Eviction Notice

Apparently there is no one in Washington so eager to lose his job as Federal Housing Administrator Albert M. Cole. Last week, the House Appropriations Committee helped to give Mr. Cole his wish by voting, 26 to 9, to put an end to federal activity in housing. The Committee, acting with the approval of the Republican leadership, threw out the Administration's request for a modified building program of 35,000 low cost units a year for the next four years.

It is not quite fair to give Mr. Cole all the credit for ending federal housing, despite his outspoken opposition to it in the past. Since the President's message in January of this year, the Administration, and its Housing chief, have taken the line of "less government in housing." Their modest goal of a million new units a year was to be achieved primarily through community and private enterprise, stimulated by government loans and mortgage insurance. Building, as such, was to have a minimal role in the program, for use only in emergency situations. The party leaders in Congress have apparently taken their cue from the White House and carried the logic just one step further. Outdoing the "Businessman's Administration," they assume that private industry and the local community can do all the building.

But private industry in this country has never been able to provide housing for low income groups at a profit. With the returns from slum clearance and welfare building so unsure, private enterprise tends to concentrate on more lucrative upper and middle class construction. The burdens of building for the low income groups falls to the cities, many of which are clearly incapable of handling the necessary projects. And so, fifteen million American families go inadequately housed, while more dwellings deteriorate each year.

In 1949 leaders of both parties recognized the need for the federal government to do this job which nobody else was willing to do. Sponsored by the late Senator Robert Taft, the Federal Housing Bill proposed construction of 135,000 low cost units a year for six years. Senator Taft's party heirs either feel differently about the needs for low income housing, or share a mystical hope that private industry can handle them. And smart party politicians might argue that low income groups don't vote Republican anyhow.

By any standards, the President's program for federal home building is pitifully inadequate. But even this pittance may be denied by a Congress in which economy has approached a mania. The President can save his program if he is willing to bring his party back into line. Better, he can make low cost federal housing a reality by bringing the levels of federal building up to those of the 1949 bill.