The Local Housing Authority

Abstract

T HE authority as an instrument of administration is comparatively new in the United States. The Port of New York Authority, established in 1921, was the first such agency in this country, though the type was already well developed in England and Sweden. In 1933 the Tennessee Valley Authority was created by Congress, and in 1937 the United States Housing Authority. The United States Housing Act of 1937 invited state and local governments to establish public housing agencies, as some of them had already done. The United States Housing Authority was authorized to lend such agencies up to 90 per cent of the cost of development of housing projects which it approved and to make annual contributions to reduce rents.