Evening star., 1936-04-20
|CKES, WAGNER
URGE ENACTMENT
OF HOUSING BILL
Building Program Cannot
Aid Slums Without More
Funds, Senate Body Told.
WAGNER SEES BOON
TO HEAVY INDUSTRY
States 500 of Unemployment
Due to Lag in That Branch
of Business.
BACKGROUND
administration has made many

BACKGROUND
administration has made mdny
efforts topard improvement OF
housing conditions throughout
country, but lack OF coordination
betDeen different plans has i'm
paired their effectiveness.
This Winter, Senator Wagner,
sponsor OF social security legisla-
ton and seUeral other major social
measures, proposed s876,000, 900
program OF loU-cost housing; sub
mitted bill to carry out plan.
Congressional anxiety to adjourn
after disposal OF tar and relief
issue may block passage OF any
housing legislation by this Congress.
BY the Associated Press.
Support for the Wagner 1916, 900 900
housing bill was voiced today by its
author and Secretary Ickes, who de-
clared it offered necessary Federal as
sistance for elimination of the slum,
evil.
The Senate Labor Committee held
a hearing on the measure.
Senator Wagner, Democrat, of New
York testified the program would ex-
cite the heavy goods industries to new
activity, increase employment and at
the same time eradicate slums without
competing with legitimate private con-
struction.
Ickes said present housing efforts
had not reached the slurn area be-
cause of lack Of sufficient money and
of well-composed national housing
program.
at has long been known" Ickes
said. reading from a manuscript, that
the slum furnishes the environment
most conducive to the existence,
spread and communication of sickness
and disease and fosters and en-
courages juvenile delinquency, crime,
vice and immortality"
Says No Policy Provided.
Present housing acts, Ickes said,
"are concerned primarily with the i'm
mediate relief Of unemployment. They
provide no housing policy for the Ma
ton"
"A result OF obtaining money from
the emergency appropriations" he
continued, has been that original al
lotments to the housing division (of
P. W. Al have subsequently become
unavailable due to the necessity of
using such funds for more direct
relief.
"Of the sl54,ooo,ooo allotted to the
housing division under the national
industrial recovery act, 100000
was subsequently impounded for other
purposes. OF the s249, 100000 allotted
under the emergency relief appropria-
ton act Of 1895. approximately s14S,-
600 900 was later withdrawn.
Such a curtailment of funds has
necessarily been followed by the aban-
donment of projects"
Opposes Directors Board.
Ickes indorsed the 1915, 200, 900
4-year housing program projected by
the Wagner bill and commended its
provisions for Government grants to
make rents iow enough for low-income
groups, but objected to having the pro-
gram administered by a semi-inde-
pendent board of five at $l0,000-a-
year salaries.
He said the measure could be ad-
satisfactorily under the In
terror Department.
A. r. Clas, director of the housing
division of P. w. A., followed Wagner
and Ickes with testimony before the
committee that 100000 homes for
low-income groups would be needed
in the next 10 years, an estimate
100000 higher than Wagner's.
The New York Senator said there
still are "two-thirds as many without
work today as at the depth of the
Lists Unemployment Cause.
Urging need for spurring on con-
Wagner said about so per
cent of total unemployment today is
due directly to the retardment in the
heavy industries and another IS per
cent is chargeable to the service trades
that are directly affected thereby.
when we consider the longtime
deficit that has accumulated, the ex-
istence Of unhealthful quarters that
must be replaced and normal growth
in the future, it is very conserva-
lively estimated that the country
needs at least 100000 new family
units during the next 10 years. The
building program of this magnitude
will absorb both the unemployment