Kemp Preaches Hope to Blacks, Others in Slums

From the imploding slums of urban America to the genteel confines of his spacious Washington office, Jack French Kemp whirs in motion.

The secretary of housing and urban development, an ex-quarterback drawn to an invisible goal line, roams the littered alleys of a North Philadelphia housing project, past defiant graffiti and purported drug dealers warming themselves over torched garbage.

“You can do it!” he exhorts tenants trailing him. “You have to build up hope!”

Even in his office easy chair, he squirms restlessly and repeats his theme: “You’ve got to give people hope! . . . Hope and faith are the most important ingredients in our lives!”

Charms Critics

This voluble white suburban Republican conservative is an unlikely preacher to the inhabitants of what he calls this nation’s Third World. Yet, two months into his tenure, with little substance to match his rhetoric, the 53-year-old Kemp has charmed his natural critics with his heavily symbolic, high-profile appeals to blacks and the poor.

His new admirers hope that Kemp, in his enthusiasm, has raised expectations so high that he will have to deliver significant change or risk being labeled a failure. So far, however, he has proposed no expensive new programs, and the drive to reduce the federal deficit is working against him.

“People want what Jack Kemp is talking about to happen--and will work for it,” said a prominent black leader who asked not to be named. “But they are waiting to see if the rhetoric matches the record.”

So are Kemp’s longtime conservative supporters, who wonder if the man they backed for President in 1988 has abandoned them for the lure of a broader and more promising political coalition.

Robert Woodson, the conservative head of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, described “some fear on the part of conservatives that (Kemp) will make some concessions on social spending and civil rights.” Roy Innis, the conservative chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, has publicly criticized Kemp as insulting Republicans by courting prominent liberals.

“He’s taking a calculated political gamble,” said Robert Hayes, counsel to the National Coalition for the Homeless, who served as Kemp’s tour guide on recent visits to East Coast housing projects.

“If he’s successful, he’s a hero--and he will have radically broadened his political constituency.”

If he fails, Hayes said, “he’ll be finished as a presidential contender.”

Explains His Philosophy

In his verbose, breathless style, Kemp explained in an interview why a lifelong conservative would embrace programs for the poor:

“You know in your life that if you work hard and you’re a good citizen and you drive down the right side of the street and you stop at the signals and you study hard and you mind your mom and dad and you get good grades, stay in school and keep that first job, that you’re not going to be in poverty. I mean, you just know it intuitively.

” . . . What if this is not true for (some) people? What if there is no job at the end of the tunnel? What if education doesn’t lead to anything but unemployment lines? . . . I think government has a responsibility to create (that) climate.”

Kemp’s appointment as HUD secretary neatly married his and the Bush Administration’s interests.

The White House wanted to attract minorities and Democrats by striking at problems in the cities--”the new political frontier” for the party, as described by a senior aide to the President.

Record in Congress

And Kemp, who in his 18 years in Congress had pushed with little success for new approaches to easing urban poverty--tenant ownership of housing projects, for example, and enterprise zones with tax breaks to lure businesses to distressed areas--was ripe for a job in which he could put his theories to work.

From the beginning, Kemp moved to jump-start the housing agency with an enthusiasm that contrasted with the style of his predecessor, Samuel R. Pierce Jr., nicknamed “Silent Sam” for his acquiescence to HUD budget cuts under President Ronald Reagan.

In an opening first move that has become legend for its symbolic appeal, Kemp ordered the lights turned up in the building’s dim offices. He took the oath of office in the agency’s cafeteria. He praised HUD’s beleaguered bureaucrats in his swearing-in speech and stayed after the ceremony to shake hands with hundreds of employees.

Through Bleak Territory

And he took his show on the road, traveling from the ghettos of Atlanta to the low-rent district of Baltimore to the row houses of Philadelphia. Openly exploiting symbolism, he led a small crew of aides through the bleak territory like the quarterback he once was.

Kemp, who spent 13 years in pro football before winning a seat in Congress, explained that he wanted to “give people a message.” He insists he is riding an unprecedented wave of interest in issues now in his domain--homelessness, need for low-income housing, urban development and home ownership.

And, as if those concerns were not enough to keep him busy, he vowed at an NAACP breakfast in Baltimore that HUD would become the aggressor in a furious attack on racial discrimination.

“Phase 2 of the civil rights struggle in America is for decent and affordable housing, homes and home ownership and jobs and economic development and fair housing and education and giving people those tools that everyone needs in order to advance up that ladder of opportunity,” he said.

“The Constitution of the United States was written for every single one of us. . . . Those (words) were not written just for white people. They were written for all people.”

Kemp acknowledges openly that he has tailored his first months toward demonstrating a commitment to the poor, blacks and other minorities. In virtually every address, he quotes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Tour of King Center

Kemp traveled to Atlanta, once the seat of the civil rights movement, on the day after his swearing-in. He visited needy areas with Mayor Andrew Young and toured the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-violent Social Change. He spent the night at Pascal’s, a hotel that once was the sole meeting place for blacks and whites in segregated Atlanta.

