Box 15, Folder 3, Document 74

Box 15, Folder 3, Document 74

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| HIN 37 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING
| Serra ti | AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
i 3 WASHINGTON D.C. 20410

HUD No. 69-0321 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Phone: (202) 755-7327 Monday, April 28, 1969

SECRETARY ROMNEY'S STATEMENT ON MODEL CITIES
The Model Cities program is an ambitious effort. It seeks to
coordinate a vast array of Federal programs, to concentrate their
impact on specific depressed urban neighborhoods, and to make local
governments stronger and more flexible.
My Committee on Model Cities of the Council for Urban Affairs
has been intensively examining the program. Its study has shown
that the program's goals are sound, but that there have been critical
deficiencies in its administration which call for immediate correction.
Among them:
-- Federal agencies have not been sufficiently responsive
to local proposals reflecting specific local conditions.
-- In developing their proposals, local authorities have
been hindered by uncertainty as to the amounts of funds
that would be available from the Federal departments.
-- Few effective attempts have been made to secure the
involvement of State governments.
-- Federal guidelines have forced cities to set "model
neighborhood" boundaries that often have been arbitrary,

and that have created unnecessary divisions among Model

Cities residents.
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The President has approved the recommendations of the Urban

Affairs Council that the Model Cities program be revised in the

following important respects:

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The Council for Urban Affairs will assume direct responsi-
bility for inter-departmental policy affecting Model Cities.
Secretaries of the departments involved will have

personal supervision of their departments' funding

of Model Cities proposals, and will reserve program

funds specifically for that purpose. This will

ensure the availability of departmental funds for

Model Cities, and will give local authorities a

better idea of the amount and kind of funds they can
expect from the various departments for their

Model Cities plans.

Administration of the program will be fed into the
reorganization of the regional Federal offices,

now underway. One effect of this will be to facili-

tate inter-departmental coordination at the regional
level. In the past, Yatiecisis among the Federal

offices in program procedures, headquarters locations,

and structures of authority, have handicapped well-
intentioned Federal officials and confused local

officials, thus seriously compromising the Model Cities

. program at the city level.

Greater efforts will be made to involve the State

governments in the Model Cities program. Lack of
7.

State involvement has proven a critical deficiency
because anny of the Federal funds needed for Model .
Cities are administered through State agencies. Our

aim will not be to add another administrative layer
between the cities and the Federal Government, but to
make better use of the States' resources, experience

and perspective. Model Cities is intended to be and

will remain a local government program centered upon

the Mayor's office with a continued requirement for
adequate citizen involvement.

The 10% population restriction on the size of the target
neighborhoods will be dropped. This guideline has been
administered haphazardly in the past and has hindered
progress at the local level. Eliminating this guideline
does not mean that the program will be expanded citywide
within each city. Its purpose will remain that of focusing
resources on particularly poor and blighted neighborhoods,
but local officials will be given greater latitude in
drawing program boundaries that conform to local conditions.
Priority consideration will be given to those cities that
successfully enlist the participation of private and
voluntary organizations in their Model Cities plans. The
increased flexibility in establishing program boundaries
will make it easier for these organizations to contribute.
Local governments will be asked to establish clear

priorities in developing their Model Cities proposals,





a — al 2 ey . ~
and to strive for "comprehensiveness" only in the
programs' five-year planning cycle. Many cities have
interpreted Model Cities legislation and administrative
guidelines requiring a local "comprehensive" plan of
attack on blight and poverty in their target neighbor-
hoods as requiring proposals to immediately attack
every conceivable problem within these neighborhoods.
This obviously would be unworkable; what is important ©
is that city governments set clear priorities for
attacking their problems so that they can make rapid
and substantial progress toward solving their most
urgent, rather than dissipating their resources in a
vain effort to solve all. This Administration will

completely scrutinize applications to eliminate unwise

or unnecessary proposals.

With these revisions, I feel that the Model Cities program can
help us to achieve two important goals -- a more rational and
creative Federal-State-local system, and city governments that are
more flexible and responsive to the needs of their citizens. We
must realize that elimination of blight and poverty in our central
cities cannot be accomplished overnight. It will be a hard and
often frustrating struggle, but Model Cities does offer us the means
of better using our present resources, and thus taking an important

step in that direction.