Until comparatively recent years, housing generally referred to the dwelling accommodations of a people or community. But housing, particularly following the World War in Europe, and somewhat later in America, has also acquired a more specific meaning, namely, the production of decent, safe, and sanitary homes to meet the acute need of great numbers of low-income families at rents they can afford to pay.
Background of the Movement.
The first great consciousness of extensive substandard housing conditions in European cities and towns came after the industrial revolution, when the existing dwellings were found inadequate for the needs of thousands of workers who flocked to the urban centers. A similar housing problem faced American towns some decades later, when the effect of the industrial revolution upon the nation could be discerned in the swelling tide of immigrants who doubled up in dark and cheerless tenements or overflowed into miserable shacks. Though many dwellings for low-income families were profitably built at this time, they were almost uniformly substandard from the day of their completion. The first realization that American housing could not be left entirely to private enterprise arose from studies revealing the excessive rates and municipal costs, in areas of bad housing, of disease and death, crime and delinquency, and fires and epidemics.
Concern for the general welfare resulted in the passing of the first tenement house law in New York City in 1867. By 1901 New York City had established certain minimum standards, however inadequate, for the construction and remodeling of dwellings. Standards for those already built, since then known as 'old law' tenements, were of course even lower. Similar restrictive measures adopted throughout the country resulted in some improvement in the quality of residential construction, but the volume of new construction for low-income groups sunk even lower.
During the World War, housing construction of any sort reached a virtual standstill. In the United States, the Federal Government found it necessary to build housing for munitions workers and to loan money to shipbuilders to provide housing for their employees: but after the war Government aid was withdrawn from the housing field.
European Post-War Housing.
In Europe, in the 15 years immediately following the war, approximately 7,000,000 low-rent dwellings were built with some sort of state aid, with an element of public control as to quality, and generally in well-planned, pleasant communities. Government housing aid in the various European countries has included loans from state funds at cost or less to individuals, cooperatives, public utility societies, and municipalities; tax exemption of new low-rent housing; the leasing of municipal lands at low rents; outright state and local subsidies to nonprofit building groups, and actual building of houses for sale or rent.
Of some 3,660,000 homes constructed in England since the war, beginning with the 'Homes for Heroes' campaign, more than a million were built and are owned and operated by the municipalities. Today more than a fifth of all families in England occupy homes built since 1930. Public housing in England, far from competing with private enterprise, actually led the way to a private construction program several times as large as that of the Government.
In Germany about 3,000,000 new dwellings were built between the war and 1932, about 80 per cent of them with some sort of Government aid. Holland has rehoused a fifth of its population with public assistance since 1915, the lending of funds for that purpose having started as early as 1901.
Post-War Housing in the United States.
But in the United States, in striking contrast, there developed a period of high-priced speculative building activity, often with relaxed standards and enforcement, and available only to the upper-third income groups. Millions of low-income families were thus forced to double up or occupy unfit dwellings. In the 15-year period during which so much was accomplished in the way of low-rent housing in Europe, not more than 20,000 dwellings were built in America which were within reach of average workers and comparable to the European accomplishment in matters of neighborhood planning and sound standards of design. True, there were scattered philanthropic and limited-dividend housing experiments, but the number of dwellings involved was insignificant. Moreover, isolated governmental attempts to remedy the situation were made with little success. In 1926 the New York State Housing Board was set up, authorized to grant partial tax exemption for twenty years on limited-dividend housing with certain standards and rents, but this resulted in the construction of only a small number of projects. In the six years before the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932, residential construction fell off 83 per cent.
Federal Aid in the United States.
Though the RFC was authorized to make loans for low-rent housing sponsored by limited-dividend companies under state control, Knickerbocker Village in New York City was the only housing project built; and this project provided dwellings at rents that practically no slum dweller could afford.
In the years from 1932 to 1937 a number of other Federal agencies became concerned with various aspects of housing. The Home Owners' Loan Corporation made emergency loans to save mortgaged homes from foreclosure. The Federal Housing Administration was set up to insure private loans for housing privately constructed but under some supervision as to physical standards and financing arrangements. While the FHA has encouraged large-scale rental construction, such housing can be rented only by families able to pay around $10 a room or more per month. The Resettlement Administration, now the Farm Security Administration, was also drawn into the housing field, notably in connection with its three experimental projects near Washington, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee, designed to house urban workers in suburban 'garden cities.'
In 1933 the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration, after making loans to seven limited-dividend housing corporations at low-interest rates, adopted the plan of purchasing land and itself engaging in construction. The result was 51 demonstration low-rent housing projects in 36 cities, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Approximately 21,656 dwelling units were made possible through all projects initiated by the PWA Housing Division.
United States Survey of 1934-37.
The great need for low-rent housing in this country had been recognized by many people even before the scattered experimental projects of the PWA Housing Division; but until a very few years ago the actual facts about housing conditions in America were not available.
