New Homes for Old Part 5

The limited dividend company, organized not for profit, and operating under the careful supervision of a governmental department, is another solution. This agency has been particularly successful in Ma.s.sachusetts under the stimulus as well as under the supervision of the Ma.s.sachusetts Homestead Commission, and is undoubtedly capable of further development.

GOVERNMENT BUILDING LOANS

Another possibility is that the local or state government advance the money and enable the worker to buy his own home. That is the plan adopted by the Ma.s.sachusetts Homestead Commission in its experiment at Lowell. It is also one of the policies adopted by the Canadian government, which will loan money to provincial governments to be advanced for building houses on land owned (a) by the provincial or munic.i.p.al government, (b) by the limited dividend company, (c) by the workman himself. This latter plan would probably commend itself most readily to the foreign-speaking groups.

Direct loans by the local government to the worker are advocated in the careful and thorough plan worked out by Mrs. E. E. Wood.[17] One suggestion is a proposed amendment to the Postal Savings Law, authorizing loans from postal savings deposits to workers with annual incomes not in excess of twelve hundred dollars. The investigation of the application is to be in the hands of the nearest local housing board. A suggested amendment to the Farm Loan Act is that housing loans be made by the Farm Loan Board on the same terms on which farm loans are now authorized. It is interesting to note that this plan contemplates the continued activity of the building and loan a.s.sociations with which the foreign born are already familiar. It suggests that the first loan be given by the government and the a.s.sociation be content with a second mortgage, receiving in return the greater stability that is secured from a transaction carried on under governmental supervision.

According to Mrs. Wood's report, before 1915, 700,000 houses had been built or acquired in the United States through the aid of building and loan a.s.sociations.[18] She thinks that the moderately paid wage earner, but not the unskilled worker, was benefited. This conclusion is disputed by officers of four building and loan a.s.sociations in Chicago interviewed in connection with this study. That the a.s.sociations reach the foreign-speaking groups seems to be evident from the names in the Annual Report of the auditor of the state of Illinois for 1918. The Bohemians had the largest number of societies, and the Poles were second. The Italians alone of the large national groups were unrepresented.

Mrs. Wood's plan also calls for a national housing commission in the Department of Labor, to be created under congressional act, with organization and powers a.n.a.logous to those exercised by the Federal Board for Vocational Education. For the use of this commission it is proposed that a fund be created by the issue of bonds, from which loans could be made to certain designated agencies for the clearance of congested areas and the increase of housing facilities.

The Federal legislation is to be supplemented according to Mrs. Wood's plan by state legislation, including:

1. A restrictive housing law, a constructive housing law, and a Town Planning Act. This plan contemplates a state commission on housing and town planning through which the Federal aid for the state would be made available; to which should be intrusted the responsibility of investigating and approving or disapproving housing schemes proposed by local agencies and a.s.sociations.

2. A state fund similar to the Federal fund is proposed, and definite suggestions for its use are worked out. For the local authorities, local housing and town-planning boards, probably with the county as the basis of organization, are proposed.

This housing fund, composed of the Federal fund, the state fund, and in some cases local funds, is to be used to make loans to munic.i.p.alities, housing organizations that are not organized for profit, limited dividend companies, co-operative a.s.sociations, or even employers. The plan contemplates that the lowest paid wage earners, among whom are numbered a large per cent of the foreign born, should continue to rent; but the landlord should not be a private individual seeking to make profit from providing the workers with shelter.

The plan also takes note of the plan for co-partners.h.i.+p owners.h.i.+p adopted by the United States Housing Corporation. The main features of this arrangement are:

1. Owners.h.i.+p vested in a local board of trustees bound to operate the property in the interest of the tenants and until the property is fully amortized in the interest of the government.

2. Formation of a tenants' a.s.sociation to which all residents of three months are eligible on payment of small yearly dues. This a.s.sociation to elect a tenants' council to act as directors of the a.s.sociation, to confer with the board of trustees, and to carry out such duties as trustees direct.

3. Any tenant may become a co-partner by applying for bonds to the amount of 25 per cent of the value of his dwelling, and accompanying his application with a cash subscription of one half per cent of this.

