metropolitan areas. The plan is supposed, also, to make an assessment of the housing needs of lower income persons "residing or expected to reside" in the community.

Studies by a staff member of NCDH and the Potomac Institute document the fact that spatial dispersion of lower income Americans did not occur under the regulations promulgated by HUD.

The National Urban League found that many uses of the community development block grants and proposed uses of the housing assistance program seemed to violate the act and its rules and regulations. HUD's original instructions to the field offices were more responsive to the administration's hands-off, no-strings approach of the Better Communities Act, repudiated by the Congress, than in the 1974 act enacted by Congress.

Thus, the Assistant Secretary for Equal Opportunity instructed equal opportunity field reviewers to, for all practiacl purposes, scan applications rather than conduct in-depth reviews, adding that applicants might address needs without specifically idenitfying them. I doubt that could be done.

Clearly, there is a vast amount of literature and survey materials too great detail. I shall cite from a recent study and discuss an on the subject. In order to give the flavor of what exists and avoid even more current court case. This approach will, I believe, set forth the issues and suggest the problems which lie ahead.

In late 1974, the Potomac Institute metropolitan housing program initiated a small-scale, exploratory effort to monitor the extent to which HUD was carrying out the expanded lower income housing opportunity objectives of the 1974 act. Six metropolitan areas in various regions were reported upon by monitors and information was secured from two other areas. While the institute noted that only general and preliminary evaluation could be made at the time, November 1975, it identified four major conclusions. According to the report:

One, HUD appears to have adopted a policy of approving local housing assistance plans, HAP's, submitted during the first year of the community development program routinely and almost without exception, despite negative comments on the plans from regional or statewide agencies and negative reviews from within HUD itself.

Some of the approved plans used grossly inadequate data to describe lower income housing needs; many plans adopted lower income housing goals only, or primarily, for the elderly, rather than for families; some plans made no provision at all for any subsidized housing; and some plans ignored the statutory requirement to avoid concentrating such housing in low-income or minority areas. None of the plans described how the locality proposed to implement its housing plans, because HUD deleted that requirement from its HAP instructions. This deletion reveals that HUD places no premium on local action to meet housing needs, as distinguished from local paper plans to justify the dispensing of community development block grants.

Two, with a few special exceptions, the monitors could not discern that a lower income metropolitan housing dispersal plan, or regional perspectives of housing needs, had any significant impact on HUD's approval of local housing assistance plans.

The momentum for regional "fair share" allocation plans

referred to above in connection with the Dayton area plan, Mr. Chairman,

that began in 1968 appears to be dissipating under the 1974 act. The housing allocation policies pursued by local HUD offices, the provisions of local HAP's, and the programs of state housing finance agencies appear to have little or no coherence from the standpoint of the housing dispersal objective of the 1974 act.

Mr. EDWARDS. Dr. Weaver, I regret that we must have a recess of 10 minutes to vote. The committee stands in recess for 10 minutes.

[Brief recess was taken.]

Mr. EDWARDS. Dr. Weaver, we apologize. You may continue.

Mr. WEAVER. To continue with the findings of the Potomac Institute report:

Three, HUD is emphasizing meeting the needs of lower income people through existing rather than new housing, but its regulations would frustrate the mobility of assisted families to move into existing housing from one community to another in the metropolitan area.

One of the principal arguments in favor of the Section 8 subsidies approach was that it would enhance the mobility of the beneficiaries. However, the regulations governing the use of Section 8 subsidies to assist families within the existing housing stock are not designed to facilitate moves by such families across jurisdictional lines in metropolitan areas. Unless these regulations are changed, and a metropolitan certification of eligibility is created, the section 8 existing housing program may do less to open up lower income housing opportunities throughout a metropolitan area than the heavily criticized program it replaces. This is contrary to Congressional intent, and negates the reason advanced for this approach to housing subsidies.

Four, the HUD record in stimulating subsidized housing production under the Section 8 program, and indeed since 1973 under the predecessor revised Section 23 leased housing program calls into question the entire statutory structure of tying eligibility for 100 percent Federal community development funds to housing assistance plans that may never be carried out....

