which has made it all but impossible for low-income families to live near their jobs. The House Banking and Currency Committee found earlier this year that 28.4 million families-101 million people cannot afford payments on a $20,000 mortgage. Yet the median sales price for an existing single family home is now over $25,000. The average cost of a new home in Montgomery County, Md., is over $40,000 with virtually no homes in the $15,000 to $25,000 range being built. In fact approximately 80 percent of the housing on the market nationally now is above the level a family with an $8,000 income can afford. This means that the people who need the jobs opening up in the suburbs are trapped in the central city. The result is a scarcity of needed employment for the poor and in some cases an actual shortage of low- and moderate-income employees for suburban concerns. Numerous suburbs are now discovering that they have even priced their teachers, firemen, policemen, and other muncipal employees out of their own cities. Improved transportation programs are often offered as a solution to this problem. There's no doubt that our existing systems only ag gravate the situation. Our transportation systems are designed to bring suburbanites into the city in the morning and out again at night. Our Nation's urban highway networks serve moderate- and upper-income workers who can afford to live in the suburbs and own a car. They are useless, however, to the low-income workers who cannot. The majority of low-income workers must rely on public transportation systems to reach their jobs. For many such workers even reaching inner city jobs is a formidable task. To get out to the new jobs in the suburbs is almost impossible-because of the time and cost involved. Take Washington, D.C., for an example: Residents of outlying Maryland suburbs reach the central city each morning and leave each night on express buses which take an average of only 36 minutes. For a person going in the reverse direction at the same time to a job in the suburbs, the trip averages 54 minutes and usually involves two transfers. Simply improving mass transportation out to the suburbs will not be enough, however. Many "reverse commuter" experiments have been tried and most have proven uneconomical. Suburban job locations are usually to dispersed to warrant, in economic terms, running separate transportation lines. The only solution to the Nation's housing shortage and labor market distortion is to build more of our low- and moderate-income housing units near suburban jobs. Unless the Government begins to assist in building the necessary housing in the suburbs, the unemployment, wel fare and social dependency now endemic to the central cities will continue to soar upward at an alarming rate. The present administration and its predecessors have shown a ticeable lack of interest in attacking this problem. HUD, for example. has continued to place most of its low-income housing in the inner cities at great expense to both the taxpayers and the residents. As of June 20, 1970, only 25 percent of the section 235 homeownership reservations, 12 percent of section 236 rental assistance reservations, 10 percent of rent supplement reservations and 13 percent of the 221 (d) (3) below market interest rate reservations were located in the suburbs. The majority of these units are being built where the costs are the highest. For example, the average cost of land purchased under the urban renewal program ranged from $46,000 per acre in Atlanta to $695,000 in New York City. The average cost of an acre on the suburban fringe is less than $4,000. The administration's position has been that restrictive zoning practices make it impossible to place more low- and moderate-income units in the suburbs and that such practices, unless clearly based on racial motives, are not illegal. Without entering into an argument over the constitutionality of restrictive zoning practices, I believe that it is unconscionable for the Federal Government to support and subsidize exclusionary zoning practices. Yet this is precisely what we have done for years. Numerous Federal agencies including the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Health, Education, and Welfare, and Labor still provide financial assistance to communities which have virtually outlawed low- and moderate-income housing. The situation is indefensible when Federal agencies and Federal contractors are allowed to locate facilities in communities where the lack of adequate housing turns their workers into either long distance commuters or names on an unemployment compensation list. S. 1282 which I have introduced with the cosponsorship of Senators Mondale, Cranston and Brooke, deals directly with this facet of the problem. S. 1282 would use the enormous leverage of Federal site location to help provide decent low- and moderate-income housing for employees near their jobs. This bill is not offered as a panacea, but rather as a first step toward ending the economic and racial separation occurring in the metropolitan areas of this country. Government agencies and Federal contractors now locating in the suburbs are seldom limited to only one area. Numerous cities seek to obtain their favor. The reasons are obvious. Location of a major installation in a community often sets in motion dramatic physical, economic and demographic changes. New services are started to serve the people coming in and often provide an impetus for other private