Grants have been applied for to set up a casino placement
service to facilitate people getting jobs in the casino industry.
Similarly, a grant has been obtained to set up a housing reloca-
tion center clearinghouse. But these are merely information
centers. If housing is scarce and expensive, the clearinghouse
can serve no real use in placing people who are poor.

Only those few families involved in public housing are get-
ting sound planning. The Atlantic City Housing Authority
operates about 1650 units (out of 15,000 in the city). The
Housing Authority has its own residents constituting 36 per-
cent of its own staff. It collects data on the nature of its resi-
dents (for example, it knows that 81% of the heads of
households are female). It has negotiated with Resorts Interna-
tional to train and hire the females in the public housing units
for a machine operating plant and it is negotiating with
Playboy to train its residents for the building trades. This com-
petent organized planning is the exception rather than the rule.

The displacement of the poor presents the most critical
problem. Yet, as we see the existing cities, such as Camden and
Newark, in urgent need of revitalization, there seems to be a
great need for state wide planning to create job and housing
opportunities throughout the state. The revitalization of
Atlantic City alone may merely shift the burden of the poor and
unemployed to other communities.

Economic Research Associates: Impact of Casino Gambling on the
Redevelopment Potential of the Uptown Urban Renewal Site and on
the Economy of Atlantic City. Atlantic City, Economic Research
Associates, 1976.

Associated Press: "Casino side effect". Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 November
1978, p. 1A.

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