Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report of the National Capital Housing Authority.

To the Congress of the United States:

I am pleased to transmit the 1966 Annual Report of the National Capital Housing Authority.

Impressive progress has been made by the Authority. More than 3,200 dwelling units are now being built or planned to provide better homes for low-income families in the District of Columbia.

Imaginative new approaches to provide decent housing are being tested--and with good results.

The first "Turnkey" project in the Nation has recently been completed in Washington--a 343-unit building for low-income elderly families. This technique marshals the full resources of private enterprise:

--To plan a low-cost public housing project.

--To finance its construction.

--To build the project.

After the housing has been completed, it is purchased and maintained by the local housing authority. Washington's "Turnkey" project has shown that this technique can speed housing availability, reduce administrative costs, and improve the quality of housing through the genius of private enterprise.

In addition, the Authority has begun to lease units in privately owned dwellings to meet the immediate housing needs of lowincome families in the District.

Another new program of the Authority is rehabilitating older homes for use by lowincome families. A ten-unit pilot program successfully completed in 1966 forms the basis for a major effort to rehabilitate 240 units in 1967.

The National Capital Housing Authority maintains over 9,000 units of public housing. Still, the need for low-cost housing far exceeds the supply. Many needy applicants face years of waiting before decent housing can be made available. This shortage is complicated by rising construction costs and scarcity of land, making the need for new approaches more urgent.

The complexity of the task which lies ahead must not be allowed to diminish our resolve to make the Nation's Capital a city of which all Americans can be proud. For, as I said last year in my message to the Congress on American Cities, "The prize--cities of spacious beauty and lively promise where men are truly free to determine how they will live--is too rich to be lost because the problems are complex."

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

The White House

April 17, 1967