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House and Home Magazine - July 1956 - Return to Main Search
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who have substantial equity in their houses. The Senate voted to authorize payments to displacees for moving expense-$100 for an individual or family and up to $2,000 for a business (including cost of lost good will). It upped the limit on FHA Sec. 221 mortgages from $7,600 to $8,000.

Both the Senate and House committee would up the limits on FHA Title I repair loans from $2,500 to $3,500 and raise the maximum amortization from three years to

A nationwide housing census, which should give the home builder his best data about his market since 1950, has been assured by Congress.

A $1 million appropriation for the Commerce Dept, to" make the count was approved by a joint House-Senate conference committee. The House had earlier chopped Commerce's $1,800,000 request to $1 million while the Senate had cut it entirely in committee, only to restore $650,000 when the bill reached the floor.

As tentatively planned, the Census Bureau will make the census this November or early next spring. Results would not be available until late 1957 or 1958. A similar count was made in 1950.

$350,000 for FHA research

Congress also approved a $350,000 appropriation for FHA to undertake a technical testing program.

FHA's test program is designed to "keep up with the advancing technology in the adjustment of our construction standards." FHA officials have pointed out that it will not duplicate research being done by others, will cover only combinations of materials or special cases where the burden of test is too great for any segment of the housing industry.

FHA thinks the program will come in particularly handy in settling arguments over new MPR's and MCR's. Test work will be farmed out to testing agencies of the government such as the Bureau of Standards, the Forest Products Laboratory or to private laboratories. And no test work will be undertaken unless the industry says it is needed.

Materials study killed

One other appropriation of interest to builders was killed by a House-Senate conference committee. The Commerce Dept, sought $600,000 for a materials study. Purpose: to find out how much material is used for a given amount of building. The House voted $350,-000, enough for a one-shot study but the Senate refused to approve anything. The conference upheld the Senate's decision.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics asked for $75,000 to make a labor requirements study (how many various workmen are needed to put $1 million of building in place). The House knocked out this appropriation entirely. The Senate restored it. The matter will be resolved in conference.

FHA's overall appropriation was trimmed

five. The Senate would cut the discount from 5% to 4% on any amount over $2,500. The house would make the lower limit apply above $1,500. (Lumber retailers fear this will offset the gains.)

The House committee voted to nullify President Eisenhower's recent reorganization of the Home Loan Bank Board which separated the Federal S&L Insurance Corp. from it. Savings and loan interests have been fighting the reorganization.

by the House, but not enough to be damaging, officials said. The nonadministrative (field) budget was cut to $36,700,000, just $600,000 under the request. The administrative (Washington) budget was set at $6,900,-

000.    a cut of $250,000. That is still $207,000 over FHA's appropriation for the fiscal year that ended last month.

The Senate has also voted to authorize HHFA to renew its housing research program, killed in 1951 by lack of an appropriation, and later stricken from the law entirely. (The building industry opposed the program then.) HHFA must still get House approval plus an appropriation, but this time the industry is not fighting the idea.

Harriman would establish cabinet post for housing

Creation of a federal Department of Housing & Urban Affairs, headed by a secretary of cabinet rank, is now one of the planks in the platform of Democratic presidential hopeful Averell Harriman.

The New York governor, speaking to the Middle Atlantic Regional Council of the Natl. Assn, of Housing & Redevelopment Officials in Buffalo, said the new department should "view housing as part of the larger problem of urban growth  instead of urban decay." He also called for:

1.    Reorientation of the housing agencies, shifting their programs toward protection of family, rather than the builder and the lender. "Our housing agencies should be consumer-oriented," he asserted.

2.    Public housing built for sale on "longterm, low-interest loan- presumably direct from the government. "The concept of a public housing program for rent only is obsolete," said Harriman.

3.    Higher cost limits for public housing, ostensibly to "allow greater freedom in planning and design."

4.    "A cooperative movement similar to that in Sweden, in which federal loans would be made to encourage experienced cooperative groups that can build and later sell projects to smaller cooperative groups."

5.    Drastic revision of urban renewal and redevelopment policies to de-emphasize destruction of slum buildings and stress reduction of

overcrowding. Harriman called for more building on vacant land, less displacement of population in urban renewal.

Barbs for private enterprise

The governor aimed many a shaft at private enterprise in housing. Some fell wide of the mark. Samples:

•    "The so-called Voluntary Mortgage Credit program set up partly to make mortgage loans for Negro families [sic] has helped them little." Fact: over 2,500 loans to Negro families.

1 "The [FHA Title I] modernization program under which families may borrow small amounts for home improvements, extracts an interest rate of more than 9%, although the lender is aided by government insurance." Fact: until FHA entered the field, most repair loans cost 12% or more; some private fix-up loans still do. At lower interest rates, repair loan money would be scarce at least from private sources.

•    "Since 1952, federal housing agency programs have shifted toward protection of the builder and the lender and only indirectly of the family to be housed." Fact: the most notable shift in emphasis for federal housing, the FHA scandals of 1954, had its origin in the administration's determination that consumers should not be fleeced under federal programs.

MILITARY HOUSING:

10,000 sale homes for civilians in new program

A new market for 5,000 to 10,000 homes is opening up as a result of Congress' decision to override FHA views on what is a sound long term mortgage.

On lune 13, President Eisenhower signed into law a bill to force FHA to insure sale housing for key civilian scientific and research employes of the armed forces at remote bases.

Officials expect seven bases to be involved Huntsville, Ala.; China Lake, Calif.; Cocoa, Fla.; (all near guided missile research centers) and Holloman AFB, N. M.; Mojave Marine Corps Sta., Calif.; Seneca Ordnance Depot, N.Y. and Edwards AFB, Calif.

The measure was sponsored by Sen. John J. Sparkman (D, Ala.) after FHA said it could not insure anything like the 1,500 or more Title II sale homes at Huntsville, Ala. the Army wanted for scientists at Redstone Arsenal.

Huntsville (pop. 25,000) is Sen. Sparkman's home town.

FHA said the Pentagon should underwrite the housing it wanted under the Capehart Act, because long-term demand for it rested almost entirely on Army arsenal operations. FHA said it could not find the "long range economic soundnes- at Huntsville which the law requires for Title II homes. Commissioner Norman Mason reminded Sparkman's Senate subcommittee: "We have a record around the country [of] military installations which were permanent at the time, just as Redstone Arsenal is now permanent, where we have taken back Wherry housing and where we are in serious trouble with other continued on p. 80

Congress OK's $1 million for housing census, $350,000 for FHA research

LIFE Peter Anderson

HARRIMAN