153-822: The Public Works Administration ( PWA ), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes . It was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 in response to the Great Depression . It built large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. Its goals were to spend $ 3.3 billion in
306-578: A broader scale, and the NHA dissolved in 1936. The City of Milwaukee , under mayor Daniel Hoan , implemented the country's first public housing project, known as Garden Homes , in 1923. This experiment with a municipally-sponsored housing cooperative saw initial success, but was plagued by development and land acquisition problems, and the board overseeing the project dissolved the Gardens Home Corporation just two years after construction on
459-455: A cabinet-level agency to lead with housing. This act also introduced rent subsidies for the first time, the beginning of a shift towards encouraging privately constructed low-income housing. With this legislation, the FHA would insure mortgages for non-profits which would then construct homes for low-income families. HUD could then provide subsidies to bridge the gap between the cost of these units and
612-601: A cause of the American apartheid residential pattern in the city. Martin Luther King Jr. made housing integration a key part of his civil rights campaign and