Evening star., 1960-09-20
Citizen Role Grows
In Urban Renewal
Adums-korgon
Project Cited
As Example
By GEORGE WILSON
Star STAFF Writer

pleugeQ today IL Will SCep up ltS
efforts to get broader citizen
participation in urban renewal
projects.
| In an annual report sub
mitted to the Housing and
Home Finance Agency, the
Office of Urban Renewal said
the kind of citizen participa-
ton eXemplified in the Adams
Morgan project will be ap-
piled to other areas of the city
undergoing some form of urban
renewal activity and ultimately
to the entire CITY,"
In the Adams Morgan sec
ton of Northwest Washington,
the citizens themselves sat
down and discussed the way
to renew their declining neigh
borhood. Ultimately, the citi-
zens voted to rejuVenate the
area under the urban renewal
program, with emphasis on
fixing up salvageable buildings
rather than bulldozing them
away.
The Redevelopment Land
Agency also is emphasizing
citizen participation in its in
dustrial project in Northeast.
| In reviewing the year ending
in August, the urban renewal
office said the District has
made Significant" progress on
its redevelopment effort. Be-
sides the physical progress made
in the Southwest, the District
said, a major achievement
was a great deal more emphasis
on the human element involved
in urban renewal and more real
concern for the element of our
population which inhabits our
blighted and slum areas"
Service Praised
In this connection, the re-
port praised the Welfare De-
partment's Landlord Tenant
Consultant Service to Displaced
Families as IAN effective means
of assisting persons in meeting
changes in their living arrange
mems and in adjusting to the
changing community"
The service helps to relocate
people forced out of their
homes by such District action
as highway construction. 1t is
winding up a siX-month trial.
The Washington Housing AS
Sociation, a private organiza-
ton, has been critical of the
service, contending relocation
should be handled by one au-
thority like the Redevelopment
Land Agency, which finds new
homes for persons displaced by
its slum clearance program.
The issue will be argued again
when the Welfare Department
: asks for money to keep the
Landlord-Tenant ConSultant
Service in operation.
The District estimated in the
two-year period from January,
1860, through December, 1861,
there would be 3,019 families
displaced by these activities:
Urban renewal, 915; highways,
275: code enforcement, 1,165,
and other categories, such as
displacement to make way for
schools, 664.
The displaced families, ac-
cording to the report, will, for
the most part. be relocated in
the area from which they were
displaced" The chief problem.
the District said, is the large
families with low incomes.
There appears to be no Sc
we're problem in housing mi
nority groups merely from the
standpoint of their being a mi
nority group" the District
stated. Many of displaced large
families with low incomes. the
report said, cannot be re-
housed without subsidization
and at present there is no ade-
quate system to handle them"
The District said it is studying
the problem. noting that public
housing cannot fulfill the en-
tire need.
$1,000 Houses Substandard
The problem of finding new
homes for persons displaced by
Government action was cited
by the District as another
major goal for the coming
year" The report said this
immediate objective "is inte-
grated with the long-range
effort to provide decent hous-
ing for the entire city's popula-
ton" The District estimated
there we're $1,000 "or more"
suhstandard houses and 5000
overcroWded ones in the city.
Part of the Districts rede-
velopment effort consists of
trying to conserve areas rather
than let them decline into
slums. A key feature Of this
conservation program is crack
ing down on landlords of houses
which do not come up to legal
ctonHor6c