The Daily Alaska empire., 1946-09-18
Housing Outlook
Washington Post)


 Much dissatisfaction is being expressed over the housing program and this doubtless accounts in some measure for the drastic orders issued by Civilian Production Administrator Small We think those orders are wholly justified They may well be interpreted tightening up of controls rather than reflection of failure of the program to date It is well to re- member that the premium payments authorized by Congress to stimulate the production of building mate rias are just beginning to flow. There has scarcely time fol their effort to be felt in the turning out of building supplies to say nothing of the actual com pleon of houses.
 The gloomy part of the picture is that many materials are still critically This IS especially true of such items as lumber soil pipe, plumbing supplies Thousands of houses have been started and now remain uncompleted for want of relatively small items such as flooring, bathtubs furnaces Once medium sized house could be completed in three months Now it requires six to nine months or even longer. This delay tends also to boost prices, and prices are already very high judged by stand ards.
 One other factor has been an active black market There are price ceilings to restrain commercial building. Consequently, there has been much temp tation those who wish build garages drug stores hotdog stands shops of any sort to pay premium for the necessary materials We surmise that con- siderable volume of brisk lumber and equipment which should be reserved for veterans housing has been going into unauthorized commercial projects of this sort.
 substantial shift of emphasis will ultimately result from MT Smars order cutting the permissible volume of commercial building from S48,800000 to s35 0OO 900 a week But the effect will not be felt quickly Experience shows that many projects approved long before they actually undertaken Thus materials will continue to flow into commercial enterprises already approved under the more liberal allowance fol several months to come.
 Of more immediate importance the drastic orders issued dealers in building materials The effect is to channel very large portion of the critical items into residential construction Nearly all of the available supplies of bathtubs, sinks lava tories caSron soil pipe and furnaces must be used for residential construction On IA types of critical items the aside for residential building amounts to 75 per cent The effect should be quickly felt in more rapid completion of dwellings under way
 Can Housing Expediter Wyatt greatly expand the total production of building materials in the months ahead? That will be his severest test Premium pay ments for this purpose did not begin to trckle until June Apparently they helped to produce estimated increase of 50 per cent in one critical item within few weeks and about II per cent in another But the output of clay structural tile and of certain varieties of pywood estimated to have declined for the first month that the premiums paid. This, of course, is basis for judgment to the ultimate effective ness of the program but it does indicate that the headaches of the housing agencies far from being over A brave start has been made and nearly half | million dwelling units put under actual con- struction during the first half of the year. compared with onetime estimate that only 100000 units would be built in the entire year Ths still harder work of following through is now at hand.