The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-05-04
BY RUTH FINNEY.
Times Special Writer

n
Times Special Writer
WASHINGTON. May If any,
thing can turn the trick for the
down and out construction industry,
it has TO be home building. The New
Deal reached this conclusion re-
luctantly, for home building is a
problem it can attack oriy by
round about, time consuming
methods.
The country spent S11, 339 600, 900
for building in 1928 Even if the ma
tiOnal credit could stand it. there
is little chance that the Government
could spend this much every year,
usefully, for roads. bridges. dams,
pOstoffices and other public pro-
jects.
The Real Property Inventory dis
closed that 563.474 homes. or I'll of
all those surveyed in 63 cities, were
overcrOwded, and that 1898
families were doubling up with other
families because of poverty.
Five Million Needed
On the basis of these figures.
Daniel E. Casey, in charge of the
inventory, estimates that there is a
shortage of five million dwelling
units for the country as a whole
The inventory found, also, that
38 1873 of the structures examined
were unfit for human use. Another
273,511. or 1913 per cent, were in
need Of structural repairs, while AS
per cent needed minor repairs.
Even more shocking, to a country
which has considered itself the most
modern and the most civilized in
the world, were discoveries having
to do with sanitation and conven-
fence.
The Federal Housing AdminiStra-
ton, studying the inventory'S fig
ureS on the condition Of buildings,
estimated that 16 million of the
COuntry'S 26 million homes are in
need of major repairs or improve
ments 1t figures that about three
million can only be saved by re-
building.
The National Survey of Potential
Product Capacity, after conducting
its own investigation, announced
that even if we should spend 10 bill
lion dollars a year on housing, it
would take Is years to raise Amer
lean housing to reasonable stand
ards of sanitation and comfort.
Still another survey was made in
Europe, for comparative purposes,
by Relief Administrator Harry Hop
kinS. He came back reporting that
housing in the United States, espe-
cially for working families, is moth
ing short of a scandal and that
American slumS are the most de-
graded in the world.
"A Costly Luxury"
All of which would be most en-
Couraging for the unemployed
building tradesman if enough peo-
pie had the necessary money for
building homes or even for renting
good ones built by some one else.
The chief obstacle to recovery in
housing" said N. H. Engle, assist
ant director of the Bureau of For
eign and DomeStOc Commerce, in
an address a few days ago. is that
adequate housing, and particularly
home ownership, as now constituted,
is a costly luxury which few can
afford"
The cost of building a brick and
frame house of five rooms. gov
eminent figures show, dropped to
IS per cent of the 1929 figures in
1882. but by last year it had mount
ed again to GAL per cent of the
1929 figures.
Income Figures Cited
Building materials are 81 per cent
as expensive as in 1926 Wage rates
for the building trades are only
about per cent less than in 1926
Incomes have dropped while these
costs have remained relatively stable
And even in better times, the
Bookings Institution found shat sc
per cent of the workers in this
country earn less than $500 a year;
SO per cent of them less than
$4,000: 66 per cent of them less
than $500; "A per cent of them
less Llan $1,000
Under these circumstances, $500
a year is about all such families
can afford TO pay for rent or fol
carrying charges. This is not
enough to support even a $4,000 in
yeStment in a house and lot, and
one-family houses. in 1884, cost on
the average a little more than
| $4,000
Monday What can be done
/ about costs?