The Elk Mountain pilot., 1921-07-28
HOMEBUILDERS' COOP ASSN
REMEDIES HOUSING SHORTAGE


After waiting these many years for
real estate spectators, contractors,
and benevolent landlords to provide
sufficient houses for workers, the
Building Trades Council of Reading,
Pennsylvania, has formed Home
builders Cooperative Association to
remedy the shortage of 5000 houses
in that community. The first build
ing operations of the Association be-
gan three weeks ago with the con-
struction of eight model homes ad-
joining the West Reading Co-opera-
are 16x45 feet, with 3 rooms and kit
chen downstairs and rooms and
bath on the second floor. They have
front and rear porches, large back
yards (the lots are 108 feet deep,)
and an S-foot space between houses.
These model homes cost only slightly
more than S2500, effecting saving of
nearly 500 under the usual specula-
tive price for such houses. Needless
to say, they were all sold before the
cellar excavations were completed.
By the organization of the Home
builders Cooperative Association, the
Reading Building Trades Council not
only insures steady employment un-
der ideal working conditions to the
members of the Building Trades of
that city, but it also enables the
workers to get decent homes at cost.
The necessary money was raised by
selling shares at $40 each, payable in
81 monthly installments if desired.
Five per cent interest is paid to in
vestors, and this cost of hiring the
necessary capital is the only addition
to the actual cost of land, labor and
materials used in building these
homes.
Organized labor in st. Paul, Minne-
sofa, has also formed cooperative
construction company. with an auxil-
iary building and loan association,
and is already on the job building
homes for workers. Several of the
strongest labor organizations of that
city have taken their money out of
the banks and invested it with safety
and profit in this cooperative enter
prise.
We believe that these are but the
pioneer steps in cooperative build
ling campaign to remedy the shame
full shortage of houses which the land
have created in every large city of
the country. Cooperative home build
ing renders a two-fold service; it
makes a normal, wholesome home
life possible for thousands of fam
lilies now congested in one or two
rooms, for which exhorbitant rental
is often extorted; and it provides
steady and satisfactory. employment
to the workers in the building trades
under their own management and
control. Cooperative BODYBUILDING
| is not a new or rash experiment.
The British Building Trades workers
have successfully solved the home
building problem for several large
municipalities, contracting to build
as many as 5000 homes at one time.
Private speculative homebuilding has
SO signally failed in these cities that
the municipality agrees to provide
the money and the land, and the, la
bor unions contract to furnish the
labor, purchase the materials, and
take full charge of construction. In
addition, various local cooperative
homebuilding associations are erect
ing houses throughout England. Many
of these houses are furnished COM
pletely with cooperative products,
including furniture, paint, and hard
ware turned out by the big co-opera-
tive factories of the British Cooper
ative Wholesale Society. italian CO.
oprators report similar achievements,
and in Switzerland whole village is
being built comparatively.