Urban Development Action Grant Program Remarks at a White House Reception Commemorating the Second Anniversary of the Program.

MR. WATSON. It's a great pleasure to welcome all of you to the White House.

As I look around the room, I feel as though this is Old Home Week, because there are so many familiar faces here who've worked so hard on what we are here to celebrate. And I will say only with this one remark, because it will be underscored by several of the people on the platform, including the President, who will arrive shortly, we're here today, very pleased that you can join us, quite simply to celebrate a spectacularly successful program in which the Federal Government and local governments and the private sector all over this Nation have been participating now for 2 years.

It's my great personal pleasure and privilege to present to you the distinguished former Secretary of HUD, present Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, the shy, the retiring— [laughter] the demure Patricia Harris.

SECRETARY HARRIS. My distinguished colleagues, my particularly distinguished successor at HUD, all my friends:

This really, you know—it's Old Home Week to be here.

Jack, many a true word is spoken in jest. Simply because you don't know that you were accurately describing me doesn't mean that you weren't. [Laughter]

I particularly wanted to be here today, because I wanted to go back a bit in history. The former Secretary of State entitled his autobiography "Present at the Creation?' And there are few of us in this room who were present at the creation of UDAG, and I'm not sure that many people know the story of how the UDAG started, and I want to be sure that you hear it today.

Before there was an inauguration, before there was a Jay Janis or Bob Embry or even a Larry Simons at HUD, in fact, before there was a Pat Harris at HUD, but after the President said, "Pat, I'd like you to do this," I asked a group of people to join me at my former law firm and talk about where we were going in the area of community development.

I was initially very conservative. And I said, instead of changing the way in which we distributed funds under the Community Development Block Grant formula, we ought to ask for a 1-year extension. And those three conservative characters, who are still at HUD, demure and quiet Carl Riedy, shy Ron Gatton, and quiet, agreeable Deputy Assistant Secretary Garrison, were in the room that day, and they, along with Chuck Edison, said to me, "We can do some very good things."

And they started talking about the formula for the distribution of Community Development Block Grant funds, and they started talking about a discretionary program whose purpose was to do something we all agreed we wanted to do as part of the Carter administration—give maximum discretion to the cities on how they revitalize their cities, to maintain standards for the expenditure of Federal funds, but allow the widest discretion to the cities, and finally, to bring in the private sector to aid in the development of cities in a way that would keep the private sector there, but more importantly, would have the private sector there at the beginning.

They discussed these ideas with me, and I said, "Go ye forth and till the earth and sow the seeds." Well, a lot of things happened. We had discussions with the: OMB, but the President's wisdom prevailed. [Laughter] And we were able to go to the Congress with a plan that some people in Congress questioned. And a few people wanted to know if this wasn't too much discretion for Democratic HUD Secretaries, because after all, everybody' knew HUD Secretaries were the same-Democrats or Republican. They had forgotten. And we got the UDAG.

The seed was planted, and what a harvest it's been: nearly 500 projects approved, nearly a billion dollars in grants awarded, nearly a quarter of a million permanent jobs created, more than $5 1/2 billion in private sector commitments— $5 1/2 billion, I remind you—to distressed cities, stronger local tax bases, and growing confidence in our cities. That's what the Carter administration brought to the cities; that was a Carter administration creation.

And for those who tell you that an administration cannot plan what it wants to do and bring that plan to fruition, today's celebration of the anniversary of the UDAG proves that they are wrong. We can plan; that's what the Carter administration has demonstrated here. And as I've said so many times in recent weeks, you ain't seen nothin' yet in terms of the future.

And one of the reasons you ain't seen nothin' yet is the distinguished Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Moon Landrieu. Moon.

SECRETARY LANDRIEU. I am what they say in vaudeville is a straight man. I speak between Pat Harris and the President of the United States for as many minutes as it takes. [Laughter] So, in a few moments I expect the President to be here.

