Housing Act Of 1937

The Housing Act of 1937 (), formally the "United States Housing Act of 1937" and sometimes called the Wagner–Steagall Act, provided for subsidies to be paid from the U.S. government to local public housing agencies (LHAs) to improve living conditions for low-income families.

The act created the United States Housing Authority within the US Department of the Interior. The act builds on the National Housing Act of 1934, which created the Federal Housing Administration. Both the 1934 Act and the 1937 Act were influenced by American housing reformers of the period, with Catherine Bauer Wurster chief among them. Bauer drafted much of this legislation and served as a Director in the United States Housing Authority, the agency created by the 1937 Act to control the payment of subsidies, for two years.

The sponsoring legislators were Representative Henry B. Steagall, Democrat of Alabama, and Senator Robert F. Wagner, Democrat of New York.

Although initially controversial, it gained acceptance and provisions of the Act have remained, but in amended form.

Actions

The Housing Act of 1937 sought to eliminate what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt described as "habitations which not only fail to provide the physical benefits of modern civilization but breed disease and impair the health of future generations." The legislation outlined four goals: providing housing, renewing existing living areas, decreasing density and the construction of sustainable communities. In order to deflect accusations of socialism and to protect private developers from competition, the act required the demolition of the same number of units of housing as would be built. Furthermore it severely restricted the income of people who could reside in the new housing.It also limited the amount that could be spent to build the housing to $5000 per unit, which was very low even at that time. These construction projects were carried out by local housing authorities with the federal government providing the funding. Between 1939 and 1943, 160,000 units were constructed. Only 10,000 more units were constructed by 1948.

Outcomes

While the Housing Act of 1937 looked to solve American housing issues, it became marred by inequalities and problems. The main problem that rose from the legislation was the power given to the local governments. The Federal government let the local governments and voters decided on where and how to use the federal funding. This led to local governments maintaining segregationist housing policies as well as allowing many public housing locations to become neglected.

Major amendments

The Housing Act of 1949, enacted during the Harry Truman administration set new postwar national goals for decent living environments; it also funded "slum clearance" and the urban renewal projects and created many national public housing programs. In 1965, the Public Housing Administration, the US Housing Authority, and the House and Home Financing Agency were all swept into the newly formed and reorganized United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 was a United States federal law, which, among other provisions, amended the Housing Act of 1937 to create Section 8 housing, authorized "Entitlement Communities Grants" to be awarded by HUD, and created the National Institute of Building Sciences.

In 1998, the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act (QHWRA) was passed and signed by President Bill Clinton. Following the frame of welfare reform, QHWRA developed new programs to transition families out of public housing, developed a home ownership model for Section 8, and expanded the HOPE VI program to replace traditional public housing units.

See also

* Mobile Home Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974
* Subsidized housing in the United States
* Section 8
* Urban Renewal

References

Further reading

* Allen, Ryan, and David Van Riper. "The new deal, the deserving poor, and the first public housing residents in New York City." ''Social Science History'' 44.1 (2020): 91-115.
* Clement, Bell. "Wagner-Steagall and the DC Alley Dwelling Authority: A Bid for Housing-Centered Urban Redevelopment, 1934–1946." ''Journal of the American Planning Association'' 78.4 (2012): 434-448.
* Heathcott, Joseph. "The strange career of public housing: Policy, planning, and the American metropolis in the twentieth century." ''Journal of the American Planning Association'' 78.4 (2012): 360-375.
* Hunt, Bradford D.
“Was the 1937 U.S. Housing Act a Pyrrhic Victory?”
''Journal of Planning History'' 4, no. 3 (2005): 195-221.
* Radford, Gail
"Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
* Vale, Lawrence J.
"From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors"
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Press, 2000).
* Vale, Lawrence J.
“Reclaiming Public Housing: A Half Century of Struggle in Three Public Neighborhoods”
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Press, 2002).
* von Hoffman, Alexander. "The lost history of urban renewal." ''Journal of Urbanism'' 1.3 (2008): 281-301

* Catherine Bauer Wurster, Wurster, Catherine Bauer, "Modern Housing," (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1934).

External links

United States Housing Act of 1937PDFdetails
as amended in the GPObr>Statute Compilations collection
* HUD
"HUD Historical Background"
18 May 2007

"Affordable Housing—An Intimate History"
by Charles L. Edson

"75th Congress, 1st Session, Chapter 896, September 1, 1937"
— Act to fund jobs to build safe and affordable housing for low-income families, remove slums, and create a United States Housing Authority.
*
"United States Housing Act of 1937 as Amended by the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 as of 3/2/1999"

{{US housing by state
United States federal housing legislation
Public housing in the United States
75th United States Congress