Evening star., 1961-09-15
By SIDNEY H. WooLNER
Commissioner. Community Facilities Administration

dlSO nave JIle ElSIlb dIlSW6TS
to these two questions: First,
is the home located in an
area that has the public IA
cilities needed for health,
safety and growth; and sec
ond, does the housing meet
the needs of the user?
Community Facilities Ad-
ministration, a constituent
of the Housing and Home
Finance Agency. has impor-
tant responsibilities in an
swering these two questions.
If you have always lived
in the city, you take a great
many amenities for granted.
The streets have been there
for a long time. There is a
water and sewer system. Gas,
electricity and telephones are
Immediately available. The
hospitals and schools have
been built. There are fire
men and policemen and all
the paraphenalia of local
Government. To be sure, you
must pay for these facilities,
but a large part Of the in
veStment was made long ago
and was paid for by an ear
lier generation.
Urban Exodus
If you have lived in the
country, or have Just moved
there to get away from the
crowded city, things are quite
different. Fewer services we're
needed as long as population
density was low. But in re-
cent years, city people have
been flooding the country
side, changing our once open
spaces into continuous belts
of suburbs.
When people fled the sub
urbs, they hoped to escape
the tax burdens and conges-
ton of the old central city,
but they were doomed to
disappointment The new
suburbs suddenly needed a
lot of public facilities like
those long in existence in
the cities. But the cities had
built theirs over a long pc
riod of time, and had built
them when prices were lower.
The new suburbs had to
build theirs in a great hurry
and at current prices.
AS population grows and
spreads, and as industry
moves further out, we place
greater demand on our wa
ter supplies. We need more
than ever before, but all too
often we pollute our sources
of supply by discharging in
dustrial waste and untreated
sewage into our streams. We
rely on septic tanks and cess
pools only to find that they
contaminate individual wells.
Local Governments and
other public bodies have to
find the money to pay for
these facilities and services.
Usually they do this by SELL
ing bonds, which they repay
over a period Of years from
general tax income or from
the revenue produced by the
new facility.
cEA ProsramS
Community Facilities has.
two programs that help local
Governments finance the
public facilities they need.
One is Advances for Public
Works Planning. These ad-
vances are interest = free.
They are repaid when con-
struction begins. They make
it possible for a local Gov
ernment to draw up the
plans Off a needed public
facility.
The advances for planning
break into what would other
wise often be a vicious circle.
Frequently a munity
would be able to borrow the
money for a needed public
work if it had the plans, but
it cannot get the planning
money until it has the plans
to show prospective investors
or to the voters who must
approve a bond issue.
The planning advance gets
the project under way. Since
1946 Community Facilities
Administration has made
more than 9.400 planning
advances totaling over $100
million. These have resulted
in the construction of public
works that cost two and
three quarter billion dollars.
borrowed almost entirely
from private investors.
1t is a fair assumption
that few of the needed IA
cilities would have been built
without the advances, since
they are made only when
planning money is available
nowhere else.
Another Aid
Our second form of aid is
our Public Facility Loan
program.
Generally, a community is