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Digitized from Box 33 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 21, 1976
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
THE WHITE HOUSE
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
AND
PRESS CONFERENCE
OF
CARLA A. HILLS
SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT
OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
THE BRIEFING ROOM
10:32 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Will you all sit
down, please.
Secretary Hills: I am pleased to announce
today that I have received from Secretary Hills the
interim report of the President's Committee on Urban
Development and Neighborhood Revitalization. The report
deals forthrightly with the problems of our cities and
the strength of their neighborhoods.
It is a direct result of a White House meeting
held last May which included city officials and neighbor-
hood and community leaders who have been concerned with
the revitalization of our cities and their neighborhoods.
Secretary Hills and her colleagues recommend
positive steps towards consolidating and improving Federal
programs and involving citizens in local decision-making.
The people of many of our Nation's urban neighborhoods
and their elected officials have taken the initiative in
solving the problems of neighborhood revitalization.
Our best course of action -- certainly our best
course of action in the future is to provide as much
support as possible for responsible community and neighbor-
hood leaders to preserve and improve the quality of our
life in our Nation's neighborhoods.
I want to compliment and congratulate Secretary
Hills for being Chairman of this group and congratulate
her on the fine job she and her associates have done on
this report.
I would like Secretary Hills now, if she would,
to please brief you on the report.
Secretary Hills.
SECRETARY HILLS: Thank you very much.
Are there any questions?
MORE
Page 2
Q
Mrs. Hills, in a brief glance through the
report -- I admit I haven't had a lot of time to read it --
I was unable to find any new policy initiatives recommended
in here. Could you point out any that might be in here?
SECRETARY HILLS: Yes, it is a focus and it is
a manner of making our urban policy, which is very definitely
in effect, more efficient and more responsive while we
get on to the bigger problem of studying the reasons for
ills in our cities, and a strategy for dealing with them.
These ills came about in the last 25 years. They
are not going to be solved overnight, in spite of the
campaign rhetoric. What we have to do is work very hard
in identifying those ills, not on an overnight basis.
Yes, we know that there is a problem of
unemployment -- we recognize that. The problem of eroding
tax base -- we recognize that. There is a problem of the
suburbs working with the cities for regional solutions
to problems that don't stop at artificial boundaries -- we
realize that. But there aren't any immediate solutions
that come out of just throwing money at the problems.
So, what we have done is to come up with some
goals. We think that this Nation must preserve, reuse,
recycle, rehabilitate the useful life and its properties,
commercial and residential. It has to target its resources
in an efficient way to the areas of great need. It has
to do so by what I call management principles. One of
the strongest is the block grant principle this Administration
has pushed so strongly.
So, I think it is a manner now for more
efficiently dealing with our urban problems, carrying
out our urban strategy -- which has been since the beginning
of this Administration to push the decision-making down
to the local level, and to provide funds so that the
problems locally perceived can be addressed in the most
efficient manner possible -- and then get on to studying
larger strategies for very large problems.
Q
If I could follow that, what I was
getting at is, what you have just said is basically what
you have been saying since you took over HUD, about
rehabilitating the housing stock and making adequate
use of resources, and I am wondering why it is necessary
to come out with this report just before the election,
what this adds to the Administration policy on the issue?
SECRETARY HILLS: I tell you, we were formed
last spring as a Cabinet-level committee to address the
problems as perceived by neighborhood leaders and locally
elected officials, to go out and talk to them and see what
their perceptions were at their ends of the funnel, and
to come back and tell the President what we perceive to be
problems in the cities, what the perceptions of local
people were with respect to the problems and the means
for solving those problems and to develop an agenda for
improvement.
MORE
Page 3
That is what we have done. We promised no
more than that, and that is what we have delivered.
Q
Right here in Washington a lot of the
Federal funding for neighborhood-run programs and projects
has been cut back. I know that some of the staffing of
neighborhood clinics has been trimmed by two-thirds to
three-fourths. I am talking about nurses and that sort
of thing. I don't get the objectives with what actually
has happened, say, right here in Washington, say, north
of Massachusetts Avenue.
