Page 8-Tuesday, August 1, 1978-The Michigan Daily
Poor becoming 'urban nomads,'
WASHINGTON (AP) Affluent
families who fled from the inner cities
in the 1960s are moving back into
renovated housing, forcing out poor
residents who are becoming "urban
nomads," the National Urban Coalition
said yesterday.
Some cities are being revitlized by
the return from the suburbs of middle
class homeowners, the report said.
BUT "NEITHER government nor
the private sector is coping promptly
and effectively with the needs, the
frustration and anger of this group of
urban nomads who are being pushed or
priced out of their neighborhoods," said
M. Carl Holman, president of the
coalition.
"If you are an elderly, poor, working
class renter or homeowner who lives in
an area undergoing rehabilitation or in
a suddenly fashionable neighborhood,
you are a prime candidate for
displacement," Holman said.
The study recommended more in-
formation for affected poor families
along with a variety of low cost housing
rehabilitation loans and grants to help
families already in the neighborhood
fix up their own homes.
HOLMAN ALSO CALLED for tax
breaks for poor or elderly residents of
such neighborhoods to keep them from
being taxed out of their homes by rising
property values.
Once individual middle class families
or private developers move into such
neighborhoods and begin restoring old
houses to their former grandeur,
prices, rents and taxes tend to soar as
property values improve, the study
says.
"Private market housing
rehabilitation is occurring in neigh-
borhoods across the country and, where
it occurs, displacement of low to
moderate income residents is a com-
mon, if little understood, problem," the
study concludes.
"IN SOME OF these neighborhoods,
there is rising hostility and tension bet-
study says
ween the old settlers and the vanguard
of middle class 'urban pioneers'," the
coalition said.
Patricia Harris, secretary of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD), said
displacement caused by this kind of
development is similar to that which
occurred when Urban Renewal
programs raised large areas of
decaying inner cities without providing
for the residents.
"Both the coalition and HUD have
the same goal - the revitalization of
our central cities, but not to the
detriment of the current low and
moderate income residents," Harris
said.
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