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NO. 140
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U. S. Oeparltment of Housi"g and UrCian Development
1
OF"ICE 01' THE JISSISTANT SECI'!E'TAAY
FO~ Pue~IC AI'I'AIJ'l.S
Washington, D.C. 20410-4000
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INTRODUCTION
l'd.like to talk to you today about the future of our cities.
have good news of new potentials and possibilities: . American
cities are at a point of rebirth and renewal.
I
We have been to the bottom of the well, and now America's cities
are proving that they're capable of climbing back.
a time. One neighborhoop at a time.
One school at
We are climbing back because now we know what works and what
doesn't. In the past three years, mayors and citizens, business
leaders and federal offibials have identified those strategies
and programs that work, and we have invested our time and money
in them.
PART ONE:
AMERICAN CITIES ARE BEING RENEWED
ExAmples and Principles
Our cities are climbing back because the seeds of opportunity the
Clinton Administration has been planting in the cities are
beginning to sprout.
Our strategy has been simple:
Invest in neighborhoods, in.
housing and in people. Gi'!'e communities the opportunity to help
themselves. Get the private sector to re-engage in urban
communities. This isn't' social welfare redux. This is something
new.
In a moment, I will showyou some examples of places where it's
beginning to happen, but, first, I want to tell you the principles
'ol!hich underlie everything that· we've been doing within President
Clinton's. urban policy. A policy that's been led so effectively
by Vice President Gore.
·y,~ c-~......1 -y~
/--t't-z·,...r-7-
,J:'Y
First, we believe that real solutions t the problems which
plague communities must ~orne from with. those communities
themselves, not from Washington. No o e can possibl~·care more
about a city or its neighborhoods than the people w~o live there.
Community development corporations, locally based churches,
.
neighborhood groups have· shown that they are willing and able
leaders.
Second, urban solutions must reflect and reinforce traditional
values. We not only encourage, we insist upon community values
in our own policies. That means we reward those who work hard,
we remove those who harass and intimidate, we encourage family
and stability.
Third, urban solutions m~st come about not in isolation, but in
partnership with busines·s and market forces. Thirty years ago,
Robert Kennedy said, "To ignore the potential contribution of
private enterprise is to fight the war on poverty with a single
platoon, while great armies are left to stand aside."
,,
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''
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N0.140
~
cit7~~
He was right .. ?Simply pr<i>viding social services
2
not solve
the underlying problems in many of the .wo:est
Bl4siness
opportunities, jobs, incQmes, careers, and futures must "flourish
there.
Finally; perhaps our most important principle: our national
policies must break down the destructive barriers that separate
Americans by race and class. The time to shift toward a more
inclusive, less class- and race-divided country is now. We know
how i f we have the will to do it. We must work to break down
concentrated areas of poverty, develop mixed income communities,
and encourage collaboration between cities and their.supurbs.
From ,·the start of his Ad~inistration, President Clinton. nas
worked to change the role of the federal government in the
cities. Knowing that we must become providers of opport}unity
rather than obstacles of bureaucracy, President Clinton has set
policies which revitalize communities by encouraging private
investment, by cleaning ~p environmental hazards, and by
·
., ·JI'-<-, __.~El2-sting new and existing_ ~?-,nancia~ institutions to provide ·-f)..(
.Jit..:' ~r
capltal/t~t:.e--..tbel'!h=
PART TWO!
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WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED
Three
Pro~rams
that Work
At HUD, we are doing our part to advance the President's new
urban approach by casting off many of the old attitudes'and
orthodoxies. Poverty Incorporated is not our game. Well-meaning
paternalism is not our method. We see ourselves as champions of
opportunity. It is as simple as that. If a community has the
vision, the strength, the ingenious American drive to turn itself
around, then we will move heaven and earth to help that·community
get the tools to create success. It works.
I have seen it work in three of our most hopeful progra~s in the
cities.
