The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Brown.

Mr. BROWN. Mayor Clark, what is the population of Philadelphia? Mr. CLARK. 2,057,000 as of the 1950 census; a little more now.

Mr. BROWN. What is the total assessed valuation of the real estate in Philadelphia?

Mr. CLARK. I regret, Mr. Brown, I don't carry the figure in my head. We get about $51 million a year out of our real-estate tax. We are also getting $45 million a year out of our wage and income tax. which is gradually creeping up on the real-estate tax as our principal source of revenue.

Mr. BROWN. What is your tax rate on the real estate?

Mr. CLARK. We don't have the school district under the city government, but the combined city and school rate is about $3.

Mr. BROWN. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there further questions?

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Barrett.

Mr. BARRETT. I know the Representative here from the State of Pennsylvania has a high regard for our mayor of Philadelphia, and I would like to yield to her, but would like to make this statement before yielding.

We have a great mayor in the city of Philadelphia, the greatest mayor we have ever had in the last 67 years. He has not only remedied the blight in housing but has remedied the blight in the city as a whole. He has taken the City Hall which was almost completely deteriorated and made a palatial building of it. The streets, prior to his becoming mayor, were so deteriorated that you could hardly go above 15 miles an hour. The speed was controlled by the ruts and the curves. Now the streets have all been resurfaced.

The housing situation, as he pointed out so very ably, has been improved, and those spots which were considered as crime-ridden areas are now respected residential areas.

The people clamor about our mayor as they did about the great late President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Mr. Chairman, I think if the committee can see its way clear to grant the outline that Mayor Clark has given here this morning, we can put Philadelphia among the top cities of the Nation.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Mayor, I can see that you have a very fine Representative from your city on this committee, who is vigilant in looking after your interests at all times. You can report that to his constituents when you go back.

Mr. CLARK. I am happy to hear the kind words said about me by Mr. Barrett, but I would like to disclaim having performed the miracles which he attributes to me.

Mr. WOLCOTT. How long have you been in office, Mr. Clark?
Mr. CLARK. Three and a half years, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there other questions?

Mrs. BUCHANAN. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Buchanan.

Mrs. BUCHANAN. I first want to congratulate Mayor Clark on what has been accomplished in Philadelphia, as a result of the splendid housing and redevelopment program there.

Now, all of us, who are interested in an adequate low-rent publichousing program, were terribly disappointed in the bill that passed last year. As a result of the bill that finally passed, the program was virtually killed, was it not?

Mr. CLARK. Yes, Ma'am.

Mrs. BUCHANAN. Mayor Clark, you have urged that Congress return to the program set up in the Public Housing Act of 1949.

Mr. CLARK. Yes, Ma'am.

Mrs. BUCHANAN. How many public-housing units do we need to fully meet the current problem of substandard housing?

Mr. CLARK. Well, Representative Buchanan, I have urged as a practical matter, because I don't think we ought to try to go overboard on this, that we return to the maximum authorization under the 1949 act which was 200,000 units a year. We, in Philadelphia alone, need 70,000 units.

Mrs. BUCHANAN. I wish to compliment you, Mayor Clark, on the very fine statement you have made in so clearly presenting the facts showing the urgent need for an effective low-rent housing program. I know how much this program has meant in the past to McKeesport, Pittsburgh, and other parts of Allegheny County, all over Pennsylvania, in fact. We still have great need for it in those localities as you do in Philadelphia, and I certainly hope we are able to pass a more adequate bill this year.

Mr. CLARK. Thank you, Ma'am.

Mrs. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Mayor.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Fountain.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. What is the formula which you use now in the city of Philadelphia for determining who gets aid under your Federal housing projects?

Mr. CLARK. Mr. Fountain, that is one of the most difficult and serious administrative problems we have. We take applications in the order in which they are received, after determining income eligibility in accordance with the standards laid down by the act.

I would be less than frank if I did not tell you that somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 percent of the applicants to housing projects in Philadelphia today are from Negroes. That is because they are, largely speaking, among our 400,000 Negroes, those who are in the lowest income group.