I just came from a luncheon over at the Federal City Council, which is a group of businessmen, politicians, citizens interested in the city of Washington, D.C., as a place to live, as distinguished from the seat of government. And Mrs. Katherine Graham was the principal speaker and gave a fascinating talk on the beginning of that council, which, she pointed out, started back in 1954 as a thought of her husband's, the late Philip Graham, who, being devoted to Washington and being concerned about what he saw as a deterioration of a great city, began a series of articles in the Washington Post which began to search for ideas and for analysis of what was happening to Washington, D.C., and perhaps all cities in the United States. It just so happens that today marked the 25th anniversary of the beginning of that effort.

And it occurred to me that many people were in the field of concern about urban America a long, long time before I ever came on the scene in the early 1970's and late 1960's. And it also occurred to me that it took some 10 years from that point—and I don't mark that as necessarily the very beginning of the effort, but at least of one effort in one city—that it took until 1965 to organize the Department of HUD, which was the first formal recognition, the first gathering together of the resources of this country for an all out effort on what was obviously a growing urban problem.

By that time, we had already been into 400 years of physical development and redevelopment of the United States, and we had been a nation for almost 200 years. And yet it took that period of time in which to formalize our concerns in the way of a department dedicated to that purpose. And it actually took another 10 to 12 years before we could formulate a comprehensive urban policy.

There are too many people in this room to thank individually who began that program, and there are too many people in this room who are consulted in the process to thank individually. But it did result in the President of the United States, President Carter, establishing a task force to examine the possibility of creating for the first time a very comprehensive national urban policy, which would not only use the resources of the one department that was defined as an urban department but which would also use all the resources of the Federal Government to redevelop the cities of this Nation and the urban centers of this Nation.

And the cornerstone of that policy came out with the funny name of Urban Development Action Grants. And it has performed well beyond, I think, anyone's expectations, not only because it has channeled significant amounts of money into the urban areas but, most importantly, has been the key link in forming the partnership that President Carter so desperately sought between the Federal Government and local governments and between the government itself and the private enterprise system.

It was his belief that the private sector had built this country and that it was certainly capable of rebuilding it if government could create the atmosphere in which the private sector could move and to exercise its ingenuity and its capital and its desires.

And so, we're here today, marking the second anniversary of the founding of that program, and I'm so happy- [At this point, the President entered the East Room.] —happy to join here with so many who brought it about.

THE PRESIDENT. When I heard all of you were in town, I knew that Moon was announcing new UDAG grants today. [Laughter]

It's a real pleasure for a President to meet with a group who have formed an effective partnership in dealing with some of the most serious problems of our country, and I emphasize the word "successful." Sometimes an idea or a dream or a determined effort—many times those concepts are not realized. And there is a building up of hope and expectation and a forming of a partnership, the delineation of a plan, an effort through Congress, a bill is passed, money is appropriated, and then there's an embarrassed realization that the idea was not a good one. This is not the case.

In 1975 and 1976, I traveled around this country as a candidate, and there were several serious problems that I detected. I would say that one of the most persistent problems was the realization in our urban areas, our cities, our downtown central cities that their prospects for a good life or even survival was not good. This was a concept or belief that permeated our country. It was most highly publicized in New York City, but at the time of the shock of the New York City financial problem announcement, there was a general feeling around the country that "this could happen in my city next."

We began to evolve this program—Pat Harris, Bob Embry, many others that I won't name now—to try to deal with that problem, because we realized, first of all, that there was not an adequate consultation between labor, business, private investors, county officials, mayors, Governors, Members of Congress, administration officials, or the President, that there was no way to share the problem and, in effect, share the probing for a solution. But we formed one, and the outcome has been, I think, very good.

The Urban Policy Group has functioned well. Some of you in this room have been here to Washington, have been in the Cabinet Room, have been in the Oval Office 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 times as we've tried to hammer out a solution to serious problems in our urban areas.

The Urban Development Action Grants, UDAG program, has been the centerpiece of what we proposed. It's new, it's innovative. And we also recognized that there would not be enough Federal money to solve the problem, but we also saw that there were many potential investments that would restore the spirit of a community and keep the responsibility where it ought to be—the people who had to pay for and administer and benefit from a major project. The ratio between Federal moneys and private investments had been about 6 to 1, as you well know, and the results have been notable.