In addition, an increasing number of low-income families were found doubled up or overcrowded, due to lack of income and the general housing shortage, rapidly becoming serious in many localities. Other recent studies consistently indicated higher disease, crime, delinquency, and municipal expenditure rates in areas of bad housing. Moreover, existing housing measured against decent occupancy standards revealed a great deficit in the number of decent houses for low-income families. It was estimated that at least 16,000,000 new dwellings would be required by 1950, if the qualitative housing shortage in the United States was to be relieved — necessitating the construction of more than a million new homes annually. Yet, it was found, residential construction by private enterprise was going on at only one seventh that rate, and of the small amount of such construction only a negligible number was designed for low-income families.
By the summer of 1937 it had become clear to the United States Congress that America's record of providing adequate housing for low-income families had so far been largely one of failure. Decent low-rent housing had, in fact, virtually assumed the character of a 'no man's land,' ignored alike by private and public enterprise. While recent zoning, building codes, and other measures adopted throughout the nation had succeeded in improving the quality of residential construction, they had also increased building costs and lessened the volume of new construction for low-income groups. Of the small amount of low-rent housing actually built, much had been in flagrant violation of the building codes. Many millions were ill-housed. Other millions were unemployed. And the production of durable goods was lagging.
The nation's cities and towns looked on powerless, unable to do anything about these problems, or to deal with the slums and their attendant evils.
United States Housing Act.
These considerations led Congress to pass the United States Housing Act of 1937, setting up the United States Housing Authority, a permanent agency designed to provide financial assistance to local communities for a concerted dual attack upon the major housing problems — slum clearance and rehousing.
The experimental housing projects begun by the former PWA Housing Division were transferred to the USHA for completion, and for lease or sale to their respective communities as soon as practicable. More than half of these demonstration projects are now being operated by local housing authorities. Shelter rents (excluding the cost of utilities) run from $4 to $5 a room per month.
Under the United States Housing Act of 1937, amended in 1938, all low-rent housing projects are initiated, planned, constructed, and operated by local housing authorities set up under special state legislation. The USHA thus acts only as banker and adviser. In the 33 states with housing enabling legislation, some 218 public housing agencies have been established, the majority since the creation of the USHA.
The USHA provides financial assistance to local communities in two forms: — First, it lends up to 90 per cent of the cost of housing projects at low interest rates. The localities must raise the remaining 10 per cent. For such loan purposes the USHA may at present issue bonds up to $800,000,000. Second, the USHA contracts to make fixed annual contributions over a 60-year period after the completion of projects in order to enable them to operate at rents low enough for families of meager income. The local communities must also make annual contributions — usually in the form of tax exemption — equal to at least one fifth of the USHA subsidy. At the present time the USHA may contract to pay up to $28,000,000 a year in annual contributions.
Other conditions laid down by the United States Housing Act provide for the elimination of substandard dwellings equal in number to the total new units provided in a local project, and the observance of dwelling-construction cost limitations ($4,000, except in cities with over half a million inhabitants, where the ceiling is $5,000.)
Results from the USHA Program.
The first year of the USHA program demonstrated that all of these conditions could be met. Local authorities have had little difficulty raising their required 10 per cent of construction costs and their share of annual contributions. Agreements have been reached with the localities for equivalent slum clearance. Construction cost estimates and actual bids have fallen far below the statutory limitations. Building costs of USHA-aided projects compare very favorably with the most economical private residential construction, although prevailing wages are paid and all contracts are let to private builders operating under ordinary local building conditions.
The USHA program is doing much to relieve unemployment, particularly in the building trades, and to stimulate production in the durable goods industries. Some 700,000,000 man-hours of direct and indirect work and approximately 150,000 dwelling units will be provided with the funds thus far made available.
All USHA-aided projects are simply and comfortably designed, and are built to last at least sixty years. Project rentals will range from $2 a room per month up to around $5, excluding utilities, which means that they will be within the reach of low-income families whose housing needs are greatest — generally families earning from $500 to $1,100 a year. Only families whose incomes are not in excess of five times the gross rent of a dwelling will be eligible as tenants, unless there are three or more children, when incomes may be as much as six times the rent. By December 1938, a year after its birth, the USHA had committed $647,575,000 for 155 communities in 29 states, the District of Columbia. Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Demands for the remainder of the $800,000,000 could not be fulfilled, due to the lack of further available funds for annual contributions. Actual loan contracts had been signed with 77 local authorities, for 140 projects, and demolition and construction work on many of these had begun.
While many states have adopted or amended housing legislation in the past year to permit local participation in the USHA program. New York State went a step further. A 1938 amendment to the State Constitution provides, among other things, for state loans and grants to local housing authorities. This means that in New York the Federal, state, and local governments are all moving ahead, shoulder to shoulder, toward the solution of the housing problem.
Though the low-rent housing program is still in its infancy, housing has already become a normal part of the administrative responsibility of America's communities and the Federal Government. Within a few brief years housing has developed from a crying need and an inarticulate hope into a vigorous nation-wide movement. Today there are abundant indications that, as President Roosevelt has said, this movement will 'go forward until every American family has a decent home in which to live.'
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