Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-11-12
Expert Sees Housing Projects
As Educational Service
Dr.. Soper Believes
They Can Be Lesson
In Cleanliness

Ihey Ian Be Lesson
In Cleanliness
AS object lessons in neighborhood
cleanliness, DR., George Albert Soper,
noted expert on public sanitation,
believes the Governments housing
projects for low-income families can
perform a distinctive educational
service to the Nation.
So does Administrator Nathan
Straus of the United States Hous-
ing Administration, who brought DR..
Soper to Washington to serve as
consultant engineer in all matters
pertaining to sanitation in con-
nection with the public housing pro-
gram. To their minds the mission
goes beyond the mere collection and
disposal Of refuse. They visualize
1t as an opportunity to stimulate
imitation In every city where the
U. s. H. A.. Is proposing to build
by keeping the Governments own
housing projects trim and tidy.
The two served together as men,
bers Of the Committee on Street and
Outdoor Cleanliness, a group of
public officials, interested citizens,
professional : and businessmen ap-
pointed by the New York Academy
of Medicine. Through long contact
with city slums and tenemer1ts, they
realized the need and value of edu-
cation in public cleansing. In plan
ming and maintaining the 200 or
more housing projects under the
U. s. H. A. program, Mr.. Straus
felt that these questions were of
vital importance to the low-income
tenants and the communities in
which they are to form a part.
1t is DR. Soper's job to oversee
all such matters; to give local hous-
ing officials the benefit of his long
experience in establishing methods
of ground maintenance as a joint
enterprise of managers of public
housing projects and tenants who
live in them. It is right up his
alley.
DR.. Soper has made seven tours
of English and European cities for
the purpose of studying how they
handle their problems of public
cleansing" as the Britons term 1t.
They have made great strides in
recent years, especially in Italy,
where new and novel methods of
handling waste are used success
fully.
yet this cleansing of cities has
gone far in America. too, in recent
years." he declared, "because of the
distinct benefits to be derived from
it and because in many cities asso-
Citations of public spirited people
are succeeding in arousing local and
national conscience"
BY cooperating with city officials
and securing cooperation on their
part in matters Of sanitation and
public cleansing, Dr. Soper believes
the housing projec.s can be made
models of cleanliness and order. But
education of the tenants, he insists,
is equally important.
This can start With the children.
New York. has tried it successfully,
with thousands of boys and girls
enlisted in the campaign to keep
sidewalks, yards and cutters from
being Uttered with trash. Each
block captain" was responsible for
the public tidiness of particular
city block and one encouraging fac
tor of the campaign, he said, was
the interest stimulated in their par
ents.
The organization of such juvenile
| leagues among the families of public
housing projects, he said, no doubt
would be an influence in the sur
rounding neighborhood. Experience
with the few newly opened housing
projects and with those built by the
P. w. A., which are now operated by
the U. S. H. A., has shown that this
can be done successfully.
Each Government project has in
Generators for the disposal of refuse.
In the modern new apartments,
waste chutes are provided to the
cellars where the refuse is burned
without annoyance to any one. City
officials are constantly studying new
and more advantageous methods Of
dust control; the old open trash and
garbage trucks are rapidly disap-
pearing in every enlightened COM
munity.
DR.. Soper has been widely recog-
nized at home and abroad for dis
tinguished services in the. field of
public sanitation for nearly 40
years. Among these public services
was his timely discovery of Typhoid
Mary" New York's carrier of typhoid
germs who caused q national sensa-
ton in 1906.
To his orderly mind, he regards
the ordinary city dump and incin.
orator as q public nuisance.
In Bradford, England, hs said.