SECRETARY HILLS: The resources have been ever-
increasing with respect to preservation of our existing
structures. There is no question about that. Over at
HUD we have asked for full funding, our full authorization
of $3.2 billion that we have put in and tried to coordinate
our jobs funds behind that -- that we have economic
development funds working in a coordinated fashion.
I think to say that one local program has been
cut back is to ignore what we are trying to do here with
respect to revitalizing our city areas. This is not a
report that suggests larger public services. This is a
report that deals with revitalization of neighborhoods
and helping the neighborhoods deal with their problems.
The resources are there. The question is, can
we be efficient in coordinating the use of the resources
in a fashion which the local people feel best handles their
local problems?
Believe me, the problems in San Jose, California,
differ from the problems in downtown Manhattan or Little
Rock, Arkansas. We need the intelligence at the local
level to forge strategies to solve local problems.
Q
This report doesn't appear to deal at all
with the fiscal problems that beset New York City and
other cities recently. Is there a reason why this area
of focus is omitted from your report?
SECRETARY HILLS: We don't propose that the
Federal Government should underwrite municipal debt
because we think there should be fiscal responsibility
at the local level and real tension in local minds every
time additional dollars are committed; that there are
real local needs for committing those local dollars.
We think that is an incentive for good local
government, and no matter how good the Government is at
the Federal level, if it is less responsible at the local
level we are going to have neighborhood problems so that
our interest is to devise strategies for increasing the
resources at the local level through expanding our
private sector.
MORE
Page 4
Q
Madam Secretary, I would like to pursue
a question that the gentleman asked in the beginning, only
he asked it more bluntly.
For eight years the Nixon-Ford Administration
has been in charge of this problem and doesn't seem to have
done much about it. Now, two weeks before the election
you are coming up with a plan for more efficiency. How
come?
SECRETARY HILLS: The problem has been developing,
Bob, for the past 25 years, and the solutions that came
out of the Sixties were simply throwing money at problems.
We have had more categoricals spit out of Congress, which
has been Democratically controlled, without the kind of
study that we are proposing.
This Administration has long been solidly
behind the block grant program. You may recall that
President Ford signed that block grant that consolidated
seven categoricals over at HUD on August 22, 1974, which
was his big, major piece of legislation when he first
came into office.
We do not believe that we should mandate
programs that cost billions of dollars, either, without
study, demonstration or experience. We have had now two
years of funding -- just scarcely two -- with our block
grant program. I can tell you sincerely that I believe
it is the most effective mechanism and I would like to
move on to spreading it throughout other aspects of
Government, because I think it does afford the optimum
opportunity for localities to best address their top
priorities.
I think the Federal Government is efficient
in setting broad national goals, preservation and recycling
of our useful structures rather than always tearing down
and rebuilding -- a phenomena of the Sixties -- or always
moving out and leaving behind -- a phenomena of the Sixties --
but the strategies will have to be formed at the local
level.
We are pushing the decision-making down in a
broader segment of our governmental programs and we are
trying to set forth the analysis so that Congress, along
with the American people, can appreciate why we are doing
just this.
So, we are spreading the block grant approach,
which is a management principle. We are strongly
recommending citizen participation, which is a corner-
stone of our democracy. And, we are trying to work with
local officials straight across the board.
Q
Madam Secretary, I wonder if you could,
however, address the timing of this section and the timing
of the release of this report?
MORE
Page 5
SECRETARY HILLS: You know, when I took on this
responsibility I promised the President I would get a
report out by the 1st of October. It is hard to get it
circulated and approved by a 16-member committee. I got
it out on the 1st, but got the approvals today and was
able to transmit it to the President late yesterday.
I didn't set that date for political reasons.
I set it as the first interim report. I regard this just
as a chapter, and I think we have to go on with the second
and third chapters.
I don't believe there are any simple solutions
to the tough problems that are set out in this report.
Believe me, the timing was just to get on with the job.
