Uote Yes for Home Firup

A S HOME IMPROVEMENT has grown masf{sively over the past two decades, it has come to be recognized that with proper encouragement, it may just be the key to accomplishing certain social aims that have proven unsolvable through bureaucratic initiative.

A tentative step in this direction appears on the June 6, ballot in California. Proposition 10, if passed, could be amethod of keeping urban neighborhoods from decaying into slums.

Proposition 10 would authorize a change in the state constitution to allow property owners in selected neighborhoods to spend limited amounts on rehabilitation of homes while being exempted from the extra burden of higher property taxes due solely to the increased value renovation would add. It is the best kind of tax break: assistance to those less fortunate to help them help themselves. In turn it has the added potential to clean up marginal neiElrborhoods that have so far resisted government uplift schemes.

According to W. Dean Cannon, Jr., exec. v.p. of the California Savings and Loan League, which is working for the passage of Proposition 10, "the availability of this program could mean all the difference in the world in many marginal neighborhoods throughout the state." If the measure passes, the s&ls plan to make rehabilitation loans to home owners who qualify.

As presently stated, exemptions from increased property tax hikes would be limited to projects costing $15,000 or less and only for a single, five year period.

While this measure may not be the perfect method to get done what needs to be done in fading neighborhoods, it surely is a step in the right direction and one we feel could be beneficial in the other l2 Western states in The Merchant Magazine's circulation area.

While the benefits that would accrue to the lenders of the money and to the suppliers of the material and expertise involved in any fix-up program are obvious, that doesn't in any way lessen the desirable aspects that could be achieved.

If nothing else, it would be fun to see a tax break go to someone other than the oil companies for a chanse.