or governmental development. The Civil Rights Commission has documented the effect location of the Manned Spacecraft Center has had on Houston, Tex. Since 1960, the population in the area near the center has increased 600 percent from 6,500 to 40,000. Total area bank deposits rose from $4.8 million in one bank in 1964 to $30.9 million in five banks in 1966. NASA has estimated that for every 100 jobs at the center an additional 65 jobs have been generated on the outside. The mere presence of the center has caused an influx of over 125 aerospace firms alone. This pattern has been repeated across the country and has led thousands of States and cities to compete vigorously for the location of such facilities. The Commission found, however, that despite the leverage the Federal Government has in locating its facilities, it has made little or no effort to insure that its low- and moderate-income employees can find accessible housing nearby. In fact, some Federal moves into the suburbs have resulted in the loss of jobs to low- and moderate-income employees. Government contractors have equally deplorable records. The Commission's hearings in St. Louis disclosed that one large contractor locating in the area failed to object to the obvious discriminatory prac tices of local realtors. In fact, the company's housing office at one time maintained separate lists of housing for blacks and whites. My legislation, therefore, provides that before a Federal facility. State facility, or Federal contractors' facility may be located in any community, the agency or contractor involved must secure, in the form of a contract between the community and the Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, assurances that the community provide at least one unit of adequate housing for each prospective lowor moderate-income employee. This legislation will simply grant the economic benefits of site locations to those communities that are also willing to assume the responsibilities for the workers in those facilities. If a community reneges on its plan, the Chairman may take court action to enforce it. Should a contractor locate in a noncomplying community, the Chairman shall terminate existing Federal contracts. A State agency would be equally liable for any move into a noncooper ating area. The effect of such a requirement can be dramatic. The Federal Government alone employs over 6 million men and women. Another 43 million people are directly employed under Federal contracts. This legislation recognizes that many communities will find it diff cult to handle an influx of low- and moderate-income families with out some assistance. Much of the suburban opposition to low- and moderate-income housing stems from fears that taxes will have to be raised to maintain existing levels of municipal services, particularly education. Since as much as 50 to 65 percent of most suburban budgets is devoted to education expenses, S. 1282 provides assistance for educa tion to any community that makes the housing required by this legis lation available. Many people will argue that no assistance should be provided to such suburbs. The mere fact that they get the facility should be suffcient incentive. In many cases, that may be true. But I am concerned with those communities that would be willing to cooperate if they were assured that the level of their educational activities would not suffer. An analysis of the Massachusetts antisnob zoning law has shown that a primary reason for its ineffectiveness is that it ignores the eco nomic and tax consequences imposed on suburbs that admit low- and moderate-income people. In particular, the failure to adjust schoo aid formulas for suburbs has been highlighted as a major area of con cern of suburban homeowners. A few months after this bill was introduced, and perhaps in response to it, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the General Services Administration joined in a memorandum of understanding to help insure adequate housing near new Federal job sites. Under the agreement HUD will advise GSA as to the availability of low- and moderate-income housing near a projected Government facility. If GSA must locate in an area where no such housing is avail able, HUD and GSA will join in a plan to provide such housing within 6 months after the facility is to be occupied. I applaud this action. It has taken the Federal Government a long time to recognize its obligations to its employees. The agreement, however, does not go nearly far enough in meeting these obligations. First, the agreement is simply that-a memorandum with no real power. If HUD and GSA agree that such action needs to be taken, then they should not hesitate to support legislative remedies. Secondly, it is still possible under the agreement to locate a facility well away from any housing. If a community has zoned out the possibility of low- and moderate-income housing, there is little HUD and GSA can do to provide it. For example, the 20 local governments in a 400-square-mile area around Princeton, N.J., have zoned enough underdeveloped land for industry and research firms to support 1,200,000 jobs. The same towns, however, have zoned the remaining land to house only 144,000 workers one-tenth of the potential work force. Any other community could be equally restrictive on a smaller scale. Finally, the agreement does not cover Federal contractors. Federal contractors and subcontractors are required by law to practice nondiscriminatory hiring policies. To allow the same firms to locate in areas where its low- and moderate-income workers cannot live could in effect negate the equal employment laws. The location of a plant can prove just as discriminatory as the failure to hire a man because of his race or religion. Enactment and implementation of S. 1282 will not, of course, open up the suburbs overnight to low- and moderate-income workers. It will, however, show that the Federal Government is willing to take the steps necessary to make the ideas of rational urban growth, adequate housing, and equal employment opportunity a reality. The top 500 corporations and their allied 50 largest corporations in banking, insurance, retail trades, utilities, and transportation account for approximately 80 percent of all new jobs created each year. If these companies along with the Government are made aware of the urban policy implications of their site selection procedure by this legislation, the effect would be dramatic. I'd be pleased to answer any questions that the chairman might have. The CHAIRMAN. I have been following your printed statement with a great deal of interest. I want to compliment you and those who have worked with you in the accumulation and presentation of all of the factual information that you have in this statement. Let me ask you, you were saying something about-something that we all know is difficult, and that is the difficulty of moving people from the inner city out to the suburbs and jobs as contrasted in moving in the other direction, and vou said something about Government agencies, cities throughout the country competing for them as well as for industries. I believe that a statement was made just recently-probably by GSA-to the effect that in the future it would be the policy of the Government to locate Government agencies here in the inner city rather than out in the suburban areas. Do you think that would have a helpful effect? Senator RIBICOFF. Yes; I think that was definitely a step in the right direction. In Washington there's been a tremendous amount of Government building out in the suburbs while the black population, many whom work for Government agencies, live in the District. Because there is inadequate bus service from the District to the suburban agencies and because many low-income inner city residents don't have cars, they are often out of a job if they can't get to work as the place of employment is so far away. I think this is a step in the right direction, and it's realistic. If Gor ernment facilities can only go into towns which refuse to allow the building of low-income housing for their workers, then they have no alternative except to build in the inner cities. One point that people complain about and don't understand is that we are not talking about people on welfare; we are talking about people with jobs who are unable to move to the suburbs. One of the problems many big businesses face when they move out to the suburbs is that they have no employees to take care of the more menial and lower paid jobs. Frankly, if we are talking about integration and if we are talking about the community school, the only way we are going to get the true community school and eliminate the whole problem of busing is to allow people to live where their jobs are. Then their chil dren can go to school where they live. You may recall that I had a controversial bill in the Senate designed to integrate our schools on a metropolitanwide basis. I believe that such legislation is still needed but that this bill, S. 1282, is more inportant to the whole problem of integration than the school bill by itself. You will find that if we build housing where the jobs are, we will eventually have a situation where people will be going to their school in a truly integrated community. Eventually, if 12 percent of our population is black in this country and the blacks can live where their jobs are, you would generally have a situation that the black school population to the white population would be around 12 percent. You would thus eliminate a tremendous amount of the problems and turmoil that's going on in the United States today. The CHAIRMAN. Such a great part of our problems arise from this very thing that you are talking about and that's jobs. Senator RIBICOFF. That's correct. hard through the years we are still trying to develop a good rura housing program. It's pretty difficult to get the people out of the rur areas to stay there and, perhaps, even more so to get people to more out of the crowded areas into the rural areas, because the jobs are not out there and if we can develop some kind of program-and I am pleased to see the Agriculture Committee coming up with something that has received quite wide support of a rural development program and that they recognize the necessity of having the jobs where you The CHAIRMAN. It revolves around a job. For instance, we have tried expect the people to live. Senator RIBICOFF. Well, that's the whole key. I think, Mr. Chairman, you really hold in your hand the solution the greatest division in American society, and that's the black-white relationship. the blacks move in the whites move out. It's sad to state, but it's true No matter what you say, the country is so constituted that when The thought that I have in mind is that if you allow people to live where their jobs are you would find that the blacks would be repre sented in most communities close to their representation in the whole |