Frustrated Cisneros Seeks to Merge, Terminate 59 HUD Programs

WASHINGTON — In a public airing of his agency’s troubles, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros charged Monday that his department is so mired in bureaucracy that it fails to accomplish its goal of housing the nation’s poorest people.

Accusing Congress of helping to create the agency’s problems, he proposed that 59 HUD programs be merged, terminated or replaced. He said many of the failed programs were created by Congress over the years to placate various special interests.

Although criticism of HUD has become a staple of new administrations, Cisneros’ statements were notable for their frankness, congressional aides said.

Cisneros warned Congress that, unless he is allowed to drop most of the programs he has targeted, he will be limited to “tinkering at the margins as opposed to making some profound difference.”

Cisneros commented as he released the results of a study conducted by the agency at the request of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on veterans affairs, HUD and independent agencies.

“I believe it is a good first step,” said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), the subcommittee chairman.

Mikulski agreed with Cisneros’ assessment that too many HUD dollars are allotted based on the agendas of special-interest groups. And she stressed the need to “let communities use precious federal resources on the needs they believe they have, not those driven by Washington bureaucracy or interest groups.”

Part of the answer, Cisneros said, is to streamline the process through which local governments apply for HUD funds and to give local officials more discretion over how they use the money.

For example, he said, local communities trying to address the needs of the homeless often must apply for federal aid in six different HUD programs. He hopes to merge them into one.

In another proposal, Cisneros said he hopes for congressional approval to use HUD’s public housing modernization program to generate federal loans that could be used to tear down crime-infested high-rise apartment buildings and replace them with low-income units scattered in economically mixed areas.

Specifically, he has suggested spending $1 billion for high-rise demolition, as part of the Housing and Community Investment Act of 1994. The idea has met with particular interest in Chicago, which has a plethora of troubled high-rises.

In a note to President Clinton, Cisneros described the current state of public housing in Chicago as “as close to the approaches of hell as I have seen in America.”