There is no more a feeling of isolation or despair or hopelessness or alienation from the Federal Government—quote, "from the Federal Government." I believe that mayors, county officials, local officials from all over the country now feel that there is an open reception here for you and for those that you represent. I think there's a new sense of enthusiasm.

I do some traveling still since I've been in the White House. I was in Chicago recently; I was in Kansas City recently; I was in New York City recently; Hartford, Connecticut, recently; and smaller towns as well. And I don't get the complaints that I used to get, and that's, in itself, gratifying.

There has been, in addition, an effort, because of your instigation, to bring good people into the Government. I can't say that there haven't always been good people occupying the same positions; I'm not criticizing others. But we've got in the Department of Housing and Urban Development-brought in by Pat, now with Moon Landrieu—a collection of people who understand the problems of the urban areas and who know what it means to be faced with a serious challenge and who know what it means to resolve a problem. We've got more mayors in the President's Cabinet now than we had all put together in the last 50 years, and I think that's a great achievement in itself.

I've been determined that the urban centers would, in the future, be the backbone of the social and economic structure of our country and not the Achilles heel which it has been in the past. We've moved on a broad front: CETA programs, we've doubled them; youth programs, we've added 70 percent; education programs, 60 percent in funding from the Federal Government. But in urban development, with UDAG and EDA, we have increased these commitments 3,000 percent. We're now putting 30 times as much effort and financing into the reconstitution of our urban areas as had been the case before, and it's paid rich dividends. It's let us know what could be done in housing, in social programs, in health, in education, in transportation.

As we've gone into these projects and investigated them, we've learned a lot about the community. There hasn't been a chasm that we couldn't cross. We've been there on the street, in the alleys, looking at homes, looking at people who had to be moved and where they wanted to be moved to and how they wanted to be treated. And we've learned in the process to make government, on a daily basis, much more responsible, much more responsive, much more knowledgeable about the people that we were trying to serve.

In the last 2 years, I think, we've had about $6 billion in programs. In 1980 we are asking for another $6 billion program that will engender 400,000 jobs in the private sector. Here, again, about onesixth of the money will come from the Government itself.

Another thing that we've tried to do is to not eliminate private initiative. The initiative is yours, whether you're a mayor or county official or whether you don't hold public office. The initiative is yours. We're trying to help. And the applications don't get bogged down in interminable redtape and delay. We try to have a turnaround time, between when we get an application and when we give an answer, 60 days. And I think it's a rare occasion when people have to wait 90 days, is it not, Pat? That's extraordinary for the Government to do that way, and I say this not to congratulate myself, but to tell you that we've got people here eager to work with you, and they've been successful in it.

I might say in summary float this coming year, 1980-we're already in it—we're asking for a 70-percent increase in this program and we're trying to focus it on pockets of poverty that exist within communities that are, basically and on the average, healthy. And we've increased the percentage that the conference committee reports are accepting up to 20 percent that Call be derived from UDAG. We want to do even better in the future.

And I said earlier. I hadn't recognized all the people involved. Pat and Bob did help, but the basic concepts that I have tried to pursue as President came from officials who have served for a long time on the firing line.

And I'd like to call now on the clean of those local officials, a good friend of mine, the mayor of Milwaukee, Henry Maier, who has served in his difficult job -it's become easier. I think, the longer he's been there since 1960. He organized the Conference of Democratic Mayors. He's been the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

And in 1973 and 1976, because of his consultations and the trust that others had in him, he put together—Henry did—a kind of a picture of what the Federal Government ought to do in a comprehensive urban policy, and we have basically adopted what he and many of you that I see in this room have put together. And that's been the Government program-the program that we got from local officials. That's the way it ought to work, in my opinion.

And I'm very grateful to call now the mayor of Milwaukee, my friend.