These three programs;
Our
Bomeo~erehip
Zones, our
Empowerment Zones and ou;r Publie Housing reforms are different
from the urban programs of the past because each starts with
principles of locally-driven self-improvemeny;~ieh I'~e jHs~
~i:c;:.~asaeel.
A.
D
Homeownerahip Zones
In our homeownership zo~e strategy, cities use a,combination of
funds from HUD and other' sources to reclaim large tract.s of
vacant or blighted land and renovate whole neighborhoods by
building affordable home's. I. don't mean a few affordable homes in
a neighborhood. Cities are actually building whole neighborhoods
of homes. Hundreds of homes which together create a community of
safety, prosperity, jobs, and better schools.
This is one of the important ways we're carrying out President
-
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3
Clinton's national homeownership strategy, a nationwide
public/private partnership to increase homeownership by .eight
·million new homeowners and reach an all time high national
homeownership rate by the end of the decade ..
There is no better way to encourage a multi-class, multi-ethnic
population in the cities, than by creating opportunity in the form
of homeownership. Let me show you how this works:
Take a look at Newark's ·Central Ward. [BEFORE slide] Once a
literal wasteland, broken by riots and the devastation of years
of decay. Now, a neighborhood lives and thrives there.
(AFTER
slide] Eight hundred to~houses have brought homeownership and
new construction and hope.
·
Detroit's Victoria Park, [Aerial slide) not far from the Detroit
River, is a suburban oasis in Detroit's inner city. Here you'll
find 157 new homes, an expansion of the local shopping center, a.
ne·,., police substation and the demolition of many deteriorated and
abandoned structures.
San Antonio.
[BEFORE slide]
For generations, the predominantly
Hispanic families on the West Side of San Antonio have lived on
lots much too small for livable space, and sometimes without
clear titles to the property.
A partnership of the city
administration and community organizations. changed all that
beginning in the late 70's.
Together, [AFTER slide] they built more than 1,000 new, larger
homes on bigger land plots.· Instead of spending their lifetimes,
and sometimes their life savings, paying rent, the residents have
become homeowners for the firs,t time.
In South Central Los Angeles, (BEFORE slide] no new homeownership
subdivision had been built in Watts since the 1950s.
Until now.
(AFTER slide) .A public!Jprivate parti)ership recently built Santa
Ana Pines, a new development that will consist of 82 affordable
to~o~'Tlhomes, and located just a block away from the 21 new singlefamily homes constructed last summer by Habitat for Humanity.
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Let me just_briefly show: you some of the other homeowner,.ship
zones in cities all acro~s the country;
(Cities and Slides)
e
Charlotte Street, South Bronx, B&A;
e
South Bronx NYC, B&A;
~
Brooklyn Nehemiah D~velopment, B&A;
e
Baltimore Sandtown-Winchester, B&A;
e
Pittsburgh B&A;
e
Buffalo, 1 Slide;
Q
Chicago, 1 Slide;
e
Atlanta,. 1 Slide;
e
Houston, 1 Slide;
o
Kansas City, 1 Slide;
g
Tampa -1 Slide.
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5
All these cities-- and others, such as Cleveland ... in these
slides -- are places where homeownership zones have renewed
neighborhoods and the architecture of the new urbanism has helped
-turn these neighborhoods into real communities.
Homeownership
zones are one of the most hopeful trends spurring the recovery of
the cities, a 21st century urban program that undoes the damage
of 1960s urban clearance; by recharging our cities with people,
life, families, children, schools, businesses, and hope.
B.
Empowerment
Zones
So, we start with homes, and then we raise our sights to
neighborhoods and· their economic unde.rpinnings. That's- where our
empowerment strategy be91ins, at places such as this neighborhood
supermarket in Philadelphia's Empowerment Zone [slide]. The
philosophy behind our Empowerment Zones is simple. Pre-sident
Clinton saw distressed C1ommunities and disadvantaged people who
were being left behind. The system wasn't working for them. He
asked the Vice President to search for ways that the federal
government could become partners with institutions and resources
already there.