I have to tell you, if I had scheduled this
report, if I had scheduled all the things I have accomplished
in the last six months for after the election, I would
have lost a third of my time at HUD. I just don't have
any tolerance with that. I am going to do the best job
I can up through and including November 2, and if I am
not there in the next Administration, so be it. I am
not going to worry about whether somebody is going to say
the timing is wrong.
I think it is a good report and a thoughtful
report. I think it sets forth the necessary agenda. I
don't think that has been done before. That concerns me,
that we just sit and somebody sort of stirs the soup and
says, "Ah-ha, I have a solution. We will just have a
$5 billion program and we will spread it around." Then it
gets Christmas-treed and misses the point altogether and
indeed becomes counterproductive.
Looking at urban renewal, the billions and
billions of dollars, we have 36,000 acres of land that
haven't been built on yet, $3 billion that hasn't been
drawn down, but that was the magical solution of the 1960s --
just tear it all down and we will build new because the
shiny new is always better than the old.
Our colleagues in Europe would disagree. They
have some older housing stock in some really fine
neighborhoods. I think we have to start thinking about
this, because we don't have the kind of dollars to spread
around and always tear up and throw away like we were
one great disposable society.
Q
I am still not certain in my mind about
the qualitative difference between the programs you are
talking about in the Sixties and the goals that you are
projecting this morning.
SECRETARY HILLS: Let me explain it, then.
MORE
Page 6
Q
One other thing. The community action
programs of the Sixties were predicated on the very thing
you are talking about -- citizens' involvement at the
local level.
SECRETARY HILLS: Let me explain. There is a
vital, philosophical difference. I think it is key here.
In the Sixties we did have some community
action programs and we had the model city programs. Let
me take you back to HUD since I know that area better than
most.
At HUD, we had seven categorical programs. You,
as a mayor, would come in to see me or my predecessor and
you would say, "I want to address the top priority in my
jurisdiction; that is, to expand housing stock for my
lower income population." I would say, "Mr. Mayor, I am
glad to see you this morning, but I don't have any category
of assistance for that. I have open spaces. Why don't
you take a park today? Or maybe you would like to lay a
sewer line, because I have water and sewer lines. We do
have a little money for rehabilitation loans and grants,
but it is all used up because other mayors got here first.
But you could tear down your core city if you wanted to
and maybe some day build it up. But now you have run the
gamut of my categoricals."
Today, instead, the philosophy is to say, "Mr.
Mayor, you get a fair share allocation. It doesn't matter
whether you know me or don't know me. It is on a census-
objective formula of housing overcrowding, population and
poverty weighted twice. You get your fair slice of the pie
and then you go back to your electorate, because you know
the funds you are going to get from HUD, and you address
your first priority. If you want to put it all into
rehabilitation loans and grants, so be it. That is your
decision. If you are making the wrong decision, your
electorate will throw you out, but the electorate is not
insulated from me, a bureaucrat in Washington, who thinks
I have all the answers for thousands upon thousands of
communities across the Nation based upon national statistics."
I call that a very different strategy.
There is one other principle in here. We want
to distribute our block grants to the elected official,
whether he be the Governor or the mayor. That didn't
happen in the Sixties. We had so many specially constituted
districts, so we had this phenomena -- literally thousands
of categoricals being spit out from Congress, with
different guidelines, regulations, requirements, time-
tables -- coming down in a very confusing and often
counterproductive way to different immunized groups,
specially constituted districts, who were often appointed.
So when something went wrong, the mayor would say, "Who,
me? I didn't do anything wrong. That was the district
that did it wrong, the water district that did it wrong."
MORE
Page 7
So now what we want to do is emphasize account-
ability at the Federal, State and local level, and the
capacity to coordinate with maximum discretion to address
the top priority that you have in your locality. This is
new. Now it has worked with our block grant at HUD, but
we are urging that it be spread to the other areas that
impact mightily on our neighborhoods -- transportation,
employment and health services, education.
And you are right, the President has been
in the forefront of urging the early -onblock grants.
But we want to emphasize the analysis of why and push
it very, very hard.