MAYOR MAIER. Mr. President, I am overwhelmed. I thank you very much for those very kind words. Senator Williams and Representative Ashley, our very good friends, and our other good congressional friends, whom I want to thank very much -who are here today—for all the help you've given us, and Secretary Harris and Secretary Landrieu, and distinguished audience:

I am greatly honored to speak as a mayor on this milestone occasion, and I'm particularly grateful, because I recall the days when an official national urban policy was .just a dream. And as the first president of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors in 1974. I was in the long effort to spell out a first national urban policy statement to give our cities a top priority on the national agenda.

And I recall very vividly the day some 3 years ago in New York when you appeared, Mr. President. and you appeared with the other Presidential candidates before a panel of Democratic mayors in a conference that I chaired. And that day you pledged to support and actively work for a national urban policy, and you also pledged that, as President, you would institute a White House open-door policy for the mayors of America. And further, you promised that programs and the policies of your administration affecting our Nation's urban areas would be coordinated. And you have kept those promises Mr. President, and we thank you.

And I know the leaders of the Democratic Mayors, fighting mayors like Dick Hatcher of Gary, Indiana, and Coleman Young of Detroit and Maynard Jackson, our present president of the Democratic Mayors, Bill McNichols of Denver and Kevin White of Boston, Neil Goldschmidt of Portland and Moon Landrieu of New Orleans—once a mayor, always a mayor- [laughter] —and my very good friend Lee Alexander, who is vice president of the Democratic Mayors, will be president next year, and is past president of the United States Conference of Mayors—these men were the men who held the eight regional hearings throughout the country in which we received testimony related to our national urban policy.

And I would say, Mr. President, that you have exceeded your pledges to the mayors of America. Your very recent appointments of our good friends and fellow mayors, Secretary Landrieu and Secretary Goldschmidt, reflect a true commitment to urban America in the full implementation of your national urban policy.

Now, I'll admit, Mr. President, that the policy that we formulated and was entered in this document, in which these gentlemen's pictures are also present, was a little, perhaps, exaggerated, and you probably couldn't agree with all of it. But the mayors have instructed me to inform Secretary Landrieu and Secretary Goldschmidt that we fully expect them to effectuate that policy. [Laughter] And I know I speak for my fellow Democratic mayors when I commend you and thank you for keeping the pledges and keeping the faith.

And in very concrete terms, the Urban Development Action Grant component of your national urban policy is giving our cities a basic new life in the area where our hugest tax base was in a state of decline. In Milwaukee our original UDAG grant for our downtown shopping mall was based upon an anticipated ,$60 million in private investment. And we have already now exceeded over $100 million as a result of the spin-offs from our UDAG grant, and we're still climbing.

As you mentioned, Mr. President, it is indeed a blue chip investment, in capital investment and in jobs and in tax dollars. We find that for every. Federal dollar spent, there's a $6.10 private investment, and for every UDAG dollar, an additional 10 cents in property tax revenue. And there isn't another Federal program in existence that has given us these kinds of fiscal tangible results. And I thank you, Mr. President, and f commend you for carrying forward the program.

Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT. As all the Members of the Congress know, and as I know very well and I'm sure all of you realize, we have a very serious conflict, basically between trying to control the Federal budget expenditures, to hold down the deficit, and to help control inflation on the one hand, and to sharply focus direct and expanded benefits when Federal moneys are expended. And this fiscal year 1980 appropriation, which has now been passed through the Congress and through its conference committee, will provide just in the construction area alone 230,000 permanent jobs and 130,000 temporary jobs, in addition to giving people a better life in the communities involved and increasing the hope and the expectation that they can work in harmony, not only with themselves but also with their government. It restores confidence, which I think is very good.

Have the Members of Congress been recognized yet the individuals? All the Members of Congress here that are not on the stage, would you all stand? I think you really deserve a debt of gratitude.

There are many others, obviously, in the Congress who've been in the forefront of this, and those are here today. There are others who couldn't be here, and there are many others who are now claiming credit for the program— [laughter] which is very good and the highest accolade that the program could have.

But I would like to introduce two people now to make remarks, one from the House and one from the Senate, representing a bipartisan group. Since we do have a majority of Democrats, they happen to be Democrats. [Laughter] But I would like to point out that this is really and genuinely a bipartisan program, and I'm grateful for it.

