Rents & Rats

It is clear by now that the 90th Congress is in no mood to attack the urban crisis. Thus the 90th probably reached its high-water mark last week on aid to the beleaguered cities: the Senate gave President Johnson most of the money he requested for model cities and rent supplements, while the House of Representatives reversed itself to give belated approval to a two-year, $40 million rat-control measure.

The model-cities and rent-supplement bills are, in fact, the heart of the Administration's cities program. Model cities would concentrate money in selected, hard-core poverty areas, forcing municipal governments to look at a poor neighborhood's problems in their totality. Recognizing that new housing will do little good if everything else in a neighborhood yells poverty, the bill would also provide for the upgrading of schools and such amenities as more frequent garbage collection. Though the Senate cut $125 million from Johnson's request, it still provided $300 million more (for a total of $537 million) than the House, where a revived rural Republican-Southern Democratic coalition is the main roadblock to greater aid for the cities.

Grudging Approval. Rent supplements, for which the Senate last week provided the full $40 million Johnson asked, had been killed entirely by the House. Already in limited operation, the program subsidizes part of the rent of poor families (they must pay 25% of their income) in private projects and represents an imaginative approach toward meeting the acute shortage of low-rent housing. Business support persuaded several Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, to vote for the program, and may change a few votes in the House when the measure is returned from a Senate-House conference committee.

If the grudging approval the House gave the rat-control bill is any indication, however, both model cities and rent supplements are still in serious trouble; the House may simply refuse to split the difference with the more generous Senate, as is the usual custom. Deeply embarrassed by editorial reaction to the loutish ribaldry that accompanied the vote against the rat bill in July, some Republicans realized that they had bought themselves a huge political liability--who wants to be for rats and against children?--and welcomed a recount. But there is little indication that the House has, in fact, changed its mind on helping the cities. "There is no change in the House of Representatives' attitude," said G.O.P. Minority Leader Gerald Ford. "The House Republicans are going to continue to insist on substantial savings in all domestic programs."

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