Death rates from diseases not associated with bad living conditions Preventable disease and death are only the most conspicuous and most obviously tragic of the social costs of inadequate housing. The members of the American Association of University Women are especially concerned with the psychological as well as the phyical toll which insufficient and inadequate housing takes among the nation's children. More than 2,000,000 families are now forced to live doubled up with in-laws and grandparents for lack of a home to which parents and their children can move. Though no quantitative, scientific studies of the strains of doubled-up family living have been made, such strains can hardly fail to contribute to the maladjustment of children growing up under these conditions. I had the privilege of attending the family life conference held here last week, and in the section where I was participating that question was raised. There were doctors, pediatricians, teachers, parents, young people-recently married-all sorts of people. And there was unanimous agreement that the problem of living doubled up was a problem of the greatest seriousness from the point of view of healthy family life and the healthy rearing of children. For many children, too, lack of housing means actual separation from home and family. A recent study of children in the District of Columbia committed to the Board of Public Welfare because of neglect or dependency found many children who had had to be placed in foster homes or institutions because their own relatives had no decent place where they could care for them. This study found 90 children in a period of a few months whose relatives wanted them and were prepared to give them a home where they would be loved, but for various reasons could not take them. The largest single reason-the only reason reported in more than one-third of the caseswas inadequate housing. For this, the children became public charges. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, in December 1947, published a city worker's family budget, which attempts to determine what it costs a family of four to maintain a level of adequate living-"To satisfy prevailing standards of what is necessary for health, efficiency, the nurture of children, and for participation in community activities." Standards for housing used in estimating this budget for city families include the standards of privacy, sanitation, heating, lighting, safety, equipment, and accessibility to community facilities set up by the committee on hygiene of housing of the American Public Health Association. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that a budget which would include housing to meet these minimum standards for a family consisting of parents and two school-age children would range in different cities from $2,700 to $3,100 per year. According to the estimates contained in the Economic Report of the President trans mitted to Congress in January 1948, 48 percent of all families received less than $3,000 a year in money income in 1946. While this does not mean that 48 percent of all families were unable to secure housing that met the minimum standards used in estimating the city worker's family budget, since the estimate in the Economic Report includes rural as well as urban families and families with fewer members (and also with more members) than the four-person family used in the study, it does indicate clearly how large is the proportion of families today who cannot afford minimum adequate housing. Many of the branches of our association, as the direct result of their own study, have become gravely concerned with the need for measures to provide housing for low-income families in their own communities. One hundred six branches engaged in special study or group activity on community planning and housing during the year 1946-47. That is an indication of how widespread the concern among our branches is in the various communities. During the past 2 years, approximately 75 branches, scattered all over the country, undertook to find out how a family of four earning $1,500 a year could live in their particular communities. These branches found the same story over and over again that such a budget failed to cover two basic needs, health and housing. A study group in the American Association of University Women branch in Cincinnati initiated an investigation of health conditions in the community. As they pursued their study, they found themselves concerned inevitably with the need for public housing. They discovered that State-enabling legislation was needed, as well as the Federal legislation before us here. As a result of what had started as a study of health problems, the study group in the Cincinnati branch found itself recommending the passage of State-enabling legislation for public housing. The need for vigorous steps to increase housing rapidly, especially for low- and lower-middle income families, has become more urgent than ever in the 211⁄2 years since the legislation now before this committee was first considered by the Congress. The sharp rise in food prices during the past 2 years has made it necessary for families to spend a larger and larger proportion of their income for food, leaving less available for shelter, clothing, and other necessities. In these circumstances many families have seen the hope dwindle that they might be able to afford a better place to live. While full employment and increased wages have changed some of the conditions which prevailed 10 years ago when the public-housing program was first undertaken, large numbers of families remain who can only obtain a decent place in which to bring up