Public housing

“ The Housing Authority argues that this authorization is limited by the Act's express policy of 'vest (ing) in the local public housing agencies the maximum amount of responsibility in the administration of the low-rent housing program, including responsibility for the establishment of rents and eligibility requirements (subject to the approval of * * * (HUD) ) , with due consideration to accomplishing the objectives of this Act while effecting economies.' [29] But the HUD circular is not inconsistent with this policy. ”

“ To reach our long-range goal of adequate housing for all our people, comprehensive housing legislation is urgently required, similar to the non-partisan bill passed by the Senate last year. At a minimum, such legislation should open the way for rebuilding the blighted areas of our cities and should establish positive incentives for the investment of billions of dollars of private capital in large-scale rental housing projects. It should provide for improvement of housing in rural areas and for the construction, over a 4-year period, of half a million units of public low-rental housing. ”

“ This should include financial aids designed to yield more housing at lower prices. It should provide public housing for low-income families, and vigorous development of new techniques to lower the cost of building. ”

“ In the latter situation the State is impliedly sanctioning what it may not do specifically.
If we were in a domain exclusively private, we would have different problems. But urban housing is in the public domain as evidenced not only by the zoning problems presented but by the vast schemes of public financing with which the States and the Nation have been extensively involved in recent years. Urban housing is clearly marked with the public interest. ”

“ Every citizen of the German Democratic Republic has the right to housing for himself and his family according to economic possibilities and local conditions. The state is obliged to realize this right through the promotion of housing construction, the preservation of the value of existing housing and public control over the fair distribution of housing. ”

“ The long experience of the City and Suburban Homes Company of New York City, and the results obtained in the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's garden tenements, as well as in the Bayonne housing, are conclusive on this point. They prove that a big majority of the tenants respond to their environment, and create thus a powerful public opinion in favor of order. The few backward individuals soon come to obey public opinion, backed by the tactful reminder of the management that rents are much higher elsewhere. ”

“ It embraces many details which are not usually taken into account in discussing housing, but which have as much bearing on the healthiness of the home as the structure itself. The Public Health Acts have further had a certain preventive influence in laying down a standard for the erection of new houses by the ordinary commercial agencies. Such houses are not ideal, because the commercial builder studies economy and the question of rent ”

“ Draw up and implement a policy for housing as a part of general national planning and to support plans for urban areas that guarantee an adequate network of transport and social facilities;
b. Encourage and support the initiatives of local communities for the resolution of their housing problems and for promoting the establishment of housing co-operatives and their own building projects;
c. Promote private building, when in the public interest, and the individual ownership of housing. ”

“ Its seriousness demands the formulation of public policies that shall encourage every form of building operation that will produce sanitary houses at low rentals, whether they are private homes or company houses of creditable standard, or dwellings put up by building and loan companies, commercial builders, or co-operative housing companies, along English lines. ”

“ This led to the formation of several societies, which increased rapidly after the passage of la loi Siegfried in 1894, for promoting the provision of working-class dwellings. In 1902 a Public Health Act and in 1906 a Housing of the Working Classes Act were passed, and these three enactments with regulations made in 1907 govern the procedure. ”

“ Today several dozen million people still live in rundown areas in cities and towns. We must continue housing renovations in these areas. This year, we will renovate another 6 million housing units in these areas, continue to develop public rental housing, encourage according to local circumstances the greater use of monetary compensation for those affected by such rebuilding, and improve local infrastructure and public services. ”

“ The main purpose in the erection and operation of such a building should be to demonstrate that it is possible to provide satisfactory living accommodations for working men at a reasonable rental and as a business proposition that will net five to six per cent." It would be difficult to find, in a few words, a clearer statement of the policy of housing in its social, architectural and financial relationships. ”

“ The Congress set up the United States Housing Authority to help finance large-scale slum clearance and provide low rent housing for the low income groups in our cities. And by improving the Federal Housing Act, the Congress made it easier for private capital to build modest homes and low rental dwellings. ”

“ The People’s Homesite and Housing Corporation is expanding low-rental housing for urban workers and the Home Financing Commission is ready to undertake aided self-help housing in the small communities, as well as private housing under a system of insured mortgages. ”

“ To these natural and honest forces must also be added the weight of vested interests, which deliberately obtain power on local bodies for the purpose of preventing housing reform being put into thorough operation.
Never was there a greater and louder demand by the people for a fair share of the land they live in. The countryman wants his plot and his cottage, and the town dweller a decent house at a reasonable rent. ”

“ Because what we do know is that homeownership, at least as I know it, growing up on the south side of Chicago, has always been one of the building blocks for strong neighborhoods, for strong schools and strong families. People who own their homes and take care of their homes, it leads to the well-being of the entire community. It's critical. And the housing crisis has drastic consequences, not just on our economy but on the very fiber of our communities all across this country. ”

“ It has to follow that, broadly speaking, the presumptive obligation arises for each such municipality affirmatively to plan and provide, by its land use regulations, the reasonable opportunity for an appropriate variety and choice of housing, including, of course, low and moderate cost housing, to meet the needs, desires and resources of all categories of people who may desire to live within its boundaries. ”

