The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-09-02

|; the greatest problem the city of Idian 1. axolis faces, said Judge Collins las winter when a number of landlords were brought before him charged witi responsibility for overcrowding and in sanitary living condition. A few years ago the people of Indianapolis or ol | any other American city, except New York, would have indignantly denied l such an assertion. Today in nearly every municipality, small as well as ] large, there is at least a group O1 1 thoughtful citizens who have begun to 1 ask whether the housing problem is really a local issue of which New Y Yori has a monopoly
 During the past year the interest of these inquirers has been stimulated
 and their hands strengthened by the National Housing Association, whose purpose Is the improvement of housing conditions, both urban and suburban in every practicable way, bringing home to each community the import ance of good housing conditions and the consequences of bad ones. In order tb carry out this purpose it offers tc aid in the organization of local hous- ing commissions or committees, to as- Sist in the enactment and enforcement Of laws that will prevent the erection of unfit types of dwellings and encour- age the erection and maintenance cd porper ones, to act as a clearing house Of information and to furnish advice and suggestions to all who are inter- ested
 This is a task which demanded to be done. President Robert W. DeForest last month in opening the First Ma
 tional Conference on Housing in Amer
 1ca, which marked the end of the Ma tional Associations first year of work todd the delegates, who represented sixty-three cities from Boston on the east to Honolulu on the West and from Hamilton. Ont, on the north to Dallas on the South, that the New York Ten ement House Committee had received so many inquiries and requests for aid that it became necessary to create a special organization to take care o1 them
 The proof that this demand really existed was furnished during the past year-the conference with it's one hun dred and twenty-four representatives of municipal health departments. hous- | ing commissions, chambers of com merce. civic leagues, and phianthropiC societies was, from this point of view | only a rafiffcat ton meeting. During | those twelve months the association | had been called on by fifty-five cities t l hommisenors and commAtteas or dn putting them on an effective working basis in middle western cities, such as f Detroit, and eastern ones such as Aa. | bany It had aided in drafting legis.
 latfon for Columbus. and Cleveland, fol Albany, for California, Indiana, Ken lucky, and Connecticut. It thac laided in securing amendments to codes lin other places. It had strengthened kthe New Jersey Tenement House Com mission by showing the need for more inspectors, which have been provided tN had trained two city officials ana lone executive officer of a voluntary induced those cities and that assOcia- Itfon to take up. It had conducted two icoursee in housing in the New Yorf tEchood o6 Philanthropy and had giver ispeciai training to those students wht showed a marked inclination for the iNork. It had sent its secretary and ifield secretary to twenty-three cities to some of them several times, to ad Dress meetings on the subject of hous Ing, to direct preliminary investiga. tons and arouse general interest, tC advise regarding local problems, tt consult with officials and voluntary organizations.
 | In addition it has carried on a con. tfnuous campaign of education. One
  lclared that the trouble is people do not
 look around to see what is going or iabOut them They are ignorant not iorl9y of how the other half in a. distant .sectfon of the city live, but even o1 lhow tbefr netghbors in the next block ,or in nearby alley houses live. They
 have eyes which see not. Disease bear
 ing niee from a prfvy across the alley or from manure pile a block off wing their way direct to the good citizens dinner table and his baby's milk-bottIe though he has never watched their
 fhgfG For, old sayings to the con-
 trary notwithstanding, what you don't
 know does hurt you. It is only when
 one does know and prevents, that he
 Is secure And that he may know
 both the cause of his ills and the
 methods of preventing them the Ma
 Eiona1 Housing Association is waging
 It's campaign of education. Its series