their children if public lowrent housing is provided. In the face of present high prices for necessities, along with present high costs of building, families of low fixed incomes and families in occupations where bargaining power is low are particularly hard hit. For these reasons, the sense of urgency which we felt 21 years ago in calling at that time for the passage of the General Housing Act has become even greater as the months and years have intensified the problem. Of course, it is not simply an emergency problem, but it is a long-range problem which has existed for many, many years. Its emergency character is only part of the problem. The long-range problem is with us. The emergency character has been intensified. Furthermore, recent world events have enhanced our concern that this measure shall be passed in order to strengthen American democracy which today is the keystone in the arch of world stability. In order to perform its world role, the United States must give evidence that its democracy meets the needs of its people and it must have the internal unity which comes from a genuine belief in its institutions on the part of its citizens. Failure to pass this bill with its public-housing provision intact, thus assuring at least substantial efforts toward meeting housing needs, would provide ammunition to those who claim that our democracy does not meet the needs of our people and such failure would make it more and more difficult for millions of our citizens to feel wholehearted enthusiasm for "the American way of life" when for them that "way" does not include a decent home. It seems abundantly clear to us that every major provision of the present bill, S. 866, is essential to meet the critical housing needs of the American people. We urge prompt and favorable action by this committee and by the Congress. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mrs. Ware. Are there questions of Mrs. Ware? Mr. COLE. I have one question. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cole. Mr. COLE. Mrs. Ware, are you familiar with the section on lowrental housing which provides that the public-housing agency shall make periodic re-examination of the incomes of the families living in the projects involved? Are you familiar with that provision? Mrs. WARE. Yes. Mr. COLE. I wonder what that entails, in connection with these reexaminations. How frequently and how complete will the examinations be? Mrs. WARE. I cannot answer that for all housing authorities, because, of course, the administration lies in each housing authority. I happen to have a student who is doing her field work in the National Capital Housing Authority here, and that process of re-examination has been one of her responsibilities as part of her training. So I have only that basis for answering you, and I have observed it to be very thorough. Mr. COLE. Well, if it is thorough, then, that means that frequently social workers will call upon these families and examine them carefully and exhaustively concerning their income; is that correct? Mrs. WARE. It is not usually a matter of calling on the families. It is a matter of examining reports. Mr. COLE. Examining what? Mr. COLE. What do you mean: The families will just report their incomes? Mrs. WARE. Yes. Mr. COLE. They will not go to the families, into the homes, and examine each family as to what their income may be? Mrs. WARE. Not unless there is some reason to do so. What I am simply trying to say is the administrative procedure would not normally involve any more home visits than would be administratively necessary, wherever records are available. 75674-48-39 Mr. COLE. Are you familiar with how it is done now? Are they just submitting a statement, say, monthly or quarterly or yearly? Mrs. WARE. I am not familiar with the full details; no. Mr. COLE. I am a little concerned about it. "Shall require them to make periodic re-examinations of the net income of families living in low-income projects." I was wondering if we were going to set up a group of social workers who would call upon these people, as is being done now in the welfare set-up. Do you think they would do that? And, if so, how far would it go? We would have social workers, then clerks to the social workers, then supervisors of the social workers-I am wondering how far we will re-examine periodically into the lives of these people or their incomes. Mrs. WARE. I only know that the public housing program has been in existence for 10 years, and the number of social workers that are employed in public housing projects is very small. That is the only piece of information that I have that has bearing on this question. Mr. COLE. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Are there further questions of Mrs. Ware? (No response.) The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mrs. Ware. Our next witness is Sydney Maslen, representing the American Association of Social Workers. STATEMENT OF SYDNEY MASLEN, REPRESENTING THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS Mr. MASLEN. Mr. Chairman, I have appeared before Legislative Committees for the past four years with Monsignor O'Grady and Caroline Ware, and I have listened to their testimony very carefully this morning. Frankly, I do not believe that there is a great deal new in the statement of the American Association of Social Workers. I would like to add it for the record, and submit it for the complete record. