PART IV OF THE Seventh Annual Report HOUSING AND HOME FINANCE AGENCY Covering the Activities of the PUBLIC HOUSING ADMINISTRATION LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL Honorable ALBERT M. COLE, Administrator, Ilousing and Home Finance Agency, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. COLE: I am submitting herewith the annual report of the Public Housing Administration for the year ended December 31, 1953. Sincerely yours, Enclosure. CHARLES E. SLUSSER, Commissioner. FOREWORD When Congress in 1953 reduced the number of new low-rent homes that could be built with federal aid, the Public Housing Administration concentrated on getting fullest value from its reduced funds. Maximum quality within statutory cost limitations became the agency's prime target. Volume of low-rent home starts dropped to 32,000, as contrasted to 55,000 in 1952 and 69,300 in 1951. This reduction when stretched over the need for such homes made mandatory a sharp eye on feasibility and planning of projects by local housing authorities. PHA consequently intensified its technical review of each operation in the chain-from original survey to completed construction and permanent financing. These thorough reviews followed the mandate of the 1949 Housing Act that projects shall "not be of elaborate or extravagant design or materials, and economy will be promoted both in construction and administration." PHA was able to suggest construction economies without sacrificing quality or livability. In refinancing operations, sizeable savings in interest charges were made. At the same time, PHA undertook to give city officials and citizen groups a clearer understanding of requirements and limitations of the federally aided low-rent program. The agency reasoned that with its own staff reduced by 21 percent during the year, the fewer borderline projects requiring review, the better. This became all the more important because other tasks assigned PHA by Congress and the Housing and Home Finance Agency certainly had not diminished in scope. The accumulated total of federally aided low-rent housing, whose financial management is reviewed by PHA, had increased by the year's end to 344,000 low-rent homes, housing 114 million persons. Another major responsibility was the disposal of federally financed war and emergency housing. Nearly 70,000 such units were released twice the number disposed of in 1952. At the year's end, 226,500 units remained out of a peak total of almost 963,000 units marked for disposition. The rate of new construction during the year was determined by Congress, with the first 6 months limited to 35,000-units-per-year rate, and 20,000-units-per-year for the last 6 months. INTRODUCTION The Public Housing Administration is the successor to the United States Housing Authority (USHA), and the Federal Public Housing Authority (FPHA). The USHA was established in 1937 to administer the low-rent public housing authorized by the United States Housing Act of 1937 (Public Law 412, 75th Cong., approved September 1, 1937), while FPHA came into existence in 1942 through Presidential Executive Order (No. 9070, February 1942). This order consolidated the then existing Federal housing bodies into one overall housing agency-the National Housing Agency (NHA). FPHA was a constituent of NHA. FPHA was succeeded by the Public Housing Administration pursuant to the President's Reorganization Plan No. 3, which took effect July 27, 1947. The plan created the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) with PHA as one of its constituents. In addition to changing the name of the public housing agency, Plan No. 3 transferred to the Public Housing Commissioner the functions formerly administered by the USHA Administrator, and also those of NHA pertaining to the subsistence homesteads and greentowns program and the now liquidated Defense Homes Corporation. The Public Housing Commissioner received as delegations from the HHFA Administrator the functions relating to war housing under the Lanham Act (Public Law 849, 76th Cong., approved October 14, 1940), and related statutes. |