HOUSING PROTEST ANGERS ALEXANDRIA OFFICIALS

Homeless advocate Mitch Snyder, who helped disrupt an Alexandria City Council meeting Saturday, pledged yesterday "to do whatever we need to do" to stop the planned eviction of thousands of low-income Alexandrians as city officials expressed anger and resentment over the protest.

"I really lost my temper," said Alexandria Mayor James P. Moran Jr., who almost came to blows with Snyder when about 200 tenants entered the council chamber, sat on the dais for more than an hour, beat on drums and ultimately forced council members, meeting in a closed session in a nearby room, to adjourn.

"I would have slugged him if I had not been mayor," said Moran. "It was clear that he had no interest in listening to reason or facts."

"Snyder doesn't know anything about the City of Alexandria," said Vice Mayor Patricia S. Ticer. She called the protest "grossly unfair because Alexandria has done more to provide housing for low-income people than any other area in the region."

"He should have sent those people to the White House because that's where the blame lies," she said, criticizing the Reagan administration for cutting federal housing funds.

"I'm not at all interested" in listening to "political rhetoric about the great track record of Alexandria when 5,000 people are facing eviction," said Snyder. The longtime activist for the District's homeless said he recently turned his attention to Alexandria because "I don't know of any other area . . . where thousands of people are facing eviction."

The target of Saturday's protest, the first ever to force adjournment of an Alexandria Council meeting, is the Artery Organization's scheduled renovation of Dominion Gardens, an apartment complex in Arlandria, that will send the typical rent for a two-bedroom unit from $460 to $650. Many of Dominion's 1,500 low-income residents, 90 percent of whom are black, Hispanic or Asian, have received eviction notices.

As many as 5,000 low-income residents are facing eviction from other units in Arlandria, just south of Arlington, as developers refurbish and raise the rents on decaying rental properties they have purchased.

Led by City Manager Vola Lawson, the city's housing director for more than a decade, city officials have attempted to maintain some rentals. For example, the city recently spent a $2 million federal grant to buy 152 units in Arlandria, 40 of which will be public housing units while the rest will be subsidized rentals for at least two years. In addition, recently proposed restrictions on future development include ones to force construction of more housing units, rather than offices.

Lawson yesterday called Alexandria "a compassionate city," in which 10 percent of its rental units are subsidized, a figure that makes it "second only to the District" in subsidized rentals.

Moran and other city officials will testify today at a hearing called by Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.) on Northern Virginia's low-income housing problems. The hearing will be at 10 a.m. at the Grace Episcopal Church, 3601 Russell Rd.

Many of those who took over the council chamber, demanding that the city buy Dominion Gardens for low-income renters, were from the complex. The protesters sat in the council members' chairs, rummaged through their papers and one delved into council member Redella Pepper's provisions of cookies, Ticer said.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.