of nearly 3,700 institutions representing the bulk of the thrift and home-financing business of the savings, building, and loan type.

The United States League has long had a committee on housing and it has been the function of this committee to study the opportunities and responsibilities of private enterprise in supplying housing not only for peacetime pursuits but also for war workers, as well as to study public housing, including provision of housing for war workers supplied by the Government. Of course, we have followed very carefully the work of your Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds and have noted with approval and admiration the careful and courageous position which you and your committee have taken on the subject of housing for war workers.

Our committee has noted that you are now considering an amendment to the act which bears your name and which would provide for an additional $600,000,000 for war-worker housing. Undoubtedly the committee will have to consider in its study of this legislation some factors in addition to the mere authorization of additional expenditures.

The suggestions which follow in this letter are the result of a recent meeting of our committee. In making these suggestions, we hope it will be understood, first, that we do not request a hearing before your committee; and secondly, our position is certainly not that of wanting to block any housing which will expedite the production of war materials. Indeed, it is quite the opposite. We recognize that housing is one of the important factors in constantly increasing such production and that if it is to play its part it must be produced rapidly, at just the right places, and with a minimum demand upon critical materials, scarce labor, and an overburdened transportation system.

It is for this reason that our committee believes that henceforth all war housing should be of the speedily erected, temporary construction type. This position is covered in the following excerpted statement adopted at a meeting of our committee at which representative managers of savings and loan associations from all parts of the United States were present on May 12 and 13:

The speed with which this Nation must produce airplanes, guns, tanks and battleships is so great that we cannot afford to delay for one day the construction of housing units for war workers which make possible rapid and efficient armament production. The only objective that this Nation can consider at this time is the objective of winning the war in the quickest manner and in the manner that is least costly in terms of human life. Purely temporary war housing units or dormitory-type dwelling accommodations can be erected with the greatest speed and with the expenditure of the least amount of critical materials. The fact that such housing units may have little or no use after the war emergency is not the important consideration.

All war housing provided in the future should be of a purely temporary nature and there should be increased use of dormitories for war workers. The construction of anything but purely temporary dwelling units and dormitories for war workers involves delay in the production of necessary war housing. Many construction economies are possible in the provision of housing and living accommodations for war workers and the construction of war housing in the future should embody every possible construction economy. The demands today for critical materials are so great that we cannot afford to provide anything but the bare minimum in living accommodations. Only bare but comfortable shelter should be produced by the Government in the war housing program.

In Public Law 409 you and your committee, in amendments to section 306 of the Lanham Act with regard to payment of taxes on publicly owned housing, took a long step forward and one which we certainly approve. Observation has indicated, however, that this provision might be circumvented in connection with allowance for expenditures by the Government for street, utilities, or other public services. Indeed, this could virtually defeat what we understand to be the whole purpose of the amendment, namely, that these projects should carry their share of the cost of providing local and State government services to the same extent that privately owned property does.

Typically in connection with a private housing enterprise, strects and utilities are installed at the expense of the project and included in its cost either at the time of its development or through the payment of special assessments subsequently. When, in the case of public properties, these costs are offset against the sum which these projects would otherwise pay in lieu of taxes, it means that other property in the neighborhood is in effect subsidizing these projects insofar as the cost of services rendered by State and local Government is concerned.

Accordingly, our committee respectfully suggests that the purpose of section 306 be clearly stated by amending it to read "Each project shall be subject to all taxes and assessments of the State and/or political subdivision in which it is located."

Our committee also notes that throughout the country in defense housing areas building homes for workers in war industries by private enterprise has virtually stopped, or is about to stop, because of the shortage of building materials. Under the circumstances, we believe that the building of permanent houses under previous authorizations should cease if there is such a scarcity of materials that private building is being stopped in this field. We urge that instead this situation suggests a provision in the pending amendments to the Lanham Act providing that money previously appropriated be used entirely for dormitory housing largely of a temporary type just as we have suggested above in connection with the proposed additional authorization, and further, that the amounts previously appropriated be exhausted before the contemplated additional $600,000,000 is used.

We suggest this because we question whether the program, as it is now being pursued, will actually provide housing rapidly enough to be used at the peak of this country's war-production effort. We note that since April 1940 the Congress has made available $1,020,000,000 for emergency housing and that, in addition, $400,000,000 has been converted to this purpose from the funds authorized in 1937 and 1938 under the United States Housing Act of 1937. This should provide for about 400,000 houses. Actually, less than 120,000 units were occupied or available for occupancy on May 1 of this year so that the war housing program produced an average of less than 60,000 houses per year, and at that time nearly 200.000 units had progressed no further than the planning stage. Consequently we feel that, unless all of the funds available are concentrated on a temporary and more quickly erected type of structure, many of them will be of no real avail so far as winning the war is concerned.

We submit these suggestions for your consideration in the hope that they will be of real help to your committee in your task of seeing that funds appropriated for housing of workers in war industries really do contribute to the national effort to win the war and that the housing so erected does not defeat its fundamental purpose by creating an unnecessary demand for critically scarce materials, labor, and transportation facilities.

Sincerely,

ELDRIDGE R. THRAPP, Chairman, Committee on Housing.

74259-42-22

GOVERNMENT PROPERTY

No. 7

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SEVENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

H. R. 7826 ·

A BILL TO AUTHORIZE THE SALE OR TRANSFER OF PROPERTY BELONGING TO THE GOVERNMENT FOR OTHER PURPOSES

DECEMBER 2, 1942

Printed for the use of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds

COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS

FRITZ G. LANHAM, Texas, Chairman

ALBERT W. Woods, Clerk