The director of the city's public housing agency late night told the Cambridge City Council that more than 800 families and elderly citizens are currently waiting for homes and less than 30 units are left to be filled throughout the city.

Describing Cambridge's current circumstance as a public housing emergency. Daniel Wuenschel, executive director of the Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA), said that it is impossible to predict how many new homes the city will be able to provide in the next five years because of substantial cuts in federal assistance under the Reagan Administration.

Also included in the hour-and 20-minute public hearing was a discussion of the feasibility of the city's taking of the University-owned Craigie Arms apartments by eminent domain and turning the deteriorating building into low-income housing.

According to Weaponchel, 395 families and 421 elderly citizens are currently on CHA waiting lists. In addition, 498 tenants who have qualified for special, subsidized housing are looking for apartments in the city, and another group is being considered for units in the recently renovated Roosevelt Towers housing project.

CHA currently has 20 to 25 vacant and habitable family homes and "almost zero" elderly units, Waenchel said. units. Wuenschel said.

He is not a stereotypical Harvard law professor. Only 34 years old, Lopez is an active advisor to the Los Angeles Chicano community on legal matters, and is outspoken in his criticism of legal education.

But he does have the necessary qualifications-University of Southern California undergraduates, Harvard Law School, California District Court clerkship for a year, private practice in San Diego for three years, and a professorship at UCLA Law School for the past five years. Two years ago he was voted the outstanding teacher in the eight UCLA graduate schools, and he has recently written an influential paper on immigration law.

In addition, Lopez is among the most popular teachers at UCLA-"intense, but with a sense of humor," Bruce C. Doering, president of the UCLA Law Students Bar Association, said last week. His civil rights course in particular gets rave reviews from students, so much so that it has a waiting list for enrollment, Doering added