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, that will be done. (The document referred to is as follows:) The American Association of Social Workers is a professional organization concerned with the promotion of proper standards of welfare programs in the United States. The Association has contributed testimony on the housing needs as known by its membership during the past four years that the housing bill has been under congressional consideration. Our previous statements are, therefore, a matter of record and will not be repeated here. At our annual delegate conference in Atlantic City last month, a resolution was passed unanimously urging enactment of the Taft-Ellender-Wagner Housing bill in the form in which it passed the Senate. A copy of this resolution is appended. We ask that it be placed in the record. While practically all persons concerned with the housing problem agree with the various provisions of the bill for making housing available through commercial channels at lowered costs to the middle wage earners, opposition has been expressed toward the program. The need today is probably as great as it was in 1933, when the Federal public housing program received its inception under the Emergency Public Works Act. The public housing program envisaged by the Taft bill is clearly not a new departure. It contemplates a tested program based upon the experience of the United States Housing Authority, under which 200,000 public housing units were constructed. It was first conceived to meet the emergency conditions arising our of the depression years, out of World War I, and out of a decade of underbuilding to meet the nation's housing needs. The program has been modified by the bill in the light of practical experience with public housing in a majority of the States. This program is now accompanied in certain localities by State and local public housing programs which complement each other. The bill has certain provisions for encouraging investment housing construction and slum clearance—all of which appears sound in view of the expected stabilization of population in our urban areas in a few years to come. Studies before the war indicated that many cities were on the verge of bankruptcy because they were decaying at the core. The blight has been temporarily obscurred by war-inflated incomes. We shall, we believe, be building on a sound social and economic basis of we extend this public housing program for the conservation of human and economic resources in our urban and rural areas. The members of our association throughout the country come face to face every day with appalling needs for housing which are crying for a solution. Conditions of insanitation, overcrowding, separation of family members, family tension, desertion, emotional and behavior problems and juvenile delinquency stand in the way and dissipate social welfare measures to promote better and more healthful living conditions. Medical examination staffs of draft boards during the war were forced to reject a higher proportion of youth from the slum areas than they did from the average community. The family case worker and the visiting nurse find their efforts constantly blocked and threatened by wretched housing conditions. Institutions are overcrowded because they must continue to have patients who would be discharged if there were a decent home for them to return to. The basic problem is an economic one. It is very clear that private enterprise cannot profitably build homes for the low-income groups at rents within their means. The lowest economic rent possible in new construction today is about $60 to $70 in urban areas. For the families who can only pay $30 to $40— which means the majority of the low wage earners-public housing must be provided. We believe that private enterprise should be assisted to provide all the proper housing it can, and to the extent that this does not meet the need, that public housing be provided. That is the philosophy of the Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill. The American Association of Social Workers recommends its enactment at the earliest feasible date. (The resolution referred to by Mr. Maslen is as follows:) RESOLUTION ON HOUSING, INTRODUCED BY THE COMMITTEE ON Whereas the AASW believes that good housing is a basic essential for wholesome living and maintaining and improving the stability of family life; and Whereas it is clear that middle and low income families cannot be provided with enough good housing without additional legislation to effect more rapid construction, more construction in the lower cost ranges, and financing plans. within the capacity of consumer needs; and Whereas additional provisions for governmental stimulation and aid are necessary for eliminating slums and rehousing the population of existing slums and blighted areas; and Whereas this session there has been introduced again in the Congress the Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill S. 866, which provides sound and far-reaching measures for resolving these problems: Therefore be it Resolved, That the AASW 1948 Delegate Conference reaffirms its endorsement of the general purpose, principles, and philosophy of the Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill. S. 866, in the form passed by the Senate and urge its enactment with such amendments as will serve to make it an effective instrument of housing policy; and Be it further resolved, That copies of this resolution be sent to the chairman of the Banking and Currency Committees of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, and that copies be sent to the majority and minority leaders of both houses. Recommended for adoption by the Resolutions Committee. Mr. MASLEN. I would like to use my time to discuss some of the points raised in the testimony this morning. Would that be agreeable, Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. |