Throughout the 1973 and 1974 debate over the revision of community development legislation, it became apparent that the Administration was far more interested in securing passage of special revenue sharing for community development with virtually no Federal supervision over the purposes for which such funds would be spent. Congress, on the other hand, preferred the block grant approach primarily to insure that federal funds would be spent to eliminate slums and blight and upgrade and make the nation's cities more livable. Congress also favored a resumption of housing subsidy programs, which the Administration had terminated in January 1973. As a compromise, Congress linked the housing assistance and community development programs together in the 1974 Act.

These major conclusions suggested by this preliminary evaluation of the implementation of the 1974 legislation to date add up to a clear indication

that:

HUD is administering the 1974 Act to favor the Administration's preferred special revenue sharing for community development approach, and frustrating the Congressional primary objectives of aiding the development of viable urban communities, providing decent housing and a suitable living environment, and expanding economic opportunities, principally for persons of low and moderate income throughout metropolitan areas.

Currently, Federal approaches to economic residential dispersal and urban land use policy are as much, if not more, a matter of Executive action than legislative intent or statute.

Because, increasingly, there is a conflict between what the Congress enacts into law and what the executive branch carries out,

the courts are engaged in adjudication of disputes. Litigation designed to require implementation of provisions of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 has been sponsored by the General Accounting Office, municipal authorities, citizens' organizations, developers, and individuals.

Recent litigation, affecting seven affluent suburban communities surrounding Hartford, Conn., is significant. In this instance, a Federal district court judge enjoined HUD from granting community development funds to localities which failed to make projections of how many lower income residents they expected to move into their borders, despite the legal requirements for so doing. The New York Times observed editorially:

The decision punctured the widely held fantasy that there are in this country homogeneous, problem-free communities that do not have to share the burdens of poverty and economic inequity prevailing elsewhere in the society. It is dangerous enough for the nation's future for a sizable segment of the people to be so mistaken, but it is worse for the Administration to encourage such myopia by disregarding the law.

By January 15, 1976, HUD had revised its regulations relative to submission of housing assistance plans. While the revisions increased the specificity of the requirements for esitmating the volume of households expected to reside in a community, they still left much to be desired. There was, as the report of the Potomac Institute noted,, no requirement for applicant communities

to indicate a program of action or a strategy for realizing the goals that they are now required to articulate in the HAP. It makes little sense to require communities to adopt policy plans specifying quantitative goals for the provision of housing but not requiring them to specify the strategy to achieve such goals.

HUD, in defending its approval of first-year community development grants without estimates of the 'expected to reside" category, asserted that it merely deferred rather than waived this requirement. The Hartford decision, however, concluded that the statute does not permit such a waiver.

Indeed, as the court determined, the-and I quote from the decision-"expected to reside' figure is the keystone to the spatial deconcentration objective." That decision further stated that HUD's action in this regard enabled towns to obtain funds under the act "without the quid pro quo Congress decided to require their taking steps to expand housing opportunities for low- and moderateincome persons, adding that this requirement is "one of the most. important differences between the 1974 act and the categorical grant community development program it replaced."

Thus, according to the court, HUD's action "removes the incentive Congress provided for these communities to accept such federally assisted housing, thereby effectively gutting the 'enforcement' provisions of the act."

HUD has further modified its regulations defining the scope and requirements of housing assistance plans. What followup action will emerge? It is one thing to require estimates of the needs for the

number of lower-income families with workers to be expected to be employed in a community in the next 3 years and another to provide provisions for securing such shelter.

The revised regulations relative to HAP state that plans for section 8 housing may be approved under certain conditions and refer to instances where housing assistance resources are available. But these resources are limited and their efficacy as instruments for new construction is far from established.

Thus, the impact of the new regulations, even if vigorously enforced, may be academic if there is a failure to undergird section 8 by approval of funds for new 236 projects when the community has identified its special housing needs and shown that the latter cannot be satisfied through section 8 housing assistance. Communities reluctant to provide lower income housing will hardly press for either section 8 or section 236 allocations; and HUD has been, to say the least, reluctant to approve applications for section 236 housing, despite congressional authorization and intent that it should. be used to supplement section 8.