“ Provided, however, That no capital grant shall be made for the development of any low-rent-housing or slum-clearance project involving the construction of new dwellings, unless the project includes the elimination by demolition, condemnation, and effective closing, or the compulsory repair or improvement of unsafe or insanitary dwellings situated in the locality or metropolitan area, substantially equal in number to the number of newly constructed dwelling units provided by the project ”

“ This category of city dwellers desperately needs much better housing and living conditions than is available to them now, both in a rehabilitated city and in outlying municipalities. They make up, along with the other classes of persons earlier mentioned who also cannot afford the only generally permitted housing in the developing municipalities, the acknowledged great demand for low and moderate income housing. ”

“ We shall encourage low ­cost housing designs and the more effective utiliza­tion of local materials for housing construction to reach as many beneficiaries as possible-a project that has been started by the Ministry of Human Settlements. ”

“ Housing comes in an almost infinite variety of forms from single-family detached dwellings to large urban skyscrapers. It is available for purchase or rent. It includes lovingly restored older buildings and prefabricated new ones. But whatever form it takes, good housing remains an essential part of the American Dream. The efficiency and success of free enterprise in responding to the great variety of market demands for housing deserve special notice and commendation. ”

“ And any local group of citizens, desiring to intrust themselves in housing the workers properly, can scarcely expect to do more in the beginning than to establish a local demonstration of sound housing, which will point the way to future progress, and thus set a standard for their district to follow. ”

“ Out of this need there has evolved a long-term congressional program to eliminate these substandard dwellings. Due to an obvious lack of suitable private housing, this program has led to the construction of a number of Government-built, owned and operated low-rent housing accommodations. In 1934, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Alley Dwelling ct, 48 Stat. ”

“ Co-operative Building.—Municipal and philanthropic housing by no means exhaust the efforts that have been made to provide working-class dwellings outside the ordinary building market. Their special function has been to substitute better dwellings for pre-existing bad ones, which is the most costly and difficult, as well as the most urgent, part of the problem in old towns. But in the provision of new dwellings alone they have been far surpassed by organized self-help in different forms. ”

“ The word 'dwelling' in common parlance means a permanent residence. A person can of course take up permanent residence even in a motel or hotel. But those who come for a night or so have not chosen it as a settled abode. Yet the idea of permanency pervades the concept of 'dwelling.' That was the construction given to § 608 by FHA in 1947 when it issued its book Planning Rental Housing Projects. 'Housing' was there interpreted to mean 'dwelling quarters for families-quarters which offer complete facilities for family life.' There again the quality of permanency is implicit. ”

“ The fruit of Miss Dinwiddie’s long and conscientious labor with the Committee’s cooperation was a comprehensive legislative measure embodying the ten years’ experience of the Association and dealing with the adaptation to the purposes of three or more families of houses originally built for one. An earlier law, of 1895, made the building of tenement houses, as such, so costly that few since that time have been built for families of small incomes. Its present day application is almost wholly to the erection of high-class apartment houses. ”

“ The recognition of this third element in satisfactory housing conditions leads inevitably to the granting of powers to some authority to limit the quantity of building permitted on a given area, and to control the building activities of individuals. It is as idle to expect a well-planned town to result from the independent activities of isolated speculators, as it would be to expect a satisfactory picture to result if each separate square inch were painted by an independent artist. ”

“ Homeownership is a great anchor of safety and security in an uncertain world, one of America's most potent symbols of freedom and responsibility, of opportunity and prosperity. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has helped to make homeownership and decent affordable housing a reality for millions of Americans, who otherwise might not have had the opportunity. ”

“ In times of a strained economy and high cost of property maintenance, the business community may be hesitant to provide low-cost housing for the site.
Establishing the facility in a publicly owned building, such as a school, is a solution in many communities. ”

“ The primary responsibility to deliver housing at reasonable prices that veterans can afford rests with private industry and with labor. The Government will continue to expedite the flow of key building materials, to limit nonresidential construction, and to give financial support where it will do the most good. Measures to stimulate rental housing and new types of housing construction will receive special emphasis. ”

“ Encouraging and supporting local community and popular initiatives that work towards the resolution of the respective housing problems and foster the formation of housing and self-building cooperatives. The state shall adopt a policy that works towards the establishment of a rental system which is compatible with family incomes and provides access to individual housing. ”

“ Let us once secure a well-housed city, and well-housed citizens will soon see that their civic centre is worthy of them. Now what is it that stands in the way of this proper housing? It is nothing but the idea that it is necessary for the benefit of some person or some class that the maximum number of houses possible shall be crowded upon every acre of land. If this is not done, we are told that building will not pay. It seems so obvious that the more houses you put upon an acre of land, the more economical use are you making of the land that few consider the question further ”

“ If he who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before is a benefactor, then what is he who tears down a ramshackle tenement and rears in its place such a house as the Casa Ravello, where many families enjoy the privileges of privacy and individuality, or a group of houses such as those in the Richmond district, where the children have abundant play room and each occupant controls half his house, or a small home for one family of which so many examples are entered on the books of the Association in various localities and at varying prices, all within a modest range? ”