A LOOK TO THE FUTURE IN HOUSING
Blanford, John B. Jr.
A Look To The Future In Housing By JOHN B. BLANDFORD, Jr. HOUSING is potentially a vitally important part of our postwar economy, one which can provide the opportunity for jobs, investments, and...
...The value was nearly 4^2 billion dollars, or more than 5 per cent of the gross national product of 88 billion dollars...
...The National Housing Agency, created to do a streamlined war job, and its operating units—the Federal Housing Administration, the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration, and the Federal Public Housing Authority—can do an effective job in aiding industry, finance, labor, and communities in their efforts to reach the postwar goal of good homes for all Americans...
...6. We Should Improve Methods of Assistance to Private Enterprise: The FHA's successful experience with mutual mortgage insurance extended home ownership to income groups which previously had not been served...
...3. We Must Tackle the Problems of Land as Related to Housing: Facts on land costs, taxation, and use in terms of site planning, subdivision practice, zoning, and master planning require fresh examination...
...National summaries of these statistics will be invaluable to the materials and equipment industries, to national financial institutions and to the Federal Government...
...indeed, they are being abandoned as rapidly as possible now in areas where they have served their purpose...
...Community Responsibility DURING the war, the Federal Government was forced to assume the programming of war housing in 1,000 communities, to place restrictions on many of the materials used for housing—the same materials needed for planes, tanks, ships, and guns...
...The primary responsibility for housing in peacetime belongs to communities...
...This was numerically a tenth and by value only a sixteenth of the 1925 peak...
...5. The Assets of Present Housing Should be Con-served: Vigorous expansion of new construction should not block effective action to conserve values of existing housing...
...It is to be hoped that these citizens in countless communiites will see to it that there is no repetition in the postwar period of the planlessness of the past, which resulted in slums, blight, and the serious decline of property values...
...What will be the approximate distribution of consumer income to pay for housing...
...2. Each Community Must Know Its Housing Need: Community housing inventories and knowledge of local housing markets are indispensable for intelligent community decisions and effective planning...
...That the production and financing of housing is essentially the business of private enterprise...
...They should be ready to use available financing methods and to suggest and develop, in cooperation with Government, new financing tools...
...The Federal Government's wartime role of programming housing, of deciding how much should be built and where, should and will end with the emergency...
...These tested Government aids should be continued and expanded...
...The effect of a steady production of a million houses a year on reducing the ups and downs of a business cycle is readily apparent...
...By 1929 residential construction was an area of warning of hard times ahead, since it had declined to 2V2 billion dollars, or 2V2 per cent of the gross national product which had climbed to 99% billion dollars...
...Another half a million will be needed for the normal crop of new families and to replace houses destroyed by fire and other hazards...
...The Federal Home Loan Bank System provides reserve credit for private lending institutions, stabilizing their operations...
...HOUSING is potentially a vitally important part of our postwar economy, one which can provide the opportunity for jobs, investments, and markets for the products of industry...
...in improved distribution methods...
...That the Federal Government's role is one of broad national research and financial assistance to private enterprise and communities...
...A look at the peaks and valleys in the construction industry, even more accentuated than those of the economy as a whole, indicates why far-seeing business men and economists are so concerned with its stabilization...
...A nation with the vast resources and industrial capacity of the United States should be able to convert into reality the goal of every family to a decent home in a decent environment...
...The United States at war found it had a tremendous stake in housing, to the extent it was willing to divert materials and manpower to create 1,800,000 additional homes for civilian war workers...
...The role of residential construction can be illustrated by a few figures: The all-time peak was in 1925, when 937,000 were built...
...The National Housing Agency is joining with representatives of communities, private industry, and labor in canvassing ways and means...
...These include yield insurance, equity insurance, cooperative housing, and mutual ownership...
...By 1933 residential construction had declined to 93,000 units valued at 285 million dollars...
...Rehabilitation of structures worth saving Yankee Doodle Bug and cooperative action to prevent neighborhood deterioration are instruments not yet being effectively utilized even in peacetime...
...The first job is to get facts and develop new tools...
...in the achievement of greater stability in employment and higher incomes while working for increased efficiency at lower costs...
...Failure to provide for some of the amenities of living, such as open space, light, and air, account in part for the flight from cities and the resultant financial difficulties in providing for those that remain in them...
...in the application of new materials and methods...
...The National Housing Agency is proceeding on these major premises: That peacetime housing is primarily a community responsibility...
...We believe the figure will average over a million a year for a long period of years...
...The houses and neighborhoods people live in have a direct bearing on the type of citizens they will be...
...Most important are the millions of substandard houses—without plumbing, without bathrooms, without enough light and air, without adequate living space, and in all stages of disrepair—which must be replaced...
...The proportions of the job ahead are huge...
...Private enterprise and labor should be able to use their research facilities and financing aids, as they now exist and are improved, in the production of good housing for the great majority at economic sales prices and rents...
...It's going to take the full cooperation of all elements in our national life to do the job: industry, labor and finance, local, state, and Federal governments...
...But more than this, housing- is an area of broad public interest—not just another competitive commercial product...
...It will take more than the 600,000 houses a year built just before Pearl Harbor, more than the 700,000 average annual volume of the '20's to do the job within reasonable time...
...4. We Must Learn How to Produce Better Housing at Lower Costs: New techniques must be developed in building materials, construction methods, and distribution for higher quality at less cost...
...Stability of cities is largely dependent upon efficient use of land...
...New methods of bringing privately-financed housing within the reach of broader income groups are being explored...
...Lending institutions should be ready for the investment possibilities of a large-scale housing program...
...In the postwar period, these wartime restrictions should and will be lifted...
...It will be important on a national scale in the reconversion of the building materials and equipment industry, so the channels of distribution for peacetime production will be available at the earliest possible moment...
...Only their own citizens can plan for the building of homes and neighborhoods to fit their aspirations and community life...
...The experience and studies of all elements—industry, finance, labor, the local communities and state and Federal Governments—will be the basis of recommendations that can be laid before Congress to complete the legislative framework for a full postwar housing program...
...Hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions —of families will want to use their savings for the realization of plans for new homes now postponed by the war...
...It was forced to restrict home building and suspend the program for low rent housing and the clearance of slums...
...Bad housing and bad neighborhoods go hand in hand with crime, delinquency, and disease...
...It is estimated that it will take one to two million new homes merely to house returning married soldiers and sailors and families living doubled up in wartime...
...It will take better houses at lower cost for the broad mass market, better design and better neighborhood and community planning to do the job right...
...It accounted for only one half of one per cent of the gross national product of about 55 billion dollars—low as the latter was...
...In this field lies the promise of new homes for more citizens and a larger market for private capital...
...Achievement of that goal will have a tremendous impact on the health and welfare of our citizens and on the sound growth of cities and towns...
...Labor-Industry Cooperation THE cooperation of industry and labor, which have big stakes in postwar housing, is essential if the development of community plans is to be realistic...
...Here are several points on which I believe we should take action: * * * 1. We Must Appraise the Significance of Housing in Our Whole Economy: How much housing will be needed in a prosperous postwar America...
...If decent housing is necessary in wartime to keep the production lines moving, it is paramount in peacetime for the maintenance of good citizenship so essential to sound democracy...
...This sector of the housing program must be non-competitive and should, furthermore, provide an outlet for private capital, contractors, and manufacturers of materials and equipment...
...That all needs, however, must be met and it is the job of Government—local, state, and Federal—to assist private enterprise and pick up where private enterprise cannot meet the need...
...that its responsibilities stem from the importance of housing to the nation as a whole and from the impact of the success or failure of the housing industry upon national economic conditions...
...The rebuilding of cities and elimination of blighted areas is interwoven with the cost of land and methods of assembly of land...
...7. We Should Work to Improve Methods of Assist-ance to Communities: A complete program must attack the problem of adequate shelter for those families of very low income who clearly cannot be housed profitably by private enterprise...
...The NHA is analyzing the factual experience under the Federal subsidy program to communities, in order to appraise current proposals such as increased local financing and increased contributions in lieu of taxes...
...The local communities should be able to turn to the Federal Government for the data, collected on a national scale, that will help them meet their individual problems, and for the financial assistance necessary to shelter groups who will still be unable to pay the full cost of good housing...
Vol. 8 • August 1944 • No. 34
