HOUSING PROGRAM GLANCE

A look at the Department of Housing and Urban Development's drug
elimination grant program:

- --Housing authorities have used the money to tutor children, train
residents for jobs, set up police substations, train tenant patrols,
provide drug counseling, improve security devices, employ crime
investigators and escort children to school, among other activities.

- --The program started in 1989 under then-HUD Secretary Jack Kemp in
the administration of President Bush's father.

- --The program's budget has grown to $310 million this year from $8.2
million in 1989. There are 2.6 million residents of public housing.

- --A federal study of 55 public housing authorities receiving the
grants found that the crime rate declined in 37 between 1994 and
1997. In housing covered by 28 authorities, the crime rate declined
faster than in their surrounding areas.

- --Declines in the crime rate in public housing have been the largest
in Greenville, S.C.; (85 percent); Pawtucket, R.I. (65 percent);
Rockford, Ill., (65 percent); Galveston, Texas (58 percent); Oakland,
Calif. (39 percent); Seattle (32 percent); San Antonio (31 percent);
and Cincinnati (31 percent).