Stresses Nation's Need for New Homes

Seattle, Wash., Dec. 31, 1937.-The report entitled, "The Housing Market," recently issued by the National Housing Committee, is the year's most informative statement of the nation's need for new homes, according to Seattle officials of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association. In a statement released today, the Association called attention to the main findings of the report and their relation to market prospects for the West Coast lumber industry in 1938.

The National Housing Committee, according to the Association statement, is an independent organization for economic research in the housing field. Chairman of the Committee is the Rt. Rev. Monsignor John A. Ryan, D.D. Private business, labor, foundations and government agencies are all represented on the board of consulting economists and statisticians.

"It is significant," the Association statement said, "that the findings of the committee headed by Monsignor Ryan and those of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce agree on the estimate that the nation's minimum new-home needs are from 475,000 to a half-million new units per year, and that both indicate the greatest need to be in the small-homes field. In 1933 the West Coast Lumbermen's Association launched a program for promoting the building of small homes costing $3,000 or less. The Association has maintained this policy throughout 1937 and will follow it in 1938."

Summarizing the findings of the National Housing Committee's report, the Association's statement brought out the following points.

1. Two million'new dwellings are required, according to the housing standards of 193O, to provide for the part of our population that is paying $30 or less per month for rent or rent equivalent.

2. From 1930 to 1937 an average of. 175,875 dwelling units per year were built in the 48 states. Of this number on\y D,195 units, or 16.6 per cent, cost $3,000 or less, 56,456, or 32.I per cent, cost $3,000 to $5,000, n,224, or 51.3 per cent, cosf $5,000 or more. This means that 51.3 per cent of new homes for the past seven years was for the part of our population that pays $50 or more rent, or the equivalent of rent, for housing per month.

3. Since 1933 the number of families paying $50 or more per month rent or rent equivalent has decreased, while the number of families receiving incomes of $3,000 or more per year has increased, indicating a positive resistance in the upper income groups to paying the I9D proportion of income for rent or rent equivalent.

4. Based on housing needs and demands, for 1938 and ' 1939, each year's requirements are for approximately 485,000 new housing units. Of this number, the basic requirement for -the income groups paying $30 or less rent per month, is'for 321,000 new dwellings, or 66 per cent of ihe total.

5. If the shortage as shown in (1) were made up during the next two years (1938-1939) and added to the current needs as shown in (4), the annual market would be 1,500,000 units, of which only 1l per cent, or 165,000 units, would be available for rent or ownership at $30 or more per month.

"America is at last awake to the nation-wide need for an enormous amount of new housing costing $3,000 or less per unit," the Association's statement concluded. "To date public home-financing has hardly approached this field' It has been left to the efiorts of the lumber industry, building supply dealers, realtors and building contractors. The great obstacles were the antiquated home-financing restrictions that remained in force. If these are liberalized for 1938, the low-cost home building program that the lumber industry has been perfecting for four years should have nation-wide success. And this of course will mean more employment and more business for the people of the Douglas fir region."