Oddly, the city's housing effort, started in the mid-1980's, was not the result of some grand visionary plan.

The rules would apply to the Section 8 program, the nation's largest subsidized housing effort, which provides assistance to more than one million low-income families.

That assuaged some critics, who had grown impatient over what they saw as drift in the housing effort.

There has also been some of the finger pointing that characterizes many housing efforts in New York.

The homes and streets were razed, the larger community having been destroyed years before in the public housing effort.

Then came the real test: overcoming the political and bureaucratic hurdles that trip most substantial housing efforts in the city.

A month after the disaster, the federal government's temporary housing effort is stumbling.

Since 1986, the city has spent nearly $4 billion and produced more new apartments and houses than any other municipal housing effort in the country.

The administration's thinking reflects the success of earlier supportive housing efforts.

Marketing the credits was among the support corporation's key roles in the housing effort.