“I think the Republican Party has to show folks--minorities in particular--that it is going to be a civil rights party, and this is a country of civil rights and human rights and equal rights and voting rights and legal rights and opportunity,” said Kemp, whose office is decorated with a King poster and a bust of Abraham Lincoln.

Changes His Mind

On his first night in Atlanta, at a private dinner with King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, and others, Kemp explained that he first voted against making King’s birthday a federal holiday but changed his mind after reading and rereading King’s speeches.

“I was so moved at how he literally poured out himself,” said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a former civil rights activist who was present at the dinner.

But Kemp’s populist emphasis has set off uncomfortable rumblings at the conservative end of the political spectrum. Members of the Conservative Political Action Committee reacted largely with stony silence to a recent Washington speech in which Kemp rebuked the movement’s leaders.

“I’ve always wondered since I was in Congress why the human rights struggle somehow got associated with liberals or the left,” Kemp told the group. “And I give them credit--they championed the cause of many people that needed championing when there were some silent voices all too often on the right.”

Silent Audience

As the audience sat silently, Kemp laughed nervously and added that “everybody”--by implication conservatives--”is going to be heard.”

Kemp insists that, far from compromising his conservative beliefs, he is merely seeking to apply them to the needy.

“I guess it is foreign to some people’s ears to have a conservative Republican talking about waging war on poverty,” Kemp said, brushing off suggestions that a serious rift could develop. “. . . and the ‘war on poverty’ I guess to some people sounds like Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. . . . I don’t worry about it.”

In other camps, his rhetoric of inclusion and deft use of symbolism have bought Kemp much good will.

‘Heightened Expectations’

Margaret White, a HUD employee for 28 years, called Kemp’s moves “heartwarming” to agency veterans. “There’s a heightened sense of expectations,” she added. “It’s like you’re on the cutting edge. . . . People are beginning to come forth with ideas because they feel (Kemp) will be receptive.”

After eight years under Pierce, advocates of interests that depend on HUD programs praise the new secretary almost rapturously.

Alan Beals, executive director of the National League of Cities, said a recent informal chat between Kemp and top city officials lasted two hours, twice its scheduled length, and left the officials “very encouraged. We certainly haven’t had that kind of approach in the past.”

Don Campbell, chief housing aide to Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), suggested that Kemp’s knowledge of Congress has already made him more of a player than Pierce ever was. “Whether you agree with (Kemp’s) ideas or not, it’s clearly in his interest to accomplish something for housing on his watch,” Campbell said. “He attracts attention to the issue.”

Calls for Action

But can he deliver? “He’s ushered in at least the element of hope,” said Atlanta’s Rep. Lewis. “In the next four to five months, he’s got to get rolling.”

Some initiatives involve little or no cost. In this category, however, Kemp’s announced intention to eliminate the “plague” of drug-selling in housing projects by evicting the violators has drawn fire from the American Civil Liberties Union, which maintains that such evictions would compromise the tenants’ rights.

Most housing programs cost plenty, and the new secretary has yet to propose a significant program or explain how he will surmount tight fiscal constraints. Although he has pointed to public-private partnerships as a way of developing distressed areas and expanding the supply of housing, he has been careful about committing to funding such programs.

Budget pressure has already curtailed some of Kemp’s pet projects. Bush’s fiscal 1990 budget, for example, allowed for 70 enterprise zones. Kemp clearly wanted more.

“Would I like 170?” the secretary said recently. “There’s no secret that I would.”

Costly Program

Kemp also touts a program to turn over management and ownership of public housing projects to poor tenants, but an effort to do just that with Washington’s Kenilworth-Parkside development so far has cost the federal government a hefty $23 million. That amount will be enough to renovate fewer than 500 of the nation’s 1.4 million units of public housing.

Kemp also faces a collision--or at best a compromise--with Congress over legislation to ease the housing crunch. Kemp said he believes a $4.1-billion bill sponsored by Cranston contains “very, very attractive” programs, but he would not say how much money the Administration might be willing to spend.

“I do not want to at this point speculate as to what (the Office of Management and Budget) will go for,” he said. “They will ask the typical OMB questions--how much does it cost, first, and where are you going to get the money, second.”

At a recent breakfast with reporters, Kemp grew testy when pressed about how he would pay for HUD programs. He derided the query as a “shallow little question.”

Makes His Point

“What’s the cost of doing nothing in this country?” he bellowed, pounding the table so hard that silverware flew upward.

Kemp says he will judge his tenure on whether he can double the number of minority-owned businesses, make a “significant dent” in homelessness and “vigorously” enforce fair housing rules.

“I’d like to see Coretta Scott King stand up in four years and say, ‘Hey, Kemp’s made a difference in the lives of our people,’ ” he said. “I’d like to see LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens), at the convention in ‘92, say George Bush and the Bush presidency have . . . made some accomplishments in fighting discrimination against Hispanics.”

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a friend of Kemp’s, worries that he might oversell himself. Yet if Kemp can deliver, he says, he can broaden his base of political support.

“He’s got eight years,” Keene said. “If you were to think of three to four people who could conceivably be a candidate that far off, Jack would.”