Pete Williams, the Senator from New Jersey, is chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Development. He's been one of those who has helped to initiate the UDAG program and has been in the forefront of housing, urban development long before I became President. I'm very grateful to Pete for not only his help with proposals that I made but also the initiative that he has shown in channeling his own ideas into the administrative process and through Congress, in legislation passed.

I'd like to introduce now, Senator Pete Williams.

SENATOR WILLIAMS. Thank you very much, Mr. President and Secretary Harris, Secretary Landrieu, Mayor Maier, and my colleague here; on the platform, Lud Ashey, and colleagues in the room, ladies and gentlemen:

Everybody here can be called an ally in urban revitalization. It's, of course, a very, very happy anniversary—second anniversary of UDAG—celebration for all of us.

We remember 2 years ago this week that UDAG became law, signaling a new and exciting initiative in urban revitalization, a new partnership between private enterprise and government, designed to deal with one of the most complex problems our society faces, this kind of partnership, which you, Mr. President, have articulated so well in the urban policy initiatives you have presented to Congress that represents the best hope for our distressed cities. And by cities, we don't mean monolithic institutions: we're talking about people.

Mr. President, I can tell you firsthand how much UDAG does mean to people. Earlier this year, I toured Newark's neighborhood improvement program, a UDAG project—by the end of next year, will result in the rehabilitation of 1,500 homes.

Newark had become a classic example of the decline—physical and spiritual of a major city. But my most vivid recollection very recently in Newark is not of rebuilt buildings—and we have a lot of them—but the vividness that comes back to me is being there to observe and to feel, to sense the rebuilding of lives. Resident after resident came to me truly expressing joy. It was an outpouring of gratitude for the help that they have received. And over and over they said that this programer meant the difference between continued wretched living or a life in a wholesome, decent, and, to say it again, joyful environment.

So, Mr. President, I extend to you their thanks. They are representative of people throughout our country that have had this opportunity under UDAG, in cities large and small.

So, there is a new sense of revival and progress for communities that have been plagued by economic decline. Mr. President, as you and Secretary Harris worked so hard to get this program underway, your leadership brought us all together. You can be so very proud of its achievements.

And I want to say, looking ahead, when UDAG comes up for reauthorization next year, I look forward to working with you, with Secretary Landrieu, Lud Ashley, to ensure that this vitally important tool remains available to our communities that need it so much.

THE PRESIDENT. I wish everybody could see the expression on Tom Marsaro's [ See APP Note ] face. Tom, raise your hand. Raise your hand, keep it up.

Tom happens to be the young, very competent man who's in charge of the particular project in Newark—and others, too. And when Pete Williams was describing the effect on the lives of those who live in that reconstituted area of our Nation, it was gratifying to me to see Tom, with genuine pride and gratification, know that he had done a good job. And I thank you and Bob Embry and others, Pat Harris and now Moon Landricu, who have made this project a success.

The Urban Development Action Grants—I would say, of those four words, the most important word is "action"—we don't mess around with the applications or the carrying out of those projects once they get to us. And I think that "action" word exemplifies the political life, the congressional leadership of Lud Ashley.

Perhaps the most difficult legislation which has ever faced the Congress, certainly in my lifetime, was the very complicated, comprehensive energy policy that I proposed to the Congress in April of 1977. We hope that we'll complete it this year. But when the Speaker of the House put together an ad hoc committee, comprised of the leaders of many committees in the House of Representatives, he chose Lud Ashley to head that program. And Lud is more famous, perhaps on a nationwide basis, for having dealt successfully with the energy problem in a very expeditious and effective fashion.

But I think the longest testimony to Lud's effectiveness is in the area of housing and urban development. He cares about people, and he's superb in his ability to conceive legislative programs, to get them passed by Congress, to have them financed, and then to make sure that they do apply to improving the life of a human being. And I'm very grateful at this time to introduce to you Lud Ashley.

