Evening star., 1942-03-09
Shortage Of Housing
Faces Detroit Area
As War Plants Grow
Little Is Done to Care
For Million Additional
Workers Expected
By DAVID ]. WILKIE,
Wide World Automotiye Editor,

Wlue WUIlQ hulOHOtlNC LulLOI.
DETROIT, March Looming
daily larger as collateral problem
of the automobile industrys CONVEX
sion to a complete war implement
manufacturing program is the ques-
ton of housing the additional thou
sands of new workers who soon will
begin to pour into Michigan's in
dustrial areas from outside sources.
Sorae time before the end of the
present year the erstWhile automo-
bile factories. then fully converted
to the war work effort, will be pro-
ducing at the rate of $4,000 000, 900
a year and will be employing ap-
proximately 100000 hourly rated
workers.
Something like half a million of
the workers will be newcomers to
the converted and the newly-built
armament factories. 1t Is for these
newcomers, men and women alike,
many of whom will bring their fam
lilies with them that housing facili-
ties must be provided.
More Than Lodging Places.
And housing facilities" means
much more than just lodging places.
1t means school houses, water sup
ply, electric lighting, heating, sewage
and transportation systems and
many other things. Right now the
areas in which the automobile in
dustry'S armament factories are 10
Gated have such facilities for just |
about their normal population.
Typical example of the housing
problem developing with the auto
mobile industry's war effort program
is presented by the Ford Willow Run |
bomber plane factory some IS miles |
west of Detroit. Rapidly nearing |
completion, this biggest plant of its
kind in the world-it has 81 acres
under a single roof and an adjoin-
ing airport of something like 900
acres-is expected to employ between |
10000 and 100000 workers at peak |
production.
To date no housing project has
been undertaken in connection with
the bomber plant development and
the series of small communities in
that outlying section of Wayne
County Detroit) or adjacent WASH
tenaw County cannot absorb addi-
tional thousands of residents unless
their own housing facilities are
greatly expanded
Plan Model City"
Plans have been advanced for the
development of model city" of
some 10000 homes near the factory.
1t has been estimated authorita-
lively that such development
would cost at least $50,000,000 and
still leave a shortage of housing
facilities.
In opposition to the model city"
plan. officials of some of the neigh
boring communities have main
tanned that it would be strictly a
wartime boom town" and a de-
serted community after the war.
First major move toward at least
partial solution of the housing
problem in Detroit was announce
ment last week of a Federal project
providing for $4,000 homes to be
built in the Detroit suburban area.
vi 10 o1oo al aAl0CI way w lllbCA-
est private enterprise in 10000
unit project in the outlying sections.
Can't Start for Two Months.
But sites haven't been chosen and
much planning with respect to wa
ter supply, schools, transportation
and sewage facilities remains to be
done and it will be at least two
v,aov,thr hofnro cfn ri "a
The two proposals, of course, offer
indirect aid for the Willow Run
bomber plant housing situation, but
long before they are completed new
workers are expected to begin rush
ing into the Detroit area.
Discussion of the housing problem
associated with the automobile in
dustry's war productive effort has
brought immediate speculation as
to just what may become of the
numerous huge new factories once
the need for mass production of
tanks, aviation engines and bomber
planes has passed. Henry Ford
upon whose land the Willow Run
bomber plant has been erected and
whose engineers will supervise its
productive activity, has said he pro-
poses to go on building airplanes
there after the war;
Even some of Mr.. Ford's close as
sociates admit, however, that at
present there is some uncertainty
as to the place of Willow Run in
the economy of the postwar era.
Others assert they cannot envision
any peace-time activity that could
keep the giant bomber factory in
profitable operation without drain
ing heavily from the employment
possibilities of Detroit and its west
erly suburbs and the other smaller
communities even closer to Willow
Pun