Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1925-12-04
Cheap Frame Houses Built By
Square Mile In New York City
Seen As Big Fire Menace

ps International Labor News Service
Nsw York City, Dee. 3.-Workers
~ EXPECT 10 live in modern, sani-
~ and sunlit houses and they have
- n live in the slums and near
snms until a cheaper means OF nnane-
~ house building Is found. This Is
re burden OF the evidence presented
N the closing session Of the State
Hausing Commission. Its report to
sEa Governor will be ready January /.
Meanwhile public sentiment is crysta.-
Hzing foI a housing program toi
workers.
Builders testify that square miles
of frame houses in the outmost sec
f.aps Of the city have been erected anu
I'D To wage eafners at about $4,000
fsr six and seven rooms. The CON
.t,nction is so poor that some are al
r.ady wafping and falling apart. The!
are built on 20 to 25-foot lots, one and
a half feet from the line on one side
.,nd three feet on the other. The re
sult is a great fire menace, according
IA Fire Chief Kenlon, a stiff wilma
rom the sea making possible a great
disaster.
Houses That Prove lheofy.
Comfortable and healthful houses
that can be purchased at workmen's
rent or occupied at fair rentals have
ben demonstrated in the building
ventures of the Metropolitan Life ln-
surance Company, the City and Sub
urban Homes Company and the Sun
nysde Corporation, a limited dividend
corporation, witnesses said, but these
buildings, to rent at about 50 room,
are impossible for a speculator to
build at the present high cost of ma
terial and finance, it is admitted.
Walter Stabler, comptroller of the
Metropolitan, said the only way these
successful housing experiments could
be duplicated would be through strong
financed semi-public companies that
would not desire profit of more than
8 per cent on the operation to reim-
burse their investors. Builders who
have to borrow money on second and
third mortgages can not do this and
still remain solvent, it was pointed
out.
As many as 10000 are waiting for
the S9-a-room houses the Metropoli-
tan put up in Queens, it was testified.
Why Workers Can't Pay.
The basis of the problem is that
workers can not pay the rents required
for houses built at modern costs.
The figures show two-thirds of the
families in the city must live on $4,000
a year or less and that they live III
dirty, dark, inconvenient tenements
because they can not afford the $l5 to
$40 room apartments of which there
is a surplus now Flats renting at $40
a month for a small family are non
existent except where families occupy
them as the result of protection of the
emergency rent laws that it is now
proposed to extend after their eXplra-
tion next year.
The commission is now deliberatlng
ON a constructive effort to solve the
housing problem. Previous recon-
mendations for public ceredit for the
construction of homes for workers
have been ignored by the legislature.
Members of the commission are pillng
up evidence showing how other coun-
tries from Holland to Australia have
handled such situations. The trend
seems to be to make a seml-pubiic
utility of the cheaper houses, leaving
the high-priced apartments to take
care of themselves without protection
of the rent laws.