ing, and the public itself, to give them the kind of guides, aids, and safeguards that will make certain things possible. That is all we can do.

Mr. COLE. That is right, Mr. Shishkin. But after listening to your replies to the chairman's question a while ago I came very definitely to the conclusion that your testimony did not help me in any way to show how this bill, S. 866, would do the things you have said generally should be done.

That is where it leaves me. I may be different from anybody else, but I do not find it in your testimony.

Mr. SHISHKIN. I will be glad to submit it to you in detail, and I am hopeful that the demonstration of what we have in mind will prove convincing.

Mr. COLE. May I say one more thing? I noticed you said nothing about the slum clearance and public housing, and that, of course, is one of the most controversial issues in the bill.

Mr. SHISHKIN. There are two things that I would like to say. I did not quite conclude my statement when the questioning started. Mr. COLE. I am sorry.

Mr. SHISHKIN. On slum clearance, this provision is different from what was attempted before the war in that the urban development and slum clearance title makes it possible, by divorcing the construction of low-rent housing, to have private enterprise assume the initiative and a large measure of the responsibility for slum clearance.

In other words, if you clear a particular area which is rotting, and the economic value of which is far in excess of what you need there, you have in that kind of a situation, after you have met that problem, a possibility for a development into a park or into a set of shops or stores or an apartment house built by private enterprise, or into local low-rent housing redevelopment, if necessary. It is not binding, the slum clearance, which will distort planning, sound planning, in such a way as to distort the sound planning of a community.

As for the public aid to local housing authorities, under title VI of S. 866, we believe that that provision is indispensable. We believe that the construction of this minimum of homes, for which prior claim will go to veterans only during inspection periods, is the essential thing which will give the balance to the supply of housing not only at the top level of income, but also at the bottom, so that you will have it throughout the whole range.

It is a small program. It is one which has been tested by experience, and it is the one force in this country which has given hope, to the families in the slums and their children, of attaining at least some kind of decent living and being given an opportunity of growing out of it, just as citizens have been given assistance at other times when their income prevented them from participating on an equal basis with other citizens in the community.

Mr. SPENCE. Do you think there would be some difficulty in relocating some of the inhabitants of slum areas?

Mr. SHISHKIN. In some areas; but there is a specific provision to defer relocation while the emergency is still with us. This is a longrange program. This is a program which is needed to make cities

like Louisville, St. Louis, and so forth, livable not only today but 10 years from now.

It is the kind of provision in which we have large metropolitan areas which are rotting at the core, because there is an enormous exodus out of those communities into the suburban areas, which will mean a loss of invested capital now in buildings and real devastation right in the heart of our large metropolitan cities.

This is one thing that will help prevent that, in addition to helping the slum families.

Mr. MONRONEY. Is it not also true, Mr. Shishkin, that if you have this redevelopment of this rotten area you could accommodate a great many more people through modern construction and multipledwelling units and still have a great deal left over for parks, playgrounds, and so on-land which is now covered by one-, two-, and three-story buildings?

Mr. SHISHKIN. You will also provide an opportunity for balancing the places where people live with the economic life of the community, where the trade and industrial areas are. Because if you do it under a plan of that kind you will be able to bring people not only within reach of housing which is decent, but also of places to live which bear some relation to places of work, something which we have greatly overlooked.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GAMBLE. Mr. Buchanan.

Mr. BUCHANAN. A while ago, when the chairman was interrogating you, he kept referring to our present housing plight as an emergency. Mr. SHISHKIN. Yes.

Mr. BUCHANAN. I wish you would clarify for the committee your reaction to whether or not the present plight is an emergency and whether or not the mere enactment of title VI of this bill is a cure-all for our present plight.

Mr. SHISHKIN. No. As I pointed out before, I think that the extension of title VI should be a temporary thing. It should constitute a transition to reversion to title II. I think the remainder of the bill will help as much as possible.

As far as the emergency is concerned, I think it is better to say that the situation is extremely acute; that it is extremely critical. It has been critical and acute for a long time, but it is the result of a chronic situation-a situation in which we have had a really desperate need over a long period of time and a situation which cannot be cured overnight by title VI.

My great worry is, frankly, that by applying that solution you will have, all over the country, a lot of enterprisers who are not the normal suppliers of homes in the market, who are shoe-string operators. Right near where I live there is one who started out with $3,000 by buying an option and is now building a $3,000,000 project. I do not think he is competent to do that, and I do not think he should be given approval under title VI. I think that sort of thing is extremely dangerous. The man is not a sound provider to the community, and it is because of that that I feel very strongly that it should be crystal-clear that by providing easy terms, in a time of boom, to a needy family in desperate need of a home we are unfair to them

because by making that house available to them on very easy terms, which they will not be able to meet, we are making false promises to them: We are placing that house within their reach; we are setting them up in a standard of living, and when their income is not up to the par necessary to sustain that, they will be out looking for another home and will be bitter about the kind of thing perpetrated on them, and I think, embittered veterans will inevitably come under that formula.

Mr. COLE. That is one of the questions on the 95-percent loan on a $6,000 house. I am concerned with whether or not the purchaser of the house may have enough financial stability to be a sound home owner. He may be, but there is a point, of course, where that diminishes. If you give him a 100 percent loan, nearly every one says that he may not, or possibly would not, be a sound investor. But here for the first time, or almost for the first time, it seems to me, we are saying that we are going to permit a 95 percent loan on homes.

Are we doing that individual a favor? What we want to do is help him to be a good citizen and be a good home owner, and to build upon his home. I am wondering if we are doing that.

Mr. SHISHKIN. I think a veteran who is not fully in a position to become a home purchaser of this kind would do better to even subject himself to these conditions for a period of time than acquire a home, since it does involve his life savings and his financial obligations, which comprise his full family budget, and until he can do so on a sound basis with the assurance of income stability.

But banks, of course, have indicated that they are far more cautious in loaning money than any congressional intent might prescribe. That is one reason why veterans' loans have not been forthcoming from the banks.

Mr. GAMBLE. Are there further questions?

If not, thank you very much, Mr. Shishkin.

We will insert in the record at this point the documents to which Mr. Shishkin referred in his testimony.

(The information above referred to is as follows:)

TABLE I.-Change in number of dwelling units, 1940 and 1947: Nonfarm and farm dwelling units by regions; occupied dwelling units by color of occupants

TABLE II.-State of repair and plumbing equipment: Total dwelling units, by region, 1940 and 1947

TABLE III.—State of repair and plumbing equipment: Occupied nonfarm dwelling units by color of occupants, 1940 and 1947

TABLE III.-State of repair and plumbing equipment: Occupied nonfarm dwelling units by color of occupants, 1940 and 1947-Continued

TABLE IV.—Tenure: Nonfarm and farm dwelling units, 1890 to 1947

In this table, except for 1947 urban farm families are included in the "farm" rather than the "nonfarm” classification.