Mayor Harold Washington called for creation of a $25 billion-plus
”Superfund” for low-income housing throughout the nation Friday.
The mayor, in the midst of a battle with federal housing officials for control of the Chicago Housing Authority, said the money was essential to save the nation`s 1.3 million public-housing units and to generate hundreds of thousands of new low- and moderate-income units in the private market.
His proposal is to be presented formally Monday in Washington, D.C., at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Housing Task Force, of which he is chairman.
The centerpiece of the mayor`s proposal is a five-year, $5 billion-a-year Superfund to catch up with decades of deferred maintenance in public housing units around the country.
Last year, the federal government spent only $700 million on such
”modernization” work. This year, the total is $1.4 billion. The CHA alone estimates it needs at least $724 million over a five-year period to rehabilitate its buildings.
Other pieces of the mayor`s housing proposal include creation of a national housing trust fund that would provide $2 billion to $2.5 billion a year to stimulate construction of 350,000 new low- and moderate-income units in the private housing market.
”We`re going to talk of intervention at the neighborhood level to stop the cycle of destruction of property in our neighborhoods,” Washington said at a City Hall news conference. ”That cycle starts with disinvestment, red-lining, deterioration of the property, gentri-fication, which is part of the cycle, and finally affordability. More and more, the poor are pushed out.”
The task force`s recommendations are to be presented next month to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee headed by Sen. Alan Cranston (D., Calif.). That committee is formulating a new national housing policy.
Washington`s announcement of his public-housing proposals came a day after the CHA board hired Jerome Van Gorkom, chairman of the Chicago School Finance Authority, as the new top operating director of the housing authority. The mayor, who approved Van Gorkom`s appointment before the board voted, said Friday that Van Gorkom ”has an excessive zeal. He has ability to deal with HUD, with the CHA, the city council, the federal Congress.”
Van Gorkom, as chairman of the Chicago School Finance Authority, helped bail out Chicago`s debt-ridden public school system eight years ago and is being asked to work similar magic at the housing authority.
The CHA, in the midst of the worst financial crisis of its 50-year history, is living under threat of an imminent federal takeover.
One of his main priorities, Van Gorkom said, will be to ”work out a satisfactory arrangement” between CHA and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to avoid that takeover. In fact, several officials at the housing authority expressed hope that the appointment of Van Gorkom, 70, a Republican and former business executive, will persuade federal housing officials to postpone or drop their plans to seize the CHA.
But a statement by HUD Undersecretary Carl D. Covitz Friday gave no indication of this:
”We welcome the selection of Mr. Jerome Van Gorkom, who has a reputation as a strong fiscal manager, to a position of leadership with the Chicago Housing Authority.”
Asked whether the Covitz statement represented any change in HUD`s attitude toward a takeover, spokesman William Glavin said, ”Apparently not.” Asked whether HUD intends to go ahead with its takeover plans, Glavin said, ”I think so.”
Federal housing officials have contended that mismanagement, political meddling and financial irregularities at the housing authority have been so bad over the last eight years that the agency should be turned over to a private management team selected by and reporting to HUD. HUD has said that unless the mayor did so, it would seize the CHA and hire the team itself.