That problem of having a minority group of that size being the major applicant raises serious social problems. I have no quarrel with the social thinking of members of other parts of the union in dealing with that problem, but we, in Philadelphia, are irrevocably committed to nonsegregation in our employment, in our housing, in our recreation. It is very hard to make nonsegregation work if you have more than 50 percent Negroes in any particular project. It has been our experience that if it is less than 50 percent, it will work. We have had one or two places where it works with more than that. The end result is that in the present condition of public opinionwhich I deplore, but there it is, and we must face it-you cannot maintain a nonsegregated project if you have less than 50 percent whites in it. That has given us an awful headache, and I think we are solving it pretty well within the limits of trying to be fair.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. I can see your problem. What would you say is the average income of the people who now occupy the present Federal housing units?

Mr. CLARK. $2,800 a year. Of course it varies with the size of the family; you understand that. The larger the family, the more income they are permitted to have to get in. The smaller the family, the lower the income-after which they have to be put out.

Mr. BETTS. Do you have a law in Pennsylvania which permits an election for a levy outside of the limitation?

Mr. CLARK. I am sorry, Mr. Congressman, I am afraid I don't understand the question.

Mr. BETTS. Do you have a Pennsylvania law which permits an election within a municipality to levy taxes outside of your limitation? Constitutional limitation, that is?

Mr. CLARK. We don't have any constitutional limitation on the taxes we can levy. We have a constitutional limitation on the amount we can borrow. We have pretty complete home rule in Philadelphia, particularly under our 1951 charter, Mr. Congressman. There are practically no limits on the amount of taxes we can levy, except the indulgence of the electorate.

Mr. BETTS. Is that amount determined by special levies conducted in special elections?

Mr. CLARK. No, sir, the electorate-we have the same representative form of government that you have here in the Congress of the United States. Our council can levy a tax without limitation on amount; the mayor has a veto power; we have a representative government, and there is no referendum involved under the law in Philadelphia. Mr. BETTS. In other words, the limitation that you spoke of-as far as taxing power is concerned-to produce money to assist in the rehabilitation of blighted areas, is determined solely by the council, is that right?

Mr. CLARK. Mr. Betts, could I put it this way: Our limitation is solely on our capital borrowing capacity for the issuance of bonds.

We have a capital budget and an operating budget in Philadelphia. Our capital budget has many millions of dollars in it devoted to urban renewal and urban redevelopment. The limitation on the capital budget is to some extent imposed by the State's constitutional debt limitation on the amount we can borrow, which roughly speaking is 13 percent of our average assessed valuation of taxable property over a 10-year period.

But with respect to our operating budget-and we do make substantial contributions on a pay-as-you-go basis to our capital improvements there is no limitation whatever.

Mr. BETTS. You have reached your limitation as far as your capital is concerned?

Mr. CLARK. We have got a little cushion, Mr. Betts, against emergencies, but it isn't much.

Mr. BETTS. I see. I was interested in the comment you read from the Governor's statement to the effect that the State has probably gone beyond what it should go in helping the municipalities. I think a State owes some obligation to its cities.

Mr. CLARK. I feel that way too, sir, and I would feel so even more strongly if our State was not now confronted with the most important

financial crisis in its history, which calls for the levying of $500 million of additional taxes this year.

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, may I interpose this one point?

I would like to inform the members that the mayor is hoping to board a plane for Harrisburg at 11:30. So I think we should try to utilize the time effectively. I am sure he would appreciate it.

Mr. MULTER. I would like to touch on one subject very briefly, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLARK. I have 25 minutes more, Congressman. I am quite relaxed. Thank you for the assistance, Mr. Barrett.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Multer.

Mr. MULTER. We have found in New York somewhat the same situation as you have in Philadelphia on the minority problem. I believe the main difficulty is not so much the law, or the provisions and regulations of the law, as the reluctance of lending institutions to lend for that housing for minority groups. Do you find the same situation in Philadelphia?

Mr. CLARK. Yes, sir. I think we are making some progress in breaking it down. I do feel that some of the Federal agencies could give us a little more help than they do.

