History of Public Housing
Early New Deal housing programs came as a part of employment packages that called for the removal of slums and made provisions for low income housing. those who were previously unemployed were now put to work constructing government owned rental units. The Housing Act of 1934 created the Federal Housing Administration which served as a review committee for banks and other loan institutions to make loans to low income families. the Wagner-Steagle Housing Act of 1937 provided for the establishment of the United States Housing Administration, an agency that would be responsible for providing funding for low income housing initiatives to the individual states. The Act provided that the initiative for providing the ownership and operation of the housing would be the responsibility of a local entity known as a public housing authority, an agency appointed by local elected officials. The 1937 Housing Act required the demolition of slum housing before public housing could be built.
The Postwar Period
After World War II there was an increased demand for new housing. One consequence of this was the Housing Act of 1949 which shifted housing policy farther towards slum clearance. Title 1 of the Housing Act of 1949 focuses on urban redevelopment including large amounts of Federal funds for the clearance of slums at a neighborhood level. Entire neighborhoods were demolished and in their place highways were built. Families and businesses were displaced in order to open up land for the development of industries.
Title 2 of the Housing Act of 1949 guaranteed loans for mortgages through government underwriting. However, there were restrictions on what types of loans the government would underwrite. The loans had to be for new housing for a single owner. Most lenders also practiced relining certain areas of towns were not eligible to receive loans. FHA appraisal manuals instructed lan originators to steer clear of areas with inharmonious racial groups and recommended that municipalities enact racially restrictive zoning ordinances as well as covenant prohibiting black owners. As a result, discrimination in the housing market was prevalent and property values began to plummet in minority neighborhoods.
During this time period the architectural style of public housing changed as well. Early public housing units were built in garden style apartments. In the 1930's many public housing architects incorporated the low-rise Zeilenbau style in which parallel rows of two to four story apartment buildings were aligned along an east-west orientation and situated in superblocks. The 1950s ushered in the modernist movement which relied heavily upon French architect Le Corbusier's idea of future cities. Le Corbusier envisioned cities where high rises dominated the skyline. High-rises would prove to be housing disasters due to alienation from surrounding neighborhoods and the lack of public space.
By the 1950s and 1960s inner city neighborhoods were beginning to be termed "ghettos" and carried a negative stigma. Ghettos had once been seen as transitional neighborhoods housing immigrants who would eventually assimilate with mainstream society and move out of the inner city. However, most ghettos at that time remained in cycles of poverty that sprang from a lack of formal education, lack of economic stability and inadequate housing.
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