The Housing Program of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works

Abstract

The Housing Division of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works has been engaged for a year and a half in a demonstration program of low-cost housing. We are working under compulsion of an emergency demanding the immediate provision of employment for workers of the construction industry, in which we include the manufacture of building materials. It has been necessary to initiate action on projects while studying American housing both generally and specifically, to delimit the scope of our activities and to determine how best to fit our projects into the social and economic patterns of the cities in which we place them. Present-day housing in America may be compared with family transportation in the days before manufacturers discovered how to make an automobile to fit the purse and requirements of the average citizen. New cars were manufactured for the well-to-do, who used them for a few years, until newer and more attractive models were available. Then the old car was sold to Mr. Average Citizen upon a financing plan whereby he paid from 20 to 25 per cent more for it than he should. It was too large for his modest requirements, and it cost too much to run. Most American citizens live in houses designed-if they were designed-either for different times and a different scale of living, or else primarily for the maximum return of profit to some speculator or landlord. Real estate became one of the most fertile fields for the speculator who took his profit (no modest one) on other peoples' investment. Because there are no fences between the pastures of investment and the no-man's land of speculation, many small investors wander far from safety. Housing finance, by its very nature, has had to be speculative. It has been concerned, generally, with one owner's personal interest in one small parcel of land. Naturally this owner's horizon was the perimeter of his lot. He made it his job to put every possible square inch of his land to work. In financing his building, he acknowleged that his neighbor was apt to do the same thing. Experience has shown that such an over-built neighborhood would deteriorate rapidly, once the shine of its newness had worn away. Profits had to be taken quickly and amortization 309