St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1950-03-03
Race Relafions In Housing
Race Relations In Housing
GOthamites Live, Play
Together, In Housing
Project Writer Shows
By Thomas F. Farrell in the Sunday New Yorl, Times
By Thomas F. Farrell in the Sunday New York Times
CONTINUED from

NOSNNsAANNN AAOA
At the ground-breaking cere-
mony for Woodside Houses in
Queens, a group Of directors
picketed the ceremony with signs
accusing the Authority of COM
munism. At earlier public hear
ings, the small group of protest
ing citizens warned of dire results
to the neighborhood if the project
was approved. Now that Wood
side Houses has been completed
and fully occupied, including about
8 per cent Negro families, the
Juror has died down, and the sur
rounding area is being built up
with business properties.
Instead of depreciating realty
values, there is evidence that they
have been increased, as anyone
who drives around the project can
see. Once a large vacant tract, the
construction of new shops kept
pace with the project, and when
the tenants moved in, the stores
were ready for business. The Ne
gro tenants have met no hostility
IN the community. A Negro tenant
was amazed to learn of objections
from the neighborhood before
WOodside Houses was built. why,
the shopkeepers are just grand to
US, she insisted.
Administering this policy of
non-discrimination and non-segre-
cation is not left to luck and good
will. We must be sure that ten
ants are selected on their need
alone, and once a project is open
its business must be conducted
smoothly. Although much of the
problem is one of human rela-
tons and justice, there are two
objective measures used as safe
guards.
In the selection of tenants,
based on need, with priority for
former site residents and veterans,
the following things are done to
assure equal treatment: Prelim-
mary registrations, on which
there is no information about race,
are filed by mail. The information
is translated into code numbers
and the name into a serial number,
and punched on International
Business Machine cards. Families
are called for interviews as they
are sorted by machines, according
to their need and priority.
The second measure is to require
that all public facilities in a pro-
ject, such as nursery schools and
recreation programs, are operated
on an interracial and interfaith
basis. Many an otherwise worthy
has been refused
space because its interest is hmi-
ted to the members of one faith
or one race. In contrast, the Urban
League has adopted an interracial
program in operating one of our
nursery schools, and several
Catholic and Jewish groups have
adopted interfaith recreation and
child care programs in our pro-
jects.
Hewing a middle course, we
often make a target for so-called
public interest" groups repre-
senting both points of view on
non-discrimination. Once we got
caught in a Crossfire between two
special interest groups, both sup
porting non-discrimination whole
heartedly. One group suspected
that we must be discriminating,
since we kept records of the ten
ants race; they had frequently
asked for the statistics but
thought it discriminating to keep
records to provide these statistics.
The other group suggested that
we should maintain definite pro-
portions of minority groups, in
Guiding Negroes; they objected to
calling it a quota" system but
said that a conscious effort
should be made to secure hetero-