The Vice President has provided leade.rship a.t a level urban
programs have never had.· Here is what he bas created;
[3 Slides]
Many new plants, attracted by incentives, are
investing in empowerment' zones. In the Detroit zone, for
example, the just-opened Piston Packaging factory has created 40
new jobs. Its owner, D~troit Pistons star Vinnie Johns,on, has
made a commitment to his city. And in the same area, we're
helping organizations like Focus: Hope prepare and trai:n young
adults for the jobs of the future.
(Slide}
Empowerment zones build.on eommunity involvement, as In the
Philadelphia zone, where residents have taken charge by forming
organization called Sea Change to beautify distressed
neighborhoods and create jobs through gardening, landscaping, and
tree farming.
an
The zones bring togethe~ tbe private sector with educational and
religious institutions.
(Slide)
LA's Community Development Bank is a case in point. T~e bank
works to bring financial capital to places which typically don't
have access to investment funds.
We brought together all the
stakeholders -- the city, the banks, community groups, .the
public, private and community sectors -- to create the bank which
is now working to turn empty lots of land like this in~o an area
of business and job creation.
[;106
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~1/21/95
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(;107
6
T.he Empowerment Zonea
'
.re$'resent
a strategic: vision.
d ~Si.~o~1 ~~%i~---~~:-~on ;o e,
/
has
where an industrial park
been
·
·
ctory being built there is expected to
save"-.2 ·jobs and c
e '65 new ones. Where a public housing
complex--i-s ....bei-ng redevelpped. Where YouthBuild trains area young
people for jobs and life skills. Where the Empowerment·Zone
grants match resident's 'Skills to the job requir~ments in the
growth sectors of the me,tropolitan economy.
.
. f.
cr
,.
The. result of all t~is: . people whose faces reflect new hope.
1
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5
,
are grow~ng 1n areas once·left for dead. Jobs have . ~~
been created. Housing has improved and neighborhoods have been 1 /t~l
strengthened. And the results will be lasting because the
· .
communities have designed the forinu1a themselves and cap do it ("1......c,.-'f-;zt~/
again and again and again and again and again.
Until we see the / y_
future.
[Pause for slides]
,....L.''/~
(.t't.7
Bus~nesses
~
c.
Public Houai~g
[Slide)
.
Ae we look across the panorama of urban American, no
neighborhoods cry out for change louder than the huge .superblocks
of desolate public housiing, those islands of pain that Senator
Mikulski has referred to as "zip codes of pathology.
1
'
In too many cities, especially the big cities, public housing
simply isn't working. Let me be clear about public housing in
America. The vast majority of the 3,400 housing authorities HUD
works with do a reasonable job. Only about 90 are officially
designated as troubled.
Buc the worst developments in the big cities are very bad.
The
worst of our public housing developments have not been much help
to their low income res~dents -- for too many, public hpusing has
been their hell.
Now, with the help of Congress and housing authorities and
residents, we have changed the drill.
(Slides: Baltimore; Newark-B&A; Norfolk-B&A; Kansas City-B&A)
We are tearing down the ·worst of the public housing complexes and
replacing them with townhouses, with scattered site homes, and
with certificates and vouchers. Prior to this Administration,
about 1,000 units of public housing were replaced each year. By
the end.of this year, we will have torn down an unprecedented
23,000 housing units that were vacant, abandoned, unsafe or
unlivable.
In their place, new signs of hope are emerging.
Instead of the
superblocks of Cabrini-Green, grids of traditional stre·ets are
being designed. Instead of mammot:.h apartment buildings, small
�15:23
NO. 140
7
scale, townhouse-style hbusing is being constructed. IIistead of
housing built only for the poorest of our society, econQroically
integrated communities are coming to life.
(Slide - PHA Chart]
Our second task is to hold public housing agencies accountable
for performance. We have assumed control of the Chicago and San
Francisco housing authorities, entered into strong partnerships
with the determined Mayors of Detroit and New Orleans, and are
actively assisting court:-appointed receivers in Kansas City and
Washington, DC.
