Official proceedings of the annual meeting: 1923

344

THE HOME

THE HUMAN SIDE OF HOUSING
ARE WE LOSING THE BATTLE FOR BETTER HOMES?
Bleecker Marquette, Executive Secretary, Better Housing League,
Cincinnati
Not for decades has the housing problem been so acute as during the past two or
three years. For almost the first time in recent history it has ceased to be a problem
for the submerged tenth alone, and has hit squarely the people of moderate means.
They are better able to understand today a thing that our underprivileged classes have
long understood-what it means to lack an adequate supply of houses at reasonable
costs.
An uphill fight.-We have been fighting a losing battle during the past three years.
The war brought us victory, but it also trampled down our efforts to get better homes.
Not only have we made no marked progress, but, more alarming, we have in many
respects lost ground. For decades we have recognized the impossibility of building
new houses that really poor people can afford to live in. Now even the family of moderate means finds it next to impossible to pay present-day costs.
During the past two years (1921 and 1922) there was a general lowering in the cost
of living, yet during the same years rents have continued to climb, and, in most of our
cities, are still climbing. Building costs decreased for a time, but last year they again
made a 20 per cent advance. No city in the country built enough houses to take care
of its yearly needs between 1917 and 1920. Last year saw a boom in home-building,
but in practically no case was the number of homes built sufficient to make much of
an impression upon the housing shortage. That building costs have increased out of
all reason is indicated by recent statements issuing from leaders of the building and the
banking field, in various parts of the country, and by the fact that many construction
projects are being cancelled and banks are curtailing loans.
I have found it impossible to determine with certainty the relative increase in the
cost of building as compared with the increase in wages. The figures I have been able
to secure indicate that building costs are now 206 as compared with Ioo in the year
1914, while the union scale of wages in all lines of work is 193 as against Ioo in 1913.
I am convinced from my own observations that building costs have risen more rapidly
than wages and, that therefore the average workman is worse off so far as his housing
is concerned than he was in the pre-war period.
Blow falls on weakest spot.-As usual it is the low-income group who have been hit
hardest. They are the least able to pay; they have had the smallest increase in wages
and the largest families, and yet their rentals on the whole have been more drastically
increased than those of any other class. In Cincinnati, for instance, we know from an
actual study made in I918 that the average rental in tenements was $3.25 a room per
month, with a range from $1.75 to $6.50 a room. We resurveyed these same blocks
this year and found the average rental had increased to $5.30 a room, ranging from
$2.50 to $12.50 a room. We have individual cases in some tenement districts where
rentals have gone as high as $I7 per room.
The low-cost house passes out.-In Cincinnati we built a little less than I,900 houses
last year. Normally a large portion of the homes constructed each year would be of
very moderate cost. We made a study to find out just what happened last year. We