4. Tenant co-partners are given a voice in the management by the right to elect trustees, the number increasing with the amount of subscriptions to bonds.

5. Tenant co-partners granted remission of one month's rent a year.

6. Tenant co-partners leaving or desiring to discontinue as co-partners have the right to sell their bonds to trustees at par.

Mr. A. C. Comey, the author of the plan, says of it:[19]

Such a co-partners.h.i.+p scheme as this will present to workmen a unique opportunity for saving, for not only will they get as high a rate of interest as a safe investment justifies, but they will be to a large degree custodians of their own security and will thus be able to protect their investments in much the same way as actual home owners. On the other hand they will avoid most of the pitfalls of home owning, such as loss through deterioration of a neighborhood, forced sales in case of departure, and inability to realize on a.s.sets locked up in private homes. Moreover, they will tend to develop a high degree of community spirit, usually so lacking among apartment dwellers, and thus take more interest in public affairs and become better citizens generally.

These are advantages which it would be especially desirable for the foreign-born groups, as many of them have experienced the pitfalls of home owners.h.i.+p. It is a complicated system and would have to be explained in detail to the various groups. The medium for such explanations is at hand in the foreign-language press and in the immigrant societies, and the effort that it would involve is surely worth making. It should also be noted that it is not so complicated a system as the land tenure in many of the countries from which the immigrants come.

INSTRUCTION IN SANITATION

The subject of housing reform as a means of easing the housewife's task was considered first, as it is useless to talk of helping her in her work until she is given some of the conveniences with which to work. It is evident, however, that that is not all that is necessary for the foreign-born housewife. She is not accustomed to the use of a house of the size contemplated by the proposed plans--the Italians, Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Hungarians, and doubtless others have known only the one and two-room house--and there is always the possibility that, given more rooms, they may be used to take in more lodgers. Such was the case, for example, in the relatively adequate houses provided by the United States Steel Corporation at Gary.

It is not necessary, however, to use the method of that corporation, and turn out of the houses persons who need instruction in the use of the house. Persuasion and instruction in the uses of the special features of the house could have been tried. It might have been possible for the rent collector or a sanitary inspector with a social point of view to establish friendly relations on their regular visits to the families. With confidence gained and tact displayed, much in the way of education could be accomplished. To construct houses so that each room can serve one and only one purpose would in part meet the difficulties. Above all, patience and a realization of the difficulties that the foreign-born housewife meets, are essential.

A point on which some architects lay special stress in the structure of low-cost houses is the devotion of the entire first floor to cooking and living uses--not sleeping. That is, the living room, dining room, and kitchen are either combined or so open into each other that no temptation is offered to close off part for sleeping purposes. The bedrooms are then on the second floor, each room having only one door, and the bathroom and the storage s.p.a.ce are slightly elevated above the second and offer no temptation to be used for purposes other than those for which they are designed. If, then, families inexperienced in the use of modern accommodations come into the community, they may perhaps be helped to an understanding of modern devices by the experience of living in houses arranged in this way.

Both the rent collector, if it be a case of tenancy, and the building official, if it be a case of owners.h.i.+p, should not only understand the principles of sanitation and hygiene, but should understand the people they serve. To render the best service to immigrant groups, such officials must speak the language of the group and understand something of its peculiarities. They should, in fact, be public a.s.sistant housekeepers, through whose a.s.sistance the gradual and voluntary initiation of our foreign-born neighbors into community life can take place. New standards of efficiency and new amenities can be developed. Our community life might, then, be freed from the old physical dangers connected with human adjustment to physical surroundings, and take on new dignities suitable to a democratic and adequate life for the whole people.

There remain the difficulties described at the beginning of the chapter, which come from the fact that the processes of the work of caring for the house are different in this country from those in the country from which the foreign-born housewives came. These difficulties are not so easy to solve as those of housing. They are undoubtedly surmounted as time goes on, but it is a gradual process.

