The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-09-22
WAGES ARE GUT AND PRICES GO
 DOWN, BUT RENTS STAY AT PEAK
Survey of Rental and Housing Situation Throughout the Country Shows Gouging Continues on
 Wartime Scale.

New York, Sept. 22--Rent gouging by profteering landlords continues unabated throughout the nation, ac- cording to a countrywide survey just completed by the International News Service.
 ments is going forward-if it can be said to be going forward at all-in slow, halting fashion.
 In scores of cities. where high rents and unemployment have forced many families to abandon expensive shell ters, the price of place in which to live has not declined, despite many apartments being idle.
 Few states have been able to grap- pie with the rent or housing problem with any degree of success. The land lords have won all the battles
 Decrease One Per Cent.
 The survey shows that, while foods have declined 32 per cent, from peak war prices, fuel II per cent. and clothing has gone down 45 per cent rents have gone down only 1 per cent. under peak war prices. Where wages have been slashed-and where have they not been slashed 1.-the rent bur den placed upon the heads of families has been made all the heavier. It has amounted, in effect, to actual in crease in rent, because proportionate- ly a larger amount of the monthly in come must be devoted to shelter than when war wages were available. To gain some idea of how big cities are in the grip of the la audlord official estimates published in New York from realty operators show that each year SS75, 1000, 0,000-nearly the Ne lue of the entire American wheat crop-is paid out by wage earnerS for rent. This does not take into account those per sons who own their own homes.
 New York Grants Tax Exemption
 New York state. which has endeav- ored. with slight success, to limit landlords to 25 per cent. profit by legal statute, appears to have gone ahead of most states in giving ten years tax exemption to the person who builds a new home. Under this stimulus many apartments and tiny lot homes are being built in Greater New York, some S6, 500, 900 week go- ing into such work, although official estimates show this is but half the sum required weekly to inaugurate a building program that will relieve congestion and bring down rents. Most of this building is going on on Long Island.
 While this situation obtains. New York landlords are preparing to ask further rent increases in October, ac- cording to Junius Wilson, who heads the mayors committee on rent profit eering. Steward Browne, headIof the United Real Estate Owners Associa- ton, estimates it will require fur ther three years to remedy the New York housing situation.
 The situation in New York is gen era1 throughout the East. At Wash ington, where Congress tinkerS at regulating District of Columbia af- fairs, an anti-rent-gouging measure, which has been in force a year, ex- pires in October, and realty men are seeking to prevent extension of its life. At New Haven. Conn.,, a few in stances of 1e to Is per cent. rent re- auctions are not indicative of the gen era1 trend while a survey of Connecti- cut cities, where there has been much unemployment, shows that rents have not, as a rule, come down any. Few houses are available for rent at Phila- delphia. the ''city of homes" In many cities realty operators are forcing ten ants to buy at peak prices, or vacate. At Syracuse, N. Y, lease renewals have been negotiated at 10 per cent increase over last year. Rents at Syra- cuse. as in most Eastern cities. have doubled since 1914