All W-E-T

Almost two years away from V-J Day the nation's top domestic problem is the same one that troubled it in 1945, and its solution seems just as far away as ever. Millions of veterans and non-veterans are searching for reasonably priced, reasonably clean living quarters. At least 3,000,000 families have no place they can all their own home, and 10,000,000 more are living in rickety shanties or slums,--in the breeding grounds of vice, crime, and disease. And instead of being on the up-grade, housing starts have dropped from 100,000 a month in the fall of 1946 to a meager 42,000 in March, 1947.

Why? Restrictive labor union practices? Partially, but Fortune magazine's survey of the Chicago area, the stronghold of the building trade unions, concluded that only three percent of the cost of a new house was chargeable to "make-work rules." Unscrupulous contractors? Again a partial answer, but contractors are paying about 100 percent more for their materials than they consider a fair price, and even the best of them have difficulty in building a decent house that sells for less than $10,000. And the people who need houses haven't got that kind of money.

The nation has never been properly housed and the problem is particularly acute now because of the rise in births that followed both world wars, and the slump in housing construction that occurred in the early thirties. While the housing shortage may be no one's fault, it is everyone's concern. Its solution requires the modernization of building codes and zoning ordinances, the elimination of whatever sharp practices exist among building unions and contractors, greater use of prefabrication and more standardization of materials and fixtures, and provision for long-term, low interest financing.

In the Wagner-Ellender-Taft bill, favorably reported from committee but blocked by the inertia or hostility of Senate leaders, lies the single greatest boon to house building. It is not a public housing bill. It would act only as a stimulus to private enterprise. With a yearly cost of only $143,000,000, it could produce in ten years 15,000,000 dwelling units, of which only 500,000 would be public housing. The W-E-T bill would help provide homes that rent from $30 to $50 a month, a fact which causes landlords and realtors who are enjoying inflated prices to look on the bill with fishy eyes. A whole bevy of pressure groups, including the American Legion, is trying to block Congressional action on the bill. But sufficient needling from a home-wanting public can push it onto the Senate floor.