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6. NEW BUSINESS (Coot' d tear the houses down and rebuild the area with new .houses on 60 -foot lots and new utilities and everything new, but we couldn't get that kind of funding. There wasn't a market for that sort of thing, in that area, that would cause it to happen privately. The only thing that could be accommodated for the people in the area in terms of financing is what we are doing. We set up an area where the houses were the worst and did an accelerated program of taking down the houses that had no potential. The very things we have been talking about here, right now. Where the building was so poor that we would have to put more money into it than it would cost to build a new one and those we had to wipe out. Anything else that has any capability of being rehabilitated and provides a decent place for people to live, within some kind of economic sense, is what we are trying to do, within that area, and that is what the money was ap- propriated for. On further comments from Ms. Derbeck on the feasibility of invest- ing funds in the area, Commissioner Wiggins stated that one of the things we are faced with here is that the deterioration of housing is not just simply a question of time and the elements working their way upon a structure of the building. One of the real problems- - and the big things that we tend to forget - -is that the neighborhood is people, and it depends upon people's attitudes; it depends upon a great many things; but it involves people, so that the media's question of rescuing neighborhoods is not only rescuing the houses, it's doing something with the people who live in the houses. If this becomes an attractive area to live - -from the standpoint of it being a friendly, warm, welcoming kind of neighborhood, then people will want to buy property and build houses there to live. If the area is run down, the media is right, the people will not want to live there. One of the keys to this is what happens here with the people of the neighborhood, not only being a party to, but being a principal in making decisions concerning that neighborhood, will be a determining factor. Commissioner Robinson stated it seems as though the poor and unfor- tunate type of people who are locked in this economic bracket, that they have to have some place to live, and the price of an individual, single family dwelling has skyrocketed to the point that a person making a good salary in life is going to have a hard time to even being able to afford one. "So, basically, I get back to my opening question, 'What are you going to do with themV In essence of doing nothing, you have to do something, and there is some place you have to start. So I would imagine this is the thought and trend in mind, in this organization, for this group of people." As to a list of what is going to be done to this particular house, asked by Mr. Caesar, Mr. Crighton advised he has the list if anyone wants to look at the rehabilitation items--all of which are major code violations. - 11 -