Box 5, Folder 9, Document 8

Box 5, Folder 9, Document 8

AN EDITORIAL OPINION ........

January 2, 1969

VIEWPOINT - An official expression of the editorial opinion of
the management of WSB Television.

“Who is my neighbor?"

If you live in Atlanta, here's a modern day answer to
that 2,000 year old question.

These are your neighbors.

Some live in these homes because they are lazy; some
because they don't know any better; but most because there is
Simply no other place to live in this city of a million.

For too long, most of us have passed by our slum
neighbors on the other side of the road.

But the good Samaritans are among us today, too.

In 1966, Mayor Ailen set a goal - almost 17,000 new
housing units in the next five years. It was a modest goal -
actually aimed only at keeping us about even in the fight
against rotten housing.

Since then, Atlanta architect Cecil Alexander has
sacrificed much of his own profit-making time as a non-paid
chairman of the Mayor's Housing Resources Committee. And
Malcolm Jones, a retired Army Colonel, has been the full-time
working head of the big housing push. At the’end of the first
two years, the program is amazingly "on schedule".

Except in one important area:

The city is 4,000 units behind in the goal “sr public
housing.

Behind in the very area where the need is greatest,
where this family must live --in new units that can be rented
or purchased at $30 to $50 per month.

Of all the units built or started since 1966, private
enterprise has not been able to build anything to rent or sell
for less than $60 a month. That is not to say that private
builders have not tried. They have done a fine job. But the
high cost of land and labor and zoning problems have effectively
prevented the building of truly low cost housing.

That means that our government, which is another way
of saying you and I, is apparently the only Samaritan who can
change the life of a boy like this.

ttt

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