Universities Will Discuss Housing Crisis With City

Top Harvard and M.I.T. officials will meet with Cambridge Mayor Daniel J. Hayes, Jr., next Friday in the first of a series of discussions on the housing squeeze in Cambridge.

The November 4th meeting between Hayes, President Pusey, James R. Killian, Chairman of the M.I.T. Corporation, and Howard Johnson, President of M.I.T., is the result of Hayes' letter two weeks ago to the Universities, complaining that students and faculty are flooding the local housing market.

Hayes wrote that the housing shortage engendered by university-connected people causes 1000 permanent Cambridge residents to move elsewhere each year.

Specific Proposals

Both Harvard and M.I.T. are expected to present specific proposals for new housing at the meeting. It is likely that they will make requests of the City in return.

Hayes said that additional people and organizations would enter subsequent discussions.

"Clearly, the Elysian fields are not going to be reached in a week," an M.I.T. official said this week of the first meeting.

In his letter to the presidents, Hayes said that transients -- whom he defined as those living in Cambridge for three years or less--are a chief cause of housing shortages.

15,000 Transients

He said they place undue pressure on the market and are willing to pay higher rents than Cambridge residents can afford. According to his statistics, Cambridge has 35,000 living units, 26,000 of which are rentals. Of these, 15,000 are occupied by transients, Hayes' letter said.