REPRESENTATIVE ASHLEY. Well, Mr. President, if I had known I would get such an introduction from you, I promise you, I would have written something down. [Laughter]

I want to take just a moment to say what I feel, which is that President Carter is the first President in the history of the United States that really has had the courage to try to articulate a policy for our cities. And you know that's true, and I know it's true. We know why it's true.

We may as well put it where it is. You know, the reason the Presidents have been a little reluctant to do this is not because they haven't recognized that cities have problems, it's because to try to articulate a policy for the cities exposes you and makes you vulnerable, because 4 years hence you can be held accountable to those strategies that you tried to articulate. Well, I kind of like to have a President that will risk that, and we have that President.

I do have to be absolutely honest with you, Mr. President. It's been my conviction, pretty much since coming to the Congress, that any initiative that comes from the White House is one that in almost every instance can be improved upon by the Congress. You understand that. [Laughter] The marvelous thing about the UDAG program is that that wasn't so. And don't think we didn't look, Mr. President, because we did. [Laughter]

But the reason that it couldn't be really improved upon is because it does combine what my associates, Pete in particular, has touched upon. You know, it starts off with a partnership concept, predicate, and it insists that there be the kind of 6-to-1 leverage that is the usual. It relies primarily on local initiative, nothing from the Federal Government. Nobody's out there saying, do this, do that—not at all. So, it's got the partnership concept, it's got the local initiative, it's got that marvelous feature—from the time of application, if successful, to the time that the pick goes in the ground, is shorter than any program of any government on the face of the Earth. It's absolutely astounding. That was certainly true in Toledo, I'll say that. [Laughter]

But finally—and here again, Pete Williams touched on this—revitalization is something that we all have our ideas about, and that's important. But more important-if possible—more important than the actual rebuilding of a community is the spirit of revitalization—the spirit of revitalization—because that goes on, that's got to live with us day in and day out. When applications are turned down, when they come back the second time, it's got to be the spirit of revitalization and a little knocking on doors and what have you. [Laughter] But it's that spirit of revitalization that I think is absolutely fundamental.

And I say to my people in Toledo, progress doesn't come in quantum leaps. You know, it's got to be regular, it's got to be constant, and, I think, on that basis. And that's why I applaud your administration, because you've given us hope, Mr. President, that we can count on a commitment from the Federal Government, that it won't necessarily come in quantum leaps, but it's going to be there. We can count on it. We can tell our constituents, we can tell our mayors, we can say this Government is committed to the continued progress and revitalization of our cities.

So, thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate it.

MR. WATSON. Thank you. Be seated for just one more moment, please. The President asked me to do something richly deserved, actually two things. I told you this was going to be a celebration. Thank you, Lud Ashley.

I would like for the folks who work in HUD and who specifically comprise the UDAG staff please to stand in your place so that we can applaud you. [Applause]

I'm also pleased to say that the persons that you just saw stand comprise the total UDAG staff. [Laughter] Believe it or not, it's true.

The other point that the President suggested to me that I make is one also worthy of note. Though we're here really to applaud and to congratulate the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and particular staff within that Department for the program we've here been discussing, the fact of the matter is that, as a result of the President's urban policy announced now a year and a half ago, the administration and the Government at large are engaged in a way unprecedented in assessing the direct and indirect impacts and effects of Government actions on cities and towns all over the country.

There are some people in the room whom I simply want to note by name, because they represent, with respect to' their departments, people who are engaged with HUD in this whole urban revitalization, small town economic development effort that we're here to celebrate.

I'm talking about people, in addition to Bob Embry and his staff, such as Larry Simons, the Assistant Secretary for Housing in HUD, Ernie Green, the Assistant Secretary of Labor, Bob Hall, the Assistant Secretary for Economic Development in the Department of Commerce, Barbara Blum, the Deputy Administrator of EPA, Mort Downey, Assistant Secretary at DOT, Alex Mercure, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Rural Development, and others. The Department of the Interior, virtually every domestic agency in this Government, through the Interagency Coordinating Council and through other collaborative efforts, are engaged in this process.

Thank you all very much. We would like to invite you to the State Dining Room for a reception.

Thank you.