Editorials

...But in view of the need to cut the nation's huge deficits, expenditures could be offset somewhat by revenue-raising, i.e., more tax reform...

...What can be done...

...And then Iran, in a malevolent tit for tat so characteristic of this war, retaliated by using chemical weapons against the Iraqis...

...Mortgage payments for those who do qualify, perhaps with parental help, have raced ahead of income, especially for the young...

...There appears to be support within Congress: to increase the efficiency of funds now allocated in the housing budget (so that monies are not spent disproportionately on inducements to developers, but are targeted for the lowest income brackets...

...This was not the first time...

...A shortage of affordable rentals and homes for middle-income families has tightened the supply of shelter that formerly passed from one income group to the one just below...

...Because it's there...

...Maldistribution is income-based, for example, when rent-controlled apartments, devised to benefit low-income tenants, are occupied by residents with average or above average incomes...

...The same processes used to produce fertilizers, pesticides, petrochemicals, and even detergents can be adapted to make chemical agents for warfare...

...However, the two causes that can most readily be remedied are: (1) shortsighted budget cuts in government housing programs that have decreased the supply of public housing, and (2) tax policies that subsidize people least in need (those who already own or can afford to buy homes even at inflated prices) but do nothing to help those now frozen out...

...in another region, where jobs are available, or at least promising, there are shortages and soaring housing prices...

...The NLI-HA has suggested that 750,000 affordable units of housing be provided for low-income renters each year until the low-income stock is adequate to the demand...

...For taxpayers, the out-of-pocket cost is already high, but we may not learn the true cost of inadequate housing until these ill-housed children reach adulthood...

...Over 4,000 of Iraq's own rebellious Kurdish subjects, nearly all civilians, were killed instantaneously by a combination of mustard gas and hydrogen cyanide...

...Iraq's Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, asserted as much last month when he promised that his country would use every weapon in its arsenal to combat an Iranian invasion...

...Robert Kuttner has described the gap between those who bought homes before the great housing inflation of the seventies and those who bought after:' 'The first group enjoys low-interest mortgages, effortless equity buildup, and cheap housing costs...

...A stunning jolt of revulsion should have been thrown through the consciences of the combatants and the world...

...The congressional task force recommended that the government increase its budget on housing by $3 billion, in order to build, renovate, and purchase low-income housing...

...and Alfonse M. D'Ama-to (R-N.Y...

...The fact is, when it comes to chemical weapons, Iraq may have just as easily manufactured its own...

...Put bluntly, households in the highest income bracket received nearly twice as much government housing help as those in the lowest...

...The crisis is complicated by a maldistribution of available housing...

...efforts to convince our allies to refrain from such trade crumbled with the sale of U.S...

...The State of the Nation's Housing," a report released in March by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, underlines Kuttner's point: two million households that would have been able to afford homes in 1980 cannot do so today...

...to appropriate more money...

...Even under the latest tax reform, the tax breaks middle- and upper-income people receive through deduction of mortgage interest constitute a disproportionate share of federal housing subsidies-though this is seldom recognized for what it is...

...Technological and legal restraints are obviously no longer sufficient to deter the proliferation and use of chemical war agents...

...to work through successful neighborhood-based nonprofits...

...doing nothing will cost even more...

...the 20 percent of households with incomes between $30,000 and 50,000 received 44 percent of all subsidies...

...But the virulence of the Halabja attack is unprecedented...

...Meanwhile, the door to ownership-the traditional dream-is closing...

...For all of them, life on the street has compounded whatever problems they may have...

...Anyone in search of evidence has but to look...

...But put to the test, they have abandoned their treaty obligations...

...and the 7 percent of households with incomes over $50,000 received 24 percent of subsidies...

...All of us know (or are ourselves) young families paying too much rent for too little space, desperate for more adequate housing, but unable to afford better...

...Overall, rents since 1980 have risen 14 percent higher than the inflation rate...

...With a settlement underway in Afghanistan, Moscow might be persuaded to bring pressure on Iran this time round...

...In 1970,3.5 million people had incomes under $5,000...

...down payments could be reduced for first-time mortgagees...

...While the drop in public funding has spurred a number of private projects, many of which boast considerable success, none of these can solve the problem without an infusion of public monies...

...the 27 percent of households with incomes between $10,000 and 20,000 received 7 percent of all federal housing subsidies...

...some are addicted to drugs or alcohol or both...

...Increase the federal housing budget and redistribute tax subsidies for housing...

...Buyers aged twenty-four to twenty-nine have to pay 50 percent more of their average year's wages for a starter home than did buyers the same age in the early seventies...

...To see homeless families, one could visit any of the notorious welfare hotels, where public funds are squandered for pricey squalor, where mothers, children, and sometimes fathers are crowded into tiny, dingy rooms with bad plumbing and no cooking facilities, in districts particularly dangerous for children...

...State and local governments need to re-examine who benefits and who is hurt by rent control, local building moratoriums, and restrictive zoning practices, particularly in those cities where such policies coexist with large populations of homeless and inadequately housed citizens...

...Finally, more than thirty nations, including Libya, now possess some type of chemical armaments...

...In short, too many Americans-across a wide spectrum of income-cannot find affordable housing...

...Some are mentally ill...

...But there are others...

...During the sacred Islamic season of Ramadan, let his reasonable suggestion be heard and heeded- before the whistling sound of the bomb and the silent pall of the clouds of death are raised again.louds of death are raised again...