Q
Madam Secretary, what have you done about
mortgage, low interest mortgage loans, so that individual
people could build homes and not have to go into public
housing?
SECRETARY HILLS: Well, if you are talking about
public housing, you are talking about your poverty sector
for the most part, low income. We find that the incomes
in public housing ran about $3,000 a year and less.
We believe that the best program is to subsidize
people, not bricks and mortar, so that our program is to
provide a rental subsidy that makes up the difference
between 25 percent of a poor family's income and the fair
market rental of a decent but modest unit. We think this
program works with the market, not against the market as
categoricals of the past have done, for the reason that
by putting the dollars in the pockets of these families,
the landlords in a soft market with a high vacancy can count
on these people to rent up their apartment houses so they
don't abandon them, so a landlord that has a 40 percent
rent up can gather these people in.
Now what does this mean? It means that we can
get a poor family into housing immediately, not 30
months from now as when we build a new project. It means
we can do so at half the cost to the taxpayers because
we are utilizing our existing housing stock.
What does it mean to the landlord? It means
he can count on a stream of income so he doesn't abandon
his unit. And he pays taxes so the city benefits, because
they get the taxes and they avoid the blight of this
abandonment. And it works just as well with new construction
because the home builders regard these people for the
first time as part of the demand to which they are building,
and it is working.
You know, with all the concern and impatience
as to whether the program would work, we have, as compared
to the most popular of the public housing programs, moved
ahead much faster.
MORE
Page 8
We have 80,000 families in occupancy two years
after signing and some 18,000 starts, as opposed to turn-
key public housing, which is the fastest public housing
program. Two years after the 1965 enactment there were
4,300 starts and only 2,300 in occupancy, so that is quite
a difference.
Q
Mrs. Hills, the housing starts figures
that came out this week look very encouraging.
SECRETARY HILLS: Magnificent. (Laughter)
Q
Could you tell us what part the HUD programs,
Section 8 in particular, played in improving the starts,
particularly in the multi-family? Do you have figures
yet on how many of those starts came out of Section 8
in September?
SECRETARY HILLS: No, we haven't, and we won't
have those for another 30 or 60 days. I hope that we are
processing promptly. I have told the interest groups
with whom we work that we are processing single family
mortgages, 39 percent of them in less than 5 days, and
that we are moving as rapidly as we can with our multi-
family rental subsidy projects.
I like to think of HUD as well run. I hope
we contributed to those improved statistics. I suspect
I can't claim all the credit but I hope I had an impact.
Q
Mrs. Hills, what happens to this report
now? Who gets it? Where does it go? What do you do
with it?
SECRETARY HILLS: The President has received it,
in the first instance. I am going to continue to chair
this committee. We are going to have a second report and
we are going to address those agenda items that are set
forth and go forward on the recommendations, which will
take legislation, and address promptly those problems
that are identified for legislative action.
There are very few things that we found in
our canvassing that can be done in the administrative
field for restructuring intergovernmental relations.
Yes, we can impose mandatory deadlines, which
we have done at HUD. We can impose a rapid turnaround,
but as far as efficient relationships between the Federal,
State and local governments, we have to make some effort
to coordinate this multitude of categoricals. Categorical
thinking has got to give way to block grant or broad
planning. There is just no question about that.
MORE
Page 9
Q
Why is George Meany so upset? It sounds
good what you say, but why is he so upset?
SECRETARY HILLS: I didn't know he was.
Q Yes, he is.
SECRETARY HILLS: Let's look at the facts.
Are you asking me why I am enthusiastic, excited and
delighted over the housing starts? Well, if we don't
build another unit of housing in this calendar year, 1976
will be the fourth best year on record for single family
starts. And when I look at the multi-family sector,
which I have regarded for too many months as my ailing
child, and see the August figures jump in one step 48
percent and the September figures jump in another step 46
percent, believe me, it warms the cockles of my heart.
If Mr. Meany doesn't like that progress, I
am surprised. I do.
THE PRESS: Thank you.
END
(AT 10:55 A.M. EDT)