But the University refused to lease apartments in the area on which the AHC held an option. There were conflicting explanations of why this policy existed. At the beginning of January, Shopard Brown, vice president of Hunneman and Co., Harvard's realtor, said "We have been holding for eventual demolition and construction of the Affiliated Hospital." One week later, Med School administrators said that apartments in this zone remained unrented because the tenants' association had not provided the University with relocation plans for prospective rentees of these apartments.

Such a relocation plan had been ratified in early Septmeber by a housing and relocation subcommittee on which the tenants' association was represented. It provided that the tenants would "participate in the decisionmaking of all phases of the planning and execution" of new housing, including selection of a developer, and that the issue of tenant management would be taken up by the subcommittee with the tenants retaining a young majority.

This relocation plan was never honored by the University or even approved by the Fein Committee. In late September, Gruson appeared at a subcommittee meeting with a developer which the University-not the tenants-had selected, and informed the tenants for the first time that Harvard was engaged in filing a funding application with the federal government for the low-income portion of the new housing project. (Gruson later called the tenants' relocation plan "unacceptable.")

AT THIS point, the tenants secured a written agreement from Gruson and Ebert that the University would file no funding application without tenant approval. Since any such application calls for information concerning developing, architecture, etc., this agreement indirectly gave the tenants a veto over all plans for the new housing.

In mid-November, when the relocation plan came before the committee after being tabled the month before, Fein read a letter from Ebert which stated that the Corporation would appoint an individual to engage in final negotiations with the tenants. The committee then passed a resolution which endorsed the "spirit" of the relocation plan, and finally disbanded. The Corporation still has not appointed an individual to represent it in negotiations with tenants.

The University opened the vacant apartments three weeks ago, after the tenants had formally submitted the relocation plan to the University. But many of these apartments still have not been rented. Even outside the zone in question, whole buildings remain vacant and padlocked.

With plans for the new housing still undefined, the result of the University's actions thus far has been to threaten 182 units of low-income housing without offering any realizable alternative. The consequences of this action become more visible with a glimpse of the Boston housing market. Out of 2315 housing units built in Boston during 1969. only 109 were low-income, and all of these were publicly subsidized.

The number of low-income apartments which are in danger thus represent nearly twice the number of low-income units built in the entire metro-palitan area during the past year. And the ?? vacant apartments in the medical area which Harvard has not rented represent nearly one-third of this figure.

Federal and municipal authorities gave 550 families rental assistance last year. But with 4.000 Boston families on public and leased housing waiting lists, the housing problem gains a new dimension.

Many families in the medical area now live in six-or seven-room apartments which they rent for about $100 per month. New housing rates generally offer one to three rooms for $100 to $150. While Harvard can now break even or make a small return on its present housing by skimping on maintenance and repairs, it would be unable to avoid losing money by fulfilling its promise of comparable relocation at comparable rents.

As Gruson put it. "There's no money to be made in housing for low and low-to-middle income people." But this should be an argument for allowing the present homes to stand, rather than for excusing the University if it should destroy existing housing without providing comparable alternatives beforehand.

THE CURRENT system of hospital care presents many of the same problems to lower income people in urban areas that the housing market does. These problems are reflected in the proposed Affiliated Hospitals Center.

As originally planned, the AHC was to increase the number of inpatient beds in its component teaching hospitals from 678 to 910, and the number of ambulatory care visits per year from 90,000 to 250,000. As the cost estimate spiraled, it became necessary to cut back on each of these increases. But, while in-patient beds were reduced by only 15 per cent (to 780), the ambulatory capability was cut back by 46 per cent (to 135,000).

The growing dearth of individual physicians in the core city has caused most low-income people to depend on hospitals for their health care. In addition, the continually rising cost of acute in-patient care (this is particularly true of a teaching hospital) and the impossibility of being admitted to an in-patient bed without recommendation of a physician, have accentuated the importance of ambulatory care facilities.

While in-patient facilities are important for surgical care, and teaching hospitals are essential for researching new medical techniques, the majority of today's urban population depends heavily on ambulatory care. As this dependence grows, the need for ambulatory facilities is likely to increase.