Many forces are at work. Necessity is probably the primary one. The foreign-born woman early learns to use American cooking utensils and fuel because they are all she can get. She has to feed her family with the only food the store at the corner furnishes. American furniture and furnis.h.i.+ngs soon attract her attention, and she is curious as to their purposes and uses.

In part, the foreign-born housewives have learned from one another; that is, from the members of the group who have been here longer; and in part they have learned by going into the more comfortable American homes as domestic servants. Those who have done the latter are, usually, the girls who come alone or the elder daughters of the family. In some communities, such as a Bohemian community near Dallas, Texas, it is said to be well understood that the girl will learn domestic science by a kind of apprentices.h.i.+p in the home of her employer. When she has learned what she thinks sufficient, she leaves to practice in her own home and to show her family how things should be done. The limitations and difficulties of domestic service for the inexperienced immigrant have been well set forth in the reports of various protective societies.[20] But the foreign-born women with whom we have conferred in this study have repeatedly emphasized the advantages that come from being shown how to do housework under the conditions in this country. Yet women of the "new" immigrant groups enter domestic service much less than those from the "old" ones.

In the end, no doubt, many foreign-born housewives have learned to care for their homes and raise their families as systematically as their American neighbors, who have had fewer difficulties to contend with. It is, however, a wasteful system which leaves the instruction of the immigrant housewife to the chance instruction she can gain from fellow countrywomen who have themselves learned only imperfectly. If the community only realized what the difficulties were for the housewife from a different civilization, it would undoubtedly stretch out a friendly and helping hand to a.s.sist her over the first rough path. Whatever form this help takes, it must be offered in the spirit of friendly co-operation, and not of didactic superiority, if the desired result is to be gained.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Details may be secured from the National Housing a.s.sociation, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City.

[14] Chicago Housing Studies, _American Journal of Sociology_, vol.

xx, p. 154.

[15] Children's Bureau Publication No. 9, "Infant Mortality, Johnstown, Pennsylvania," p. 29.

[16] See Edith Elmer Wood, _The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner_; _Report of Ma.s.sachusetts Homestead Commission_; _Reports of United States Housing Corporation_.

[17] Edith Elmer Wood, _Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner_, chap.

viii.

[18] Edith Elmer Wood, _Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner_, p. 233.

[19] _Survey_, June 28, 1919.

[20] See _Annual Report of the Immigrants' Protective League, 1910-1911_, and Abbott, _The Immigrant and the Community_, chap. v, "The Special Problems of the Immigrant Girl."

IV

PROBLEMS OF SAVING

There has been in the past much harsh and thoughtless criticism of the foreign-born groups, because of the extent to which they have seemed able and willing to subordinate present necessities and enjoyments to provide for certain future contingencies.

PRESENT AND FUTURE NEEDS

Many of those who come to this country are in debt for their pa.s.sage.

Others have left near relatives at home who must be helped to come over. Some have come, intending to establish themselves and to be married here. Some expect to take back a part of their earnings to better the condition of those left behind. Their coming, whether to stay permanently or to return, often does not relieve them of their obligations to the group in the old country.

One of the strongest impressions that the reader gets from the letters in _The Polish Peasant_ is that of the frequency with which relatives in the old country ask for money from the one who has gone ahead. It is not only his wife and children, or aged parents, that ask for money, but all the members of the wider familial group, and sometimes even friends with no claim on the score of kins.h.i.+p.

The purposes for which they ask money are various; in the Borek series, for example, a son of the family is asked to send money because the family is in debt and has taxes to pay; to send money for the dowry of his sister; for a forge; for a sewing machine, and for a phonograph. He is also told that if he sends money home it will not be wasted, but will be put out at interest. Other claims for money are put forward in other series, possibly the most common one being a request for a steams.h.i.+p ticket. The letters show clearly that it is customary to send money for fete days, "name days," or birthdays, Christmas, Easter, and other occasions. A failure to do so brings reproach coupled with a reminder that others who had gone from the village had sent money. In the Wrobelski series the family ask money from the member in this country for a new church at home. Every Sunday the priest reads aloud the names of those who have contributed. It therefore seems to the immigrant imperative that from his present earnings certain amounts shall be set aside.