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aye Aliana Lourie
“Covers Dixie Like the Dew”
Since 1883
Jack Tarver, President
Jack Spalding, Editor
* EDITORIALS
Low-Cost Housing Gap
THE HOUSING Resources Committee heard
Thursday that Mayor Ivan Allen's five- ~
year, low-cost housing goal of 16,800 replace-
_Ment units by 1971 was sure of being met.
This is encouraging.
‘But the goal, unfortunately, falls far be-
low the mammoth commitment needed if city
leaders are determined to wipe out the ter-
rible slum conditions that breed violence and
volatile resentment.
Noting this, the HRC voted unanimously
at its second annual meeting to endorse and
push for approval of the zoning ‘‘package
plan” designed to pave the way for low-cost
housing throughout all sections of the city -
simultaneously.
Is this too much to expect?
The answer apparently has been yes—
judging by the silent reception the plan has
received from the aldermanie Planning and
Development Committee and the Zoning Com-
mittee since it was received for study last
' August.
Both committees were to seek information
from the Planning Department. Now, more
than four months later, Planning Department
Director Collier Gladin has reported no sub-
stantial progress has been made to implement ~
the package plan.
HRC Chairman Cecil Alexander put the
need for the package plan in proper perspec-
tive last August. “It's like this,’ he told the
_aldermen, “either we house the poor or we
have within our midst, if not in this~ genera-
tion, then certainly in the next, an alienated
people ready to grasp by force what-we would
_not provide when there was yet time.”
The true indication of the meager success
in providing adequate low-cost housing units
so far in Atlanta comes from a statement
released by the Atlanta Housing Authority
Wednesday. For the first time in Atlanta
urban renewal history, said the AHA, housing
construction in 1968 exceeded the number of
units demolished.
Tn other words, Atlanta has virtually been
standing still, if not going backwards, in at--
tacking its low-cost problem in recent vears.
Therefore, it is not surprising to count the
number of responsible community organi-
zations supporting the package plan. They
include the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce,
the Community Council of the Atlanta Area
Inc., Central Ailanta Progress Inc., the Wom-
en’s Chamber of Commerce, the League of
2-A
DECEMBER 14, 1968
Women Voters, the Christian Council of Met-
ropolitan Atlanta, Inc., and the Metropolitan
Atlanta Conference on Housing.
It is time that the conscience of the com-
munity be heard,