(The following speech was given by Noel Burtenshaw, Archdiocesan chancellor, to the Atlanta Metropolitan Christian Council last week.)

It was the poet Bacon who said:

“Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity except where both may be had.”

The loud cry around our nation today is for good housing where people can begin to live. To say that good housing is merely a roof over one’s head is a positive fallacy. Good housing is a promise of equality and a guarantee of a decent and honorable place in society. To provide it, we have gone to great lengths. All our twentieth century ingenuity has gone into programs which we have now perfected and into which we have poured our tax dollar. But still it is not enough, still the need exists, still the poor must be housed. The programs still await implementation.

When we speak of public housing, we are referring to low rent projects. Public housing began in our city thirty-four years ago with the building of the Techwood Project. Today in Metropolitan Atlanta there are 14,000 units completed, housing approximately 42,000 people. A further 3,500 applications are listed with the Housing Authority. Many more needing to be housed come to our area daily; others must be content to exist in sub-standard housing. There simply is not enough to go around. While the Housing Authority can be criticized for their efforts over the years, they are attempting to battle the situation today and are demonstrating methods which are available to us to join that battle.

Housing is a desperate human need which our ingenuity can provide if our Christian philosophy is put to work, if we put dormant ideas into action.

There are three kinds of public low rent housing:

1. Conventional: constructed and rented by local authorities.

2. Turnkey Projects: constructed by private builders for sale to the local authority.

3. Leasing Techniques: approaches taken by local authorities to lease existing houses for occupancy by low income tenants.

But these are not the only kinds of housing projects available. The challenge was put on the line for us by the Federal Housing Authority in 1959 when Congress passed the Housing Act authorizing a program whereby nonprofit organizations could be recipients of one hundred percent loans to provide housing for the aged and the handicapped. In 1961 the program was extended providing a panorama of programs for low and moderate income families. Financing for these programs became available at very low interest rates. The federal authorities and our legislators had at long last seen the need and the decision to act was made. It was a good decision; one that has endless potential for good, one that ultimately can give our society the balance and the order that justice demands.

The Government placed the problem exactly where the response should have been the greatest - on the shoulders of nonprofit groups. It would now test the metal of big business and industry - too long bathing in the exclusive sunshine of profit. But the expectation from business was mild when compared to what would be expected from the churches. Across the nation, the churches were offered the tools that would enable them not only to tear down the hideous hovels of poverty, but also to build up villages of hope. The expectation became an isolated dream, for not only was the response weak, but the national ecclesiastical understanding was atrocious. The road ahead is long and has yet to be tackled by the respectable congregations of our Sabbath-filled edifices.

To understand the problem of housing is to understand the human needs of the have-nots, the poor. A house is not merely a roof over the head and four walls to keep the wind out. It is a chance to live, to breathe fresh air, to be an owner, to see trees and other things grow, to be proud of a community, to be devoid of any stigma of inferiority. When we think of public housing, we immediately think “black” and we think “inner-city.” That’s where the rest of us can run to leave them huddled in their asphalt prisons of eventual poverty and inevitable crime. There are practical steps which can be taken by us, the Churches, to stop the torrent and they are steps that must be taken soon!

The concentration of the Churches should be on changing attitudes and preparing the recipient for his new dwelling. The attitudes which must be changed are those of society - our own congregations, who are too often ready to condemn all low cost housing to the downtown areas of our cities. On the pretext that values are destroyed, human beings are penalized and cities and businesses become potential targets for destruction. Our zoning laws, set up to protect citizens’ rights, become wedges of denial and stages for political prima donna voices. Why can’t poor and rich live together in suburbia? They can - if attitudes of good will are formed and the Gospel comes alive in our congregations. Why should we battle each other on overcrowded highways each day - some rushing to the business houses of the city, others being ferried to suburbia to work. Why can’t we live where we work if we so desire. There is no reasonable rejection of this logical plan. The one obstacle is zoning, and this must be changed by changing attitudes. We saw recently how 200 units of housing for the poor in Red Oak, which had received financing from the federal authorities, were contested because of attitudes of fear which, unfortunately, received encouragement from political voices. To keep the poor tied to an inner-city is defeating the purpose of decent housing and the hope of peaceful coexistence.

Churches must also prepare the new homemaker to improve the quality of his life. Just to put the ingredients of a house together is not enough. We must be ready with programs in sociology and education which are most necessary to a people so long deprived of the life-standard we take for granted. The Housing Authority of our own city is pained because of the treatment new housing receives at the hands of a tenant. A brand new project can soon become a slum because of simple ignorance. If property values are lowered - and is not this the great fear - when the poor move in, then something is wrong, not with the tenants, but with us and our mission. Ignorance must be eliminated by education and proper living conditions must be demonstrated by good social programs. This is a worthwhile challenge to the Christian conscience of our many congregations, the silent majority in our pews. Both desperately need our attention. To sponsor a project is one thing; to open a new way of life is another. In searching for a solution to the urban problem, surely this is worth our consideration.

In looking at low-income projects now existing in Metropolitan Atlanta, what do we see. They are seventy-five percent black; seventy-one percent have women as head of the home and so, the stringed key around the neck of the child remains a tragic fact perpetuated in our community. Good family life, the cradle of Christianity remains beyond our grasp and we end up accepting a partitioned society - poor against rich, white against black - that inevitably breathes lawless frustration and wasted lives. We must act now to rid the nation of this poison.

The Great Society was a tag associated with an administration now gone. But this is a tag that can be rightly attributed to this nation at any time. We are a great society; we have the ability and we have the means. The programs are there waiting to be implemented. The good will, the concern, the sanity needed to give us the peaceful coexistence that we all crave, alone alludes us. Before too much pain is suffered, let us do what is necessary, let us challenge the conscience of our people, let us knit together the “one nation” of our sacred pledge. Let us do what is right, remembering the words of the Psalmist: “Unless the Lord builds the house. They labor in vain who build it.”