Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Message to the Congress Transmitting First Annual Report of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

April 17, 1967

To the Congress of the United States:

I am pleased to transmit the 1965 Annual Report of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The year 1965 was a milestone in the history of America's effort to provide decent housing for its citizens and to improve the quality of urban life. It saw not only the creation of the new Department, but the passage of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965.

The Housing and Urban Development Act provided the new Department with powerful tools.

The Congress has since supplied others:

--The Model Cities program, making possible the coordination and concentration of Federal, State and local efforts for the physical and social rehabilitation of deteriorating neighborhoods.

--Funding for the Rent Supplement Program.

--Authorization for the Federal National Mortgage Association to purchase an additional $3.7 billion in home mortgages to help meet the shortage of mortgage funds.

--An additional two-year authorization for the urban mass transportation program.

In addition to reorganizing five separate, semi-autonomous agencies into a single cohesive organization, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has begun the work for which it was created.

Since it commenced operations on November 9, 1965, the Department has:

--Begun the Model Cities program, inspiring hope and generating a commitment to excellence as American cities plan their attack on urban blight.

--Approved grants for the construction of 71 Neighborhood Centers in low-income areas, bringing services to those who need them most. At the same time it has joined with other Departments and Agencies to develop a 14-city pilot program of multiservice Neighborhood Centers which will bring together a wide range of Federal, State and local services.

--Enabled hundreds of poor people to live in decent privately-owned housing under the new Rent Supplement program.

--Moved about 600,000 persons into low-rent public housing.

--Initiated a new "turnkey" 'program to lower costs and speed construction of low-income public housing by permitting private industry to build houses for sale to local housing authorities.

--Provided better housing for 100,000 college students.

--Made available 8,900 apartment units for elderly persons through loans of $113 million.

--Stimulated the up-grading of older areas in more than 40 cities by approving $53 million in grants for intensive code enforcement.

--Stimulated the rehabilitation of low-income homes through some 2,300 grants totalling $3 million and nearly 800 loans amounting to $4 million.

--Approved an additional 157 urban renewal projects, and increased grant commitments for urban renewal by $931 million.

--Approved more than $400 million in loans, grants and advances to promote more than 1,500 community projects, including mass transit, urban planning, development of water and sewer facilities, and acquisition of open space.

On the occasion of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's first anniversary, Secretary Weaver reported to me: "In just one year, significant strides have been made in program development, Departmental organization, and legislation. This is a Department on the move."

Today, with cities in every State of this Nation planning their assault on urban blight under the Model Cities program, we know that the pace will--as it must--be quickened.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

The White House

April 17, 1967

Note: The report is entitled "Annual Report 1965, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development" (Government Printing Office, 355 pp.).

For the President's remarks on signing the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 and the act establishing the Department of Housing and Urban Development, see 1965 volume, this series, Book II, Items 415, 503.

The message was released at San Antonio, Texas.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Message to the Congress Transmitting First Annual Report of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237576

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