Mr. MULTER. We were told in this committee last year that this voluntary mortgage plan was going to help that situation. The lending institutions were going to get together and make a special effort to channel funds, for mortgages, into those areas where they had this problem, where they weren't able to get that kind of mortgage money. Has that helped any?

Mr. CLARK. 245 has not helped a bit yet. It is a little too soon to condemn it out of hand. But the difficulty is that if the voluntary mortgage group does succeed in getting a mortgage available for a Negro purchaser, he still can't find a house that anybody is willing to sell him.

Again I say, we realize our local responsibility in that regard, but we do think that the VA, and Fannie Mae, and other Government agencies, could help in encouraging the breakdown of that prejudice. Mr. MULTER. I might say this, that I have found, from actual contact with borrowers and those developers in the field, that the large lending institutions in New York and New Jersey, insurance companies particularly, have gone out of their way to try to help in that problem, and channel money into that field. I think you may find that some pressure from home on some of your large Pennsylvania institutions, insurance companies particularly, might help along that line.

Mr. CLARK. Mr. Congressman, Mr. Rafsky, our housing coordinator, who is here with me, has called meeting after meeting in that regard, and we get some promises, but we haven't gotten much action yet. I do think it is breaking down. I would agree with you, sir, it is getting better.

Mr. MULTER. Maybe the threat of amending your State law or reg ulations to require these large insurance companies that have their home offices in your State to stay within their State on their lending and not go outside the State, may make them keep some of that money at home.

Mr. CLARK. I would hate to use that.

Mr. MULTER. I said the threat.

Mr. CLARK. Yes, sir.

Mr. MULTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BROWN. Dr. Talle.

Mr. TALLE. Mr. Chairman, out of deference to the witness' transportation problem, I will ask no questions.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. O'Hara?

Mr. O'HARA. Mr. Mayor, you have made a constructive and most helpful contribution to the deliberations of this committee. I come from Chicago, and I might remark that your presentment of urban problems in Philadelphia could apply to Chicago. I also must congratulate you and Philadelphia on having the gentleman to my left as your very able member on this committee. There is not a finer member in the Congress than Congressman Barrett. He is doing a great job, and Philadelphia has a great future ahead to match its historic past with such a mayor and such a Congressman.

Mr. CLARK. I concur with the latter statement, sir.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. McVey?

Mr. McVEY. Mr. Clark, I wish to compliment you on the splendid way in which you have presented the case for Philadelphia.

I would like to ask this question: Do you have a balanced budget in Philadelphia?

Mr. CLARK. Yes, sir.

Mr. McVEY. You are proud of that, are you?

Mr. CLARK. I am very proud indeed of it, sir.

Mr. McVEY. You should be. Here in Washington we don't have a balanced Federal budget. You have asked for considerable help for Philadelphia. Do you have any suggestion to give to us whereby we might balance our budget here and still help Philadelphia?

Mr. CLARK. I am afraid, Mr. McVey, that is a little out of my cognizance. Could I say this, though, sir: I think in the laudable efforts to balance the budget, the type of housing program which I have advocated is not going to deter you very much because these things pay for themselves over a long-range period, and we find that, on the basis of the overall balance sheet of the American people, the improvements to the property, and the improvements in the earning capacity, and the general decrease in crime which comes from the elimination of slums, results in an enormous national asset far in advance of the amount of money which is necessary to carry it into effect.

It is too bad that our free-enterprise system isn't able to solve this problem by itself. Would that it were. But I think we must face the reality of the fact, that just as we don't expect to have the privateenterprise system sponsor and provide the educational system of this country, so in the long run it is not going to solve the housing problem all by itself.

Mr. MCVEY. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BROWN. Mrs. Sullivan?

Mrs. SULLIVAN. Just a passing remark, Mr. Chairman, to the mayor of Philadelphia. We have a comparable problem in St. Louis, and the slum clearance and the building of low-cost rental housing is one of our big problems. We are endeavoring now to integrate the colored with the white in some of the public housing. As yet we have had no experience in how that is going to work, but I was very much. interested in hearing your discussion on it.