xt737p8tb81t_601 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt737p8tb81t/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt737p8tb81t/data/65m19.dao.xml unknown 15 Cubic Feet 24 boxes, 3 items archival material 65m19 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. John Scott Lansill papers Four captioned housing images with overall title Washington Housing: A National Example and accompanying segmented essay text Four captioned housing images with overall title Washington Housing: A National Example and accompanying segmented essay 2023 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt737p8tb81t/data/65m19/Box_24/Item_11/Multipage1382.pdf undated section false xt737p8tb81t_601 xt737p8tb81t éAW "T';‘_; w- ‘,.,_ , .
A NATIONAL EXAMPLE

0 lwenty years ago, Mrs. floodrow Wilson got her first nor-
rifieo glimpse of the squalor wnicn sprawls oehind hundreds
ol .‘lasningtOh's pretentious streets. The spectacle shocked
her -- as it has many another conscientious citizen -- into
an earnest campaign to "reform" or “clean up" the slums.

0 Today, after two decades of effort, Washington housing
remains a public scandal, worse in many respects than it was
in l9l5. lts shortcomings are particularly notorious because
they disfigure the one city which was intended from its se-
ginning to do a planned community,a fit capital for America.

s Washington really has two housing problems. The most

Alley mailings, "home" for hundreds of Washingtonians. glaring eVll is its slums -- notably the congested Second
Precinct and the ISM inhabited alleys, where as many as
eight persons sometimes live in one squalid room.

s Less conspicuous but no less urgent is the need for or-
dinary, inexpensive homes. A chronic house famine has pushed
rents a third higher than the national average, and is for-
cing low-waged government workers to pay as much as half of
their salaries to keep any kind of roof over their needs.

0 The majority of federal employees in Washington fall def-
initely within the low income groups. Sixty-one percent of
them earn less than $2,000 a year, and 25 percent earn less
than $4,500. (Monthly Labor Review, March, l33ll.) if they
set aside the customary one-fifth of their salaries for
rent, what could these people afford to pay for their homes?

a ‘l detailed answer is given in the following table:

\hopping Center.

$16.66 monthly for those earning $1000 a year
$25.00 monthly for those earning $1500 a year
$33.33 monthly for those earning $2000 a year

s In brief, 6| percent of all government employees cannot
afford to pay more than $33.33 a month for rent, and 25 per-
cent cannot afford more than $23.00 per month.‘

o What do they actually pay? Well over Slit) a month, ac-
cording to two reliaole estimates. The Bureauof Labor Sta-
tistics estimated the average rent for Washington at $42.63
in November, I934. In January of the same year the Public
Utilities Commission of the District made a city-wide hous-
ing census with the help of l400 field men.

'strictly speaking. we cannot assume that there is only one income per family.
Inability or one «age earner to meet the chief coats of the family is, howev-
er. the most cannon reason for other members or the family going to work; so
we still are able to contrast the budgeted item with the actual cost.

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Sonce-fashionable address. haphazard business development
pl ights many a good neighborhood.

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The only water supply in a typical low-rent home.