The plan, for which Congress so far has neglected to provide funds, would constitute a far-reaching innovation in the federal government's efforts to help poor people find decent shelter. “In the long run,” the President said when he first proposed the rent subsidy program, “this may prove the most effective instrument of our new housing policy.” Opponents as well as supporters of the program, which won the endorsement of House and Senate by only narrow margins, recognize that it may offer a means of making a real dent in the present segregation of poor people in slum ghettos.

Use of public funds to pay a part of the rent for private housing is only one of a number of new steps proposed or actually taken in the national effort to overcome housing disabilities of low-income families. The new steps will not replace the old attempts at solution but will constitute additional measures aimed to make up for the shortcomings of pre-existing programs. For it is obvious to all that after 30 years of government-aided efforts to improve the housing of poor people, millions of Americans still live in wretched quarters in wretched neighborhoods.

President's Proposal for Demonstration Cities

Should Congress authorize the “demonstration cities” program which the President proposed in a special message to Congress on Jan. 26, 1966, opportunities would be created to put both old and new techniques to work in varying combinations to improve housing of the urban poor. Although the program would be limited to streets or neighborhoods in selected cities, the all-out nature of the undertaking in each project area would be expected to set the pace for the nation.