Outlines National Program to Build Low Cost Houses

Criticizing critics who say "it can't be done," Dr. Wilson Compton, executive head of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, outlined plans of the lumber and other building material and equipment industries to cooperate in a home building drive to provide comfortable, well built homes which may be bought and paid for at from $12 to $25 a month.

Speaking before the Conference on Residential Constrttction held under the auspices of the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D. C., November 17 and 18, Dr. Compton stated that the lumber industry is expecting soon to start building another laboratory group of small homes in a central location in the East. These will be in the $1800 to $3600 cost range, including basement, all utilities and standard installations of heating, lighting and plumbing, adapted to low priced small homes' It is expected that the experience of the 1937 lumber industry's Small Homes Program will be repeated, and that thousands of lumber dealers throughout the country will build these houses in their communities for demonstration purposes.

"We are working," said Dr. Compton, "towards comfortable. well built modern housing which may be bought and paid for in the South at $12 per month, on the Pacific Coast at $15 and in the North for $18 and $20. This with the earnest cooperation of builders, dealers and material and equipment industries we believe can be done."

"This home building activity has been incorporated under the name'The National Small lIomes Demonstrator.' Men in the building industries who have shown an active interest in the possibilities in this field have been invited to act as trustees. It is not a new building federation. It is simply a pooling of 'wits and wisdom' for sharper concentration of interest on this single problem of the Small Home."

Holding that the home buyer today receives "ten per cent more house for the dollar" than he received ten years ago, Dr. Compton pointed out that there have been great improvements since 1927 and the housing dollar used in com- parative building costs toclay produces a better house than it did a clecade ago-"better by one-fifth or one-{ourth and in some types of housing, one-third."

"Comparative figures sho'iv national averages. Building in some places for the time being at least has been largelv shut off by mounting costs but this is by no means'universal.

"The deterrent effects of rising costs have been considerably diluted by the stimulating effects of improved home financing on easier terms at lower rates. In ten years the ir,surecl mortgage will be standard and indispensable to orvnership by those to whom economy is a persuasive consideration.

"It is also true that there has not been a sustained building activity in this country during any period of declining costs, The trouble comes rvhen costs either up or down move too fast and go too far."

'Divides the Housing Problem

Dr. Compton divided the housing problem into two parts -one of supplying housing for persons of small and precarious incomes, the other of supplying those of small but regular incomes.

"Persbns and families generally having a reasonably dependent income, however small, can through private building get decent housing which they can afford.

"I am not saying that they ahvays do get it; simply that they can get it.

"Many evidently do not want it enougl-r to llay for it rvhether supplied by pri'r'ate or public euterprise. That is a sociological rather than an economic prol>lem' Those who want it and cannot norv get it constitute the great prospective market for lorv priced homes.

"Small homes of good design and standarcl material and equipment at low cost are entirely practicable itl tnost communities. They need never become slums. In fact, they

MARSHFIELD

316 American Banh Building are less likely to become so than the flats of the so-called multiple housing."

Ray Schaecher, Mgt.

Facts Bear Out Statements

In 1936 the lumber industry built three demonstration homes in a suburb of Washington for a combined cost less than the Federal Housing Administration estimate-built them and paid for them exactly as rvould any builder with good credit. Careful account was kept and the result given to interested building industries.

"Then in 1937 in recognition of a surprisingly wide public interest," said the speaker, "we undertook a systematic campaign to encourage progressive lumber dealers and builders throughout the country to build similar demonstration houses in their own communities.

"Thirty-six hundred dealers responded. The building trends of last summer discouraged some of them, but so far this year over 2500 demonstration houses have been built in over 1000 communities and are still being built.

"An analysis of the costs of some 600 of these houses in 35 states shows costs lowest in the South and on the Pacific Coast and highest in New England. But 60 per cent of these homes, notwithstanding the increases in costs, were built for lc'ss tharr the same houses cost in the original suburb in the fall of 1936. The cost range was between $1250 for the 'B' house-a 4-room bungalow in the South-to $5000 for the 'D' house-a 6-room Colonial in Nerv Eng1and."

Compare Private and Government Building Costs

Public enterprise has a function of great importance on two areas: Housing for persons of small and precarious income where the decisive factor is sociological-and as a current reminder to private housing enterprise to do the things it ought to do and can do, but often does not do.

"It is fashionable nowadays to assume that public enterprise and government subsidy are necessary to supply decent housing to people of small income. It simply is not true. Public enterprise has just one important advantage over private building. It does not have to charge the occupant of a house the interest on investment nor for that matter the repayment of principal itself. Omitting subsidies, Government does not and cannot build and sell good housing at costs lorver than private enterprise can build and sell."

Takes Over Silvercote Line

Specialty Converters, Inc., of East Braintree, Mass., large manufacturers and national distributors of waterproof and reinforced paper products, announces the acquisition of the Silvercote line of insulation products. The company takes over the Silvercote manufacturing operations in Kalamazoo, Mich., the general sales office in Chicago, and the entire Silvercote organization.

Frank E. Donovan is president of the company. C. E. Stedman will be vice-president in charge of sales and advertising. The general sales oflice of Specialty Converters, Inc., will be maintainecl at 161 E. Erie Street, Chicago, Il1.

California Visitor

R. U. I3ronson, Trio Lumber Co., Eugene, was recently in San Francisco and Los Angeles on a busincss trip.