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who is a homeowner can put his labor directly into his property , being thereby self- employed and realizing a profit as a result , he said . But the working man who must rent cannot be thus profitably self-employed in his off time and must watch his wages disappear forever into the landlord ' s pocket . This T'- • is S a more clrassi_cal working-c].;iss characteristic than homeownership , he said . Ransom said that Census data revealed that Redwood City households with income of less than $ , 000 a year pa.1d in excess of 35 . 0 percent of their income for housing . This was of gross income , he said , and the percentage of take -home would obviously be much higher . Redwood City households with incomes of $5 , 000 to $9, 999 pay a median of 25 . 9 percent of their gross income for housing , Ransom said , and suggested that that might be more than a third of take-home . Hansom sq i d that his increasing realization that the City was either unused to or pre - empted. from dealing with many problems of primary interest to renters , such ` as rents and evictions , helped explain why renters might not be as active or interested in city government as homeowners . He called attention to the last sentence of the memorandum which suggests that "one conclusion, perhaps , is that to remain as immediately relevant to renters as it has been to property owners through its zoning and taxing powers , Redwood City city government will have to find some *ry to 'bring its powers -to bear on questions of rents , ' main- tenance , and evictions . " City Manager Jim Fales said that so far the Housing Concerns Committee has had a "window peak" at a number of housing problems . Housing Aide Ransom had put together some proposals on relocation , and the Manager ' s staff would begin this week to come up with an outline covering as many related areas as possible con- cerning housing . He said he divided these areas into two related groups : the first the physical , which included actual construction of housing units and decisions to be made concerning that , such as their location , number , and the means of accomplishing them. The second was operational : landlord-tenant relations , relocation , consumer protection, things of that sort . With a complete list, the Committee can go through and analyze each one , considering the options and putting together a proposal or set of proposals as an implementing document to the housing element of the general plan . Manager Fales said he did not want the City to get involved in housing "a toe at a time " and would rather the Council deal with a comprehensive housing proposal than go into it piecemeal as the federal government so often does . He said that he hoped to have material to submit to the Committee in a month, but that the City may need more data on, for instance , the condition of the housing stock . Menlo Park ' s city manager Mike Bedwell had told him, he said , that they had underestimated the degree of substandardness before embarking on their Federally Assisted Code Enforcement program. POLICY PROPOSAL Mary Henderson asked Lou Knowles of the Land for People organization to make his presentation, the main agenda item of the day . He presented the Committee members with a proposal entitled "A Low/Moderate--Income Housing Policy Proposal" and • suggested that it might_,be cranked into the staff process the Manager had just outlined . This proposal was corollary to the Redwood Shores proposal his MINUTES HOUSING CONCERNS COMMITTEE AUGUST 22 , 1972 PAGE 2 OF