PBH Cabinet Requests Housing Investigation

The Undergraduate Cabinet of Phillips Brooks House has requested the PBH Faculty Committee and Graduate Secretary to investigate the recent charge of discriminatory housing policies on the part of landlords who list their names with the University Housing Registry at PBH, Richard E. Rubenstein '59, PBH President, said yesterday.

Such an investigation, Rubenstein said, might lead to a policy of refusing to list landlords who will not rent to minority groups.

The Cabinet resolution was in response to last week's letter to the CRIMSON from Mrs. Linda N. Larkin, who asserted that several Cambridge homeowners who are listed with the University Registry refused to rent to a Negro couple.

Rubenstein explained that the Undergraduate Cabinet decided to take no direct action on the matter since the House Registry is not connected with the PBH student organization.

Rubenstein suggested that it might be helpful for the University to hire a parttime professional worker to survey the housing situation with respect to discrimination toward foreign students and American Negroes. He said that it is probably the University and not PBH which has final jurisdiction over the Housing Registry.

Mrs. Larkin said yesterday that the director of the University Housing Registry was not interested in seeing her list of local landlords who refused to rent to the Negro couple.

John F. Reichard, director of the International Student Center on Garden St., commented last night, "We all know that there is a great deal of discrimination in housing in both rooms and apartments in Cambridge."

He noted that several years ago there was a discussion of removing from the University Housing Registry the names of landlords who discriminate. Reichard said, "May be it's time again to rethink this approach, get more activist about it, and throw Harvard's weight behind the possibility of opening up more housing to minorities."