HUD Chief Kemp, in L.A., Vows U.S. Housing Reform

HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, in a fast-paced series of speeches here, pledged Wednesday to end influence-peddling and cronyism that have diverted scarce federal housing funds from Los Angeles and other cities and announced reforms in a program to modernize dilapidated housing projects nationwide.

Kemp, who has made his forays into downtrodden neighborhoods across the nation a trademark, spoke to a gathering of nearly 1,000 downtown business leaders, met with Mayor Tom Bradley and City Council President John Ferraro, then headed to the innovative Mexican American Opportunity Foundation’s Ford Day Care Center in East Los Angeles.

In what was billed as the first visit ever to East Los Angeles by a secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the ebullient Kemp downed two plates of tortillas and quesadillas, kissed a tiny girl dressed in Mexican regalia and chatted in Spanish with a 4-year-old boy who serenaded him before a crowd of Southern California Latino leaders.

At the gathering, Kemp told reporters that under his new modernization program, funds “will be distributed based upon need, and I’m going to cut out all the political influence that has affected this program in the past.”

Kemp was referring to a congressional inquiry into a $225-million federal housing program, which has revealed that former Reagan Administration officials and other Republicans, including former Interior Secretary James G. Watt, received handsome profits from federal consulting contracts earmarked for rehabilitation of subsidized housing.

Kemp’s aide, Sherrie Rollins, said his new approach will award cities federal grants to fix only 100 apartment units at a time, with each additional group of units requiring a separate grant. Rollins said the method will eliminate huge grants of money that invited wasteful consulting work and were difficult to monitor.

Kemp also praised joint public and private efforts such as the Ford Day Care Center, where community groups have teamed with corporations including Anheuser-Busch to provide disadvantaged preschool and grade school children with state-of-the art personal computers and other innovative educational equipment.

Pledging to fight for legislation that would create special enterprise zones to revive industry and small businesses in areas such as Watts and East Los Angeles, Kemp said, “I will work every waking hour to see to it that we have the kinds of things I see here today.”

He also pledged to give the city’s Housing Authority equal treatment with other cities when federal funds are doled out this year. In the past, Los Angeles has typically received only about $550 per unit to improve its World War II-era housing projects, while other cities received $1,000 to $2,500 per unit.

Citing statistics that he read in The Times on Wednesday, showing that 35,000 Los Angeles residents are homeless and 40,000 are living in garages, Kemp said, “I pledge to Los Angeles and other cities in need that they will receive money based on need and nothing else.”

As part of his strategy to create bipartisan support for his plans, Kemp sought help from Bradley and Ferraro, both Democrats, in a private meeting.

Bradley welcomed Kemp at a packed luncheon of the Central City Assn. of Los Angeles, and praised him for pledging to visit Los Angeles and other cities to rejuvenate flagging federal efforts to tackle the housing crisis.

Last week, a panel appointed by Bradley scored a victory when the City Council approved a far-reaching package of rental housing programs patterned after successful plans in other cities.

“Under the Reagan Administration, there was an 80% reduction in money from HUD for cities (such as Los Angeles), and we were in dire straits,” Bradley said. “True to his word, here (Kemp) is only a few short months after his nomination.”

Bradley cited Kemp’s vocal support for public and private partnerships to create low-rent housing and stimulate inner-city business zones, and his support for extending a temporary federal tax credit for corporations that invest in low-rent housing.

Kemp is also a vocal proponent of nonprofit housing developers, programs to increase home ownership and resident management of public housing projects to rid them of drugs and decay.

Kemp said that, given the increasing difficulty of buying a home in Los Angeles, he and Bradley agreed during their meeting that the Federal Reserve Board must begin easing up on interest rates to allow more Americans to buy homes. He said he personally hopes that the government will adopt changes to encourage personal savings accounts such as IRAs for mortgage money, but noted that “I can’t speak for the Administration on that.”