Our third challenge is to change the underlying social dynamic in
public housing. Until now, the rules of public housing have
discouraged work and created lifetime residential
dead-ends~
[Slides - Denver, Oklahoma City]
But now we have changed admission policies so that Hqpsing
Authorities can create preferences for working families. We've
changed rent rules to end the discouragement of people who work.
And we have begun connecting tenants to education and employment
opportunities through innovative partnerships with universities,
community colleges and S1cbools.
Finally, we've begun to 1establiab a regimen of tougher
eh~ectations by drafting stricter conditions for residency.
Leases are written more tightly so that drugs and criminal
activity can be screened out.
·
f
.
The President has called: for, and HUD has issued, "one s.trike and
you're out" guidelines £:,or public housing.
[Slide of POTUS]
There is a feeling among! the drug gan.gs that public housing is
their personal playground. That they have a "right" to live
there and that because of this, they can harass and intimidate
and frighten with impunity.
[Slide - Police]
[Slides - Backdrop while, HC talks)
Our expectations for public housing are clear: It ·should be safe
and clean. It should be integrated into neighborhoods .. It
should be an important part of families' overall efforts to lift
themselves. A place from which people can get jobs, and move up
the economic ladder, not something that pulls them further down.
PAP.T THREE
The Challenge
I've just told you about three major HUD programs that ~re at
work right now to turn America's urban landscape around;
They
work.
But the sad truth is: they are succeeding IN SP~TE OF the
enormous obstaeles they have to overc:oll'le in the political arena.
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NO. 140
8
Unless Republicans and D~mocrats can come together on an urban
policy that makes sense for America ... unless all of us sit down
together and do·tbe bard· work of building cities that can work
... we are all guilty of political malpractice.·
Here's my checklist of 5 things that we can do together right now
that would send strong signals -- and more importantly, be strong
actions -- a real commitment to America's cities and people:
1.
We can begin a second round of Empowerment Zones as
President Clinton called for.
·
2.
We can protect and pre.serve the Community Reinvestment Act
and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and fund com~unity
development hanks.
3.
We can clean up and restore environmentally hazardous
brownfields by fundiing incentives for business in ~he tax
code.
~-
We can restore funding for the transformation of public
housing and the eXBansion of affordable housing .
..
· 5.
We can dramaticall~ increase American homeownership in the
cities.
As Americans, we must take on this truly pressing national
challenge. We can either proceed as if our best years are behind
us, or as if the best is yet to come. Whichever direction we
choose will surely become our reality. If our collective will is
resigned to a future of greater poverty and hopelessness, of
abandonment and inattention, then as a nation we'd better post a
red flashing light that signals "Extreme Danger Ahead.,,
·
The. cities and the atte~dant crises of race and poverty may not
pose the greatest challe.nge America has ever faced. But, they
are the greatest challerige we.face right now.
k.J.d as with every otb.er'challenge we have faced as a nation, we.
must face them with a dquble dose: Optimism and action:.
Those
are the values enbodied'in my favorite quotation from Senator
Robert Kennedy:
11
It is the shaping impulse of America, but it is not . fate, nor is
it chance, nor is it th~ irreversible tides of history :·t:hat
determine our destinies as individuals or as a natio~. ·Rather,
it is reason and it is p;>rinciple and it is the work of . our own
hands. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but t.h~:t-e is also
trur:h and experience, and in any event, it is the only:way we can
l i '.re. "
Th.,..nk you.
[;109
�
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Terry Edmonds
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Office of Speechwriting
James (Terry) Edmonds
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1995-2001
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<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36090" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
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Terry Edmonds worked as a speechwriter from 1995-2001. He became the Assistant to the President and Director of Speechwriting in 1999. His speechwriting focused on domestic topics such as race relations, veterans issues, education, paralympics, gun control, youth, and senior citizens. He also contributed to the President’s State of the Union speeches, radio addresses, commencement speeches, and special dinners and events. The records include speeches, letters, memorandum, schedules, reports, articles, and clippings.
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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American Cities Update ’96
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2006-0462-F
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