...This in turn has led to increased demand for upgraded units-and to still higher rents...

...households with annual incomes under $10,000 received 13 percent of all federal housing subsidies...

...the 21 percent of households with incomes between $20,000 and 30,000 received 13 percent of all federal subsidies...

...One only needs to look at the prices quoted in the classified ads offering homes for sale or rent...

...Now it is time for the U.N...

...In mid-March, using a variety of chemical weapons, Iraq launched a military offensive on the Iranian-held city of Halab-ja in northeastern Iraq...

...To encourage capital investment, fixed-rate government financing might be offered to those willing to invest in constructing low-income units...

...To help low- and middle-income households, tax deductions might be converted into tax credits, with caps to prevent abuse of the program by those not in need...

...Down payments are a major hurdle for many, including even two-income families...

...But in a world inundated with acts deserving of moral outrage, it is all too easy to call for-and ignore-appeals to simple human decency...

...THE SILENCE FROM HALABJA The seven-year-long Persian Gulf War, having inflicted staggering physical and financial losses on both Iran and Iraq, has now sunk to an even deeper depredation...

...Iran, for its part, is producing chemical weapons with the assistance of West German technology...

...Washington can do a lot, but it cannot do everything, nor should it...

...Fundamentally, all citizens need to recognize that decent housing is both a basic human right and a social need, and that our present housing system is neither efficient nor equitable...

...By 1983, that number had increased to 5.5 million...

...Doing something about it will cost a lot...

...plan to introduce major housing legislation this summer, which could affect the housing budget allocations for fiscal year 1990...

...The Iraqis used chemical agents to stall Iranian advances on its southern front in both 1984 and 1985...

...Iran and Iraq were early signatories of the 1925 Geneva convention outlawing chemical warfare...

...The federal housing budget has been slashed by 80 percent in the last decade, which has diminished incentives for private investors, states, and municipalities to invest in new low-income housing or in the maintenance/rehabilitation of existing public housing...

...That task rests increasingly on the slender strength of aroused moral opinion-moral opinion that needs to reach our own government which has declined to take up the issue as a violation of the Geneva conventions...

...The latter entrants have staggering monthly payments, if they can afford a house at all" (New Republic, May 11, 1987...

...Most of them are often hungry...

...Navy, continued economic deterioration-and Iraq's repeated claim to desire a cease-fire, could finally set in motion the escape to reason...

...These are the most scandalous signs of crisis...

...Senators Alan Cranston (D-Calif...

...Thus, in 1983, some 2 million low-income households paid more than they could reasonably afford for shelter...

...And the number of subsidized rentals could be increased, particularly for the neediest families, providing more stable alternatives than "shelters" or "welfare hotels...

...Last November, Seyyed Tabatabai Qomi, one of Iran's five '' grand ay atollahs,'' issued a statement calling for an end to all fighting in the gulf...

...Even worse, future scenarios for the gulf war must now include the possibility that the combatants will use medium-range missiles to gas each other's major cities...

...Such an effort, coupled with Iran's recent brace of setbacks in the war-losses in southern and northeastern Iraq, an inability to raise new conscripts at home, losses at the hands of the U.S...

...Many of these people are sick...

...arms to Khomeini-a failure that not only has lengthened the war, but guaranteed its deepening savagery...

...A week later, Iraq chemically bombed a group of Iranian frontier villages...

...At the same time, the Soviet Union continues to supply arms to both sides in the conflict...

...to press again for the implementation of last July's Security Council Resolution 589 for a cease-fire in the region...

...The U.S...

...Consider, for example, that from 1980 to 1988, taking into account both direct subsidies and those concealed in the tax code: the 25 percent of U.S...

...In the 1980s, for the first time since the end of World War II, national homeownership fell...

...blames -the USSR for supplying Iraq with the gas...

...Home equity In a nation that has nearly one bedroom per member of the population, where 24 percent of homeowners live in homes owned free and clear-paying as little as 12 percent of their income for shelter-why speak of a "housing crisis...

...A number of economic, demographic, and social factors contributed...

...Early U.S...

...For starters, second-home mortgages- a sacred cow left untouched by tax reform-should be fully taxed...

...Most of the people on the streets are alone...

...that has stopped up the "trickle down...

...Yet the number of "affordable" rental units-judged to be $125 per month for a household earning less than $5,000-remained at the 1970 level...

...Maldistribution is also job-based and geographical: In one region where jobs are scarce, homes are left unsold even at bargain prices...

...But the flow of arms from both superpower blocs continues unabated...

...In the case of the spread and the use of toxic chemical weapons, however, both the appeal and a response are absolutely necessary...

...How did this happen...

...In order to assist first-time buyers, Congress could change regulations so that interest payments on FHA-insured mortgages could be deferred or reduced for a specified period...

...One place to look is on the streets and in other public spaces, where increasing numbers of homeless people are visible, begging for handouts, plowing through garbage cans, sleeping on grates in train and bus stations, on church steps, their belongings in bundles beside them...

...The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), the Harvard Center for Housing Study, and the task force commissioned by Congress last September to study the nation's housing problems agree: more money, more incentives, more efficiency, more local control, more housing for the poor are urgently needed as part of a national housing policy...

...Putting an end to chemical warfare ultimately rests on bringing an end to the warfare between Iran and Iraq...