Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report on National Housing Goals.

To the Congress of the United States:

I herewith transmit the third annual report on national housing goals as required by Section 1603 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968.

This Report, prepared by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, notes the progress toward meeting the Nation's housing needs. Increased housing opportunities have been provided for lower income families through the greatly expanded federally assisted housing programs. Lower interest rates and the increased availability of mortgage capital will permit greatly expanded housing production during the current year.

The Report also makes it quite obvious that we must not be complacent about the progress we have made in the past two years. Several types of problems are emerging. Housing costs continue to rise, pricing many families out of the market for adequate homes. This Administration has taken firm steps to control the inflation in construction costs, but we cannot consider the problem solved.

Other problems highlighted in this Report are equally or more difficult to solve:

• The need to deal with inequities which arise when some families receive subsidies and others do not, the inevitable result of having to allocate scarce resources.

• The need to assure that the effort to meet housing production objectives goes forward in consonance with our deep concern for assuring a desirable overall living environment.

These problems are complex; simplistic solutions will not do the job. This Report raises the problems in a straightforward way so that they can be aired and each of the possible solutions explored openly. Only in this way can realistic answers be found. This Administration is committed to the search for those answers, working in full cooperation with the Congress, private industry, labor and the American people.

I commend this Report to the Congress and to the public as a major step forward in our efforts to meet the housing needs of the American people.

RICHARD NIXON

The White House

June 29, 1971