Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-07-18

INSPECTION PARTY
FINDS BAD CONDITION
CONTINUED from First Page ]

be healed there is evil that must be
corrected. There are districts in
Harrisburg. where living conditions
are bad beyond description. Bad is
too mild an adjective; horrible is
the term.
DIR. Raunick as Escort
Yesterday Dr. Raunick, city health
| officer, who has been urging for
years the adoption of model hous-
! ing code, accompanied a Telegraph
| representative through several of
the worst localities. What they saw
fairly sickened the little party.
The found rooms without win
dows. halls that never see the light
of day, cellars full of water. houses
without cellars, families housed in
one and two tiny rooms unfit for
human habitation, sewers that have
been stopped up for weeks. build l.
ings made largely of scraps of wood
and tin gathered from the public
dumps. whole groups of houses with
only an outside hydrant and no run
ming water inside; apartments"
over stables and over garages in
winch gasoline is stored. and filth
beyond description.
The party found families with
fairly good incomes living in sur
roundings that by comparison would
make Hogan's Alley look like a
Paris boulevard; not that all of
them want to live that way, but be-
cause they are comparative new
corners and can find no houses IN
Harrisburg for rent within their
means. Rents for these shacks are
as high as they ought to be for
good houses, in many cases, and one
or the evils. encountered in this re-
c CI1 lnn ns.i
mitting an agent to lease the build
ing for reasonable sum and then
renting 1t out by the room at figures
beyond belief. Ten dollars a month
Tor single room with one window.
no light no water and only outside
toilet is not the highest rental en-
countered by any manner of means
Near Heart of Town
Ihe hrst stop was made in Cow
den street, just north of Strawberry
where there are several midtown
usreputable appearing "apartmen
houses. An intelligent colored man
who said he had resided in the
Eighth ward for many years. told
he investigators that he lived on
the top floor of No. 16 Cowden
street, which is an attic room with
sloping roof ventilated with one
small window. 81 pay $40 a month
for my room; with a bed, a bureau
and chair thrown in," he explained
The place is dirty and unfit for
human habitation, but | have no
place else to go. | eat nv meals
with the family for whom I work
Others who live in even worse rooms
than !, without air in summer or
neat in winter, do their cooking in
their rooms on oil stoves. Ten dol
lars for single room of the kind is
pretty high; don't you think so?
The house is owned by a Steelton
man and sublet by woman who
lives in Steelton."
The same man piloted the inspec-
tors to Strawberry street, lust
around the corner, where conditions
are even worse. These buildings are
old and reconstructed so as to give
maximum number of rooms with
out regard to light, air or privacy.
family may have as many rooms
as it can afford. Here the health
oflcers were shown toilets that had
been stopped up for several weeks
and water in cellars that reached
at times halfway from floor to CELL
ing. The place was like a nipnen
although the interiors of some of
the rooms showed efforts on the mart
of the colored people who live there
to keep them as clean as the sur
roundlngs will permit. The apart
ments are dark and dingy and the
halls without light. The stems are
narrow and shaky and glass in the
few windows that exists is in manv
cases smashed.
Rotten" said Or. Raunick. as
he inspected conditions, but much
better than when we got after them
six months ago."
Many families live in these houses
unoer conditions bound to result in
disease, immortality and crime of ali
sorts.
In Capitol Street
Strange as it may seem. one of
the worst housing conditions in the
city exists in Capitol street right in
the heart of a district surrounded
by fine types of houses occupied NV
prosperous people who have com
planned again and again with no re-
suits against continuance of tbe
nuisance.
The four-story brick house at 500
Capitol street has been transformed
into what its owner designates as an
apartment house." 1t looks as
though 1t might be relic of the San
francisco earthquake so far as the
interior is concerned. 1t was once a
high-class residence. 1t is well
built and capa BILE of being trans
formed into really desirable dwell
ing place. At present it is unsani-
tary, dark, filthy and run on the
basis of the most profit for the least
outlay. The plaster is dropping from
the walls, the floors of the halls are
grimy, the backyard is a litter of
plaster-covered bricks and pools of
stagnant water and there is no light
within at night save that which
leaks in from far-off street lamps.
Whole families live in one room
each and they use common kitchen
in the basement. The garbage must
be carried out through the build
ing, because the thrifty owner has
erected garage across the whole
of the rear yard. And for these
palatial quarters the renters are
charged as much as $40 each per
month per room, although a few
apartments" may be had 70 rless.
Several hundred dollars judiciously
expended would transform the place.
Conditions are so bad here that even
with houses as few as at present
not all the apartments" are filed
Two old tumble-down houses next
door are even in worse condition.
They will fall down shortly if they
are not torn away.
Another apartment" House