Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-07-21
To Prouide More Homes

-HERE will be wide and hearty approval
of Mr.. Hoovers suggestion that
larger portion of the nations savings
funds should be devoted to house-building
and home-buying. Since war times cut short
this class of construction the dearth of dwell
ings has become a menace to the country's
contentment and prosperity.
Authorities reckon that today there are
one hundred and seventeen families to each
one hundred American homes, and that at
least one million, two hundred thousand adj
ditional houses are required to supply the
deficiency. The i'll consequences are mani
fold and deep-reaching. Peril to health dis
tress of mind, burdensome rentals, depleted
earnings, individual dissatisfaction, social
unrest, all rise in a sullen stream and will
continue to swell until relief from the sorely
inadequate housing of today is forthcoming.
Divers plans have been proposed by way of
remedy, and in some communities have been
carried to famous success. The House
Financing Corporation of Detroit, formed
in the critical aftermath of the World War,
when hundreds of the city's inhabitants were
dwelling in tents, proved a civic and humanl-
tartan boon, as well a sound investment.
Similar enterprises, planned upon quantity
production basis, provided with liberal credit
within reach of small incomes, have done
much for the forward-going cities that
launched and sustained them.
Regrettably enough, movement proposed
more than a year ago by the Atlanta Real
Estate Board to relieve the housing shortage
here did not materialize. The plan as then
outlined contemplated a company with at
least a million dollars of capital which would
build moderately priced homes, to be sold to
citiZen-owners at a figure as near actual cost
as a reasonable rate of interest on purchase
notes would allow. Such project, had it
an pressed duty to contamination, would
have meant millions to Atlanta industry and
)mmerce, besides unreasonable gains for
civic welfare and social justice.
The utmost that individual communities
can do, however, will leave wide and frown-
ing array of these problems unmastered.
Secretary Hoover is right in viewing the
matter as national misfortune that calls
for national thought. The chief reliance in
the needful financing, he believes, must be
the savings institutions.'' His opinion is that
with total of twenty-five billion dollars
available from these sources, it will be found
latter eliminating the building and loan
cieties and the savings banks who devoted
about fifty per cent of their deposits to home
building), that the savings departments of
other banks, trust companies and insurance
companies, comprising more than one-half
of the total, probably do not lend more than
ten or fifteen per cent of their savings assets
to housing"
The Secretary considers it feasible.
through Federal Reserve amendments, to
permit the banks to apply more of their
credit facilities to this need, and also to di
vert thereto some forty or fifty per cent of
the almost one hundred and sixty million dol
lars deposited in postal savings banks. The
adyisability of particular steps along this line
IL, of course, a matter for most careful pond
ering and experienced judgment. But of the
general and urgent need Of action to relieve
the housing shortage there can be no man
ner of doubt.