There is still no assurance that the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 will be administered so as to achieve one of its stated objectives: reduction of the isolation of economic groups within communities and geographic areas through spatial deconcentration of housing opportunities for lower income persons.

My comments on both the efficacy of voluntary affirmative marketing agreements and on the extent to which the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 is increasing housing opportunities for minorities suggest that it might be necessary and timely to raise the more basic question as to whether title VIII is adequate to safeguard civil rights in housing. The enactment of title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 marked a giant step forward in Federal commitment to equal protection under the law in making it unlawful "to discriminate against any person in the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale or rental of a dwelling, or in the provision of services or facilities in connection therewith, because of race, color, religion, or national origin," since amended by also making unlawful discrimination because of sex.

In the 8 years since enactment of title VIII, the preponderance of criticism of its efficacy by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and others has been confined to shortcomings in its administration. The accumulated experience of these past years is now sufficient, in my opinion, to permit fruitful, in-depth investigation of the adequacy of title VIII itself. I wish, therefore, to suggest that your subcommittee might find it appropriate and timely to initiate a thorough review of the provisions of title VIII as to their adequacy to achieve the goals enunciated by Congress in passage of this legistion. Such a review could pinpoint the line of demarcation between the optimum results that might be reasonably expected from efficient and conscientious administration of title VIII and those required results that are likely to be achieved only through remedial legislation.

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much, Dr. Weaver.

Your statement in full will of course be placed in the record. [The prepared statement of Dr. Weaver follows:]

STATEMENT OF ROBERT C. WEAVER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COMMITTEE AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN HOUSING, INC..

I appreciate this opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary. The subject matter before you is of great concern to me as an individual and in my capacity as President of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing.

Enforcement of fair housing laws is a comprehensive matter, and no witness can, within the time limits necessarily imposed, hope to do justice to all aspects of the issue. Accordingly, my remarks will be concentrated upon two aspects of the problem: the efficacy of voluntary affirmative marketing agreements and the extent to which the operation of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 has increased lower-income housing opportunities and accelerated spatial deconcentration of housing opportunities for lowerincome persons, many of whom are minority individuals.

NCDH has long been concerned about the limitations of most agreements between HUD and the industry, public agencies, and citizen groups for affirmative fair and equal housing plans. On March 20, 1974, for example, Edward L. Holmgren, Executive Director of the Committee, wrote Assistant Secretary Gloria Toote objecting to the absence of civil rights organizations' participation in the development of such agreements. In September of the same year, speaking in Atlanta, Georgia, I stated:

"In most of these plans and agreements, there is confusion as to what HUD's role is relative to the enforcement of Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and related legislation. This becomes particularly ominous when ... what is agreed to is less than provided for in law.""

Others have noted the defects in the voluntary agreements. The Housing Task Force of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, for example, presented a "Bill of Particulars on HUD Equal Opportunity Program" to the Department in October 1974, stating that the shortcomings in voluntary agreements are many and noting specifically that:

“... Our major criticism runs to the scope of these agreements which is limited to the agreement by major members of the housing industry to obey the law we view these voluntary agreements as failing to meet even HUD's own requirements including their regulations governing affirmative action."

HUD, itself, was, in one regional office, equally critical of the Department's administration of affirmative action in marketing in general and voluntary agreements in particular. In an Evaluation Report: The Impact and Performance of Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing in Region IX (September, 1974), it was concluded that:

The regulations had no measurable effect or noticeable influence on housing racial segregation.

Practices of developers had altered very little in response to Affirmative Fair Marketing.

HUD's monitoring, enforcement, and technical aid had been minimal and largely ineffective.

The San Diego area-wide agreement had not fulfilled either the promise of its initial favorable publicity or the goals established by its terms.

On the basis of its analyses and findings, the Evaluation Report made certain recommendations, noting that "even these, of course, may not be sufficient to achieve the goals of the programs, but unless actions of this nature are

1 Robert C. Weaver, "A Decent Home-The Forgotten Promise," Keynote Address at the Second Annual Housing Conference sponsored by the NCDH and the Southern Regional Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, September 26, 1974.