The Daily Alaska empire., 1938-05-05
BETTER LIVING IN JUNEAU

Earlier in the year. Congress, President Roose- velt's recommendation, passed new housing bill aimed to loosen the credit features Of the act and give wider opportunity to persons of limited means to have better housing facilities It is one of the plans the President has suggested for speeding up business in the country at the same time raising the standard of living among the majority of the people who are in the lower income classes.
 Carried out as intended and taken advantage of by property owners generally it probably will do just that However if it is permitted to lag without the salient features of the program universally presented to the property owners and potential property owners it likely will have but limited effect in stepping up business recovery in the nation.
 It is to assist in this program that group of business men in this community under the leadership of James J. Connors have formed themselves into a committee known as the Better Housing Committee. They hope to encourage, through the spreading of factual information the housing act home and business property construction and remodeng in Juneau and the Gastineau Channel community.
 It is a laudable ambition and an excellent example of how business big and little throughout the nation can aid in gearing up the business machine which in some places particularly in the States has been slow ing down rather than turning at normal pace. Fortunately the business lag has not been felt in Juneau but the activity of the committee IS just as laudable for the simple that Juneau like every other town in Alaska stand wave of building construction and moderniZation.
 We Alaskans might well be honest about it md admit that we are woefully behind the States in building especially housing We need more new houses we need many of our old ones modernized we need them repaired; We need more apartments, and certainly more modern ones Some of our business properties are little better than eyesores like some of houses
 There isn't a section of the entire United States, excepting the slum sections of some of the larger cities where the new housing program can be of greater benefit than in Alaska This due of course to the fact that through the years we had to learn to get along on less because we have been isolated from the States and costs have always been consd- erable of a barrier Costs continue high but one of the major features of the new housing legislation is to spread the long period of years giving the person with only limited amount of money inn mediately available the opportunity the per- son who might have few thousand dollars on hand to build house or other building he might desire.
 Housing is the major factor. next to food, in modern existence The fact is We spend great part of our lives in sleep Most of thank goodness do most of our sleeping in bed. The bed, naturally enough is in house and all of prefer it in where the roof doesn't leak and where the heat ing facilities such that we can keep warm
 Leaky roofs inadequate bedroom space, inferior heating arrangements are just few of the things which can be remedied under the housing act If we