LOW-RENT HOUSING PAYS LOCAL TAXES

Although State housing laws exempt low-rent housing from local taxes, housing authorities make payments in lieu of taxes up to 10 percent of shelter rents. These payments are made so that low-rent housing will bear a share of the cost of usual municipal services.

PUBLIC WAR HOUSING

Public war housing is often confused with low-rent public housing. There are basic differences. Major ones are listed below:

Low-rent housing is built by housing authorities for low-income families who cannot afford to pay for decent private housing. Public war housing was built at Federal expense and managed as part of the World War II production effort for immigrant civilian war workers and military personnel without regard to income. Rents in war housing are comparable to those charged for similar private housing, whereas in low-rent housing they are based on a percentage (20 percent) of family income. Low-rent housing is built for long-term use. Most war housing is of temporary construction.

THE LIQUIDATING EMERGENCY HOUSING PROGRAM

The liquidating emergency housing program consists principally of permanent and temporary accommodations provided under the Lanham Act, and other statutes, for war workers and military personnel during World War II, and housing developed under the Defense Housing and Community Facilities Services Act of 1951. This latter act permitted the Federal Government to build temporary or mobile housing for immigrant defense workers and military personnel required in connection with national defense activities in critical defense areas. PHA is responsible for the management of emergency housing either by direct operation or through local agencies, and for its orderly disposition.

PHA makes annual payments in lieu of taxes on emergency housing. These payments approximate full real-property taxes that would be paid if the property were not tax exempt. If the projects do not get the same public services furnished other property owners, PHA makes appropriate deductions from its tax payments.

PHA intended to dispose of its World War II housing as soon as possible after the war ended. It became necessary, however, in the intervening years to use much of it to meet emergency needs of veterans and servicemen following demobilization at the end of the war, and the later mobilization for defense at the outbreak of Korean hositilities in mid-1950.

PHA's original inventory of emergency housing totaled more than 987,000 units, but as of May 1, 1958, there remained for disposition approximately 3,500 units. As previously stated, except for the mortgage portfolio acquired in disposing of it, the emergency housing and PHA's obligations with it, will pass out of existence as of June 30, 1959.

EXHIBIT C

Excerpt from Low-Rent (Section 102.1) Housing Manual

RACIAL POLICY

The following general statement of racial policy shall be applicable to all low-rent-housing projects developed and operated under the United States Housing Act of 1937, as amended:

1. Programs for the development of low-rent housing, in order to be eligible for PHA assistance, must reflect equitable provision for eligible families of all races determined on the approximate volume and urgency of their respective needs for such housing.

2. While the selection of tenants and the assigning of dwelling units are primarily matters for local determination, urgency of need and the preferences prescribed in the Housing Act of 1949 are the basic statutory standards for the selection of tenants.

EXHIBIT D

Excerpt from Low-Rent (Section 102.2) Housing Manual

RACIAL EQUITY IN COMMUNITIES WITH SMALL MINORITY POPULATION In urban communities of small minority-group population, where there are inflexible patterns of racial occupancy, there is the possibility that, because of the size of the group, it may be inadvertently overlooked in planning development programs for low-rent housing. Special measures are prescribed below to assure compliance with PHA policy requiring equitable provision of low-rent public housing for eligible families of all races, determined by the urgency of their respective needs for such housing.

1. No development program shall be approved unless the local authority agrees that, whenever an analysis of survey data reveals existence of an eligible market among families in the minority group in the locality, dwelling units will be constructed for such minority-group families at the same market ratio which is being used for the majority-group families in the locality, if the application of such ratio will produce a market among families of the minority group of two or more units.

2. In every case where survey findings fail to show a sufficient effective market among families of minority groups, the field-office racial-relations officer, in order to protect the local authority and the PHA from possible later charges of discrimination, shall make a field investigation. He shall certify to (a) the lack of an eligible minority-group market; or (b) the existence of an eligible minority-group market and the estimated number of eligible applicants.

His findings shall be made available to the local authority and to the PHA, and shall become a part of the Official development-program file.

3. If no eligible market of minority families is found at the time of the racial relations officer's investigation, but one subsequently develops, the PHA and the local authority must, (a) if the program is at a stage where this is practical, revise the development program to provide housing for eligible minority families; or (b) if the development program has progressed beyond the stage where revision is practical, include in any subsequent program for this locality equitable provisions for eligible racial-minority families.

TABLE 2.-U.S. Housing Act program: Dwelling units occupied by Negroes, as

Excludes Alaska and Hawaii, as well as Puerto Rico. Also excludes occupied units in projects in initial operating period.

Excludes units occupied by Negro project employees.

Includes 2 occupied rural units. These units are not included in regional-office breakdown.

Integrated, white and other nonwhite.

No pattern 2

All nonwhite.

Completely integrated.

Segregated by building or project site.

All nonwhite.

EXHIBIT F

Open Occupancy in Public Housing

(A PHA Publication)

(A bulletin based upon local experience in the administration of federally aided low-rent public housing projects occupied by more than one racial group, developed by racial-relations personnel in the field and central offices of the Public Housing Administration in association with the Racial Relations Service on the staff of the Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency)

FOREWORD

This bulletin is offered primarily in response to requests of numerous local housing authorities that have elected to open their low-rent public housing project to occupancy by eligible low-income families without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin. These local public agencies are in localities in which the citizenry have elected to follow such policy or in which State and local statute require it.

Early in the public housing program, initiated under the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, local authorities in cities like New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, and others decided to assign eligible applicant families to public housing units without regard to race. Subsequently, additional local authorities either adopted this approach in their original programs or changed from racially restrictive occupancy patterns to a policy of open occupancy. Regardless of the pattern adopted, the Federal requirement of equitable participation in the benefits of the programs was generally adhered to in all localities.

State and local statutes requiring that occupancy of local public housing projects be open on the same basis to all racial groups now govern the operations of local housing authorities in some 150 localities. Management experience, urgency of need, statutory tenant-selection priorities, population shifts, economy of operations, and other considerations have induced additional local authorities to adopt a similar occupancy policy under the Housing Act of 1949. In the originations of these programs or in shifting from controlled to open occupancy, authorities have often requested and utilized the assistance of racial-relations personnel in the field and Washington offices of the governmental housing agencies.

This bulletin constitutes a distillation of some 15 years of experience of local housing authorities in the administration of public housing projects housing more than one racial group. It essays to present the considerations involved and the principles of procedure derived from a summation of this wide experience. It is primarily the result of the work of local housing officials and racial-relations personnel in the field and Washington offices of the Public Housing Administration and the Office of the Administrator who have been associated with these developments for many years. It is designed to share with local housing agencies the known experience in this field as an aid in their own considerations and determinations. Its purpose is not to say "this is what you should do" and "this is the way you should do it"; it rather is to say "this is what others have done; and this is the way they have done it." We share this body of information with public agencies and consumer groups in the same manner and to the same end that we share other types of technical information and experience in the field of housing. We believe also that the considerations involved may have implications for the planning, development, and management of various types