The Nation - News from Sept. 15, 1987

A U.S. Conference of Mayors’ task force on housing called for a broad federal initiative to renovate and modernize aging public housing and to build new housing for low- and middle-income people at a cost of more than $7 billion a year. “We either do this, or we’re going to be woefully short of housing in this country,” Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, chairman of the panel, said. The proposals will be presented next month to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on housing and urban affairs. The new spending would be in addition to current housing and community development programs.