Our tenants are a young couple with a new baby and small children. Like most of Park Forest's early residents, the husband is a World War II veteran. He is just starting out in his first job. Perhaps he has just finished college on the G.I. Bill. She is home with the children all day as most of the wives in Park Forest were then.
Money is very tight.
If they had an apartment, they had used a large part of their budget to pay the rent for the apartment. Apartments and homes were rare in the post-World War II years. Internationally it was 1939-1945. The U.S. joined the war in December 1941, after the Japanese bombed the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor. The U.S. and the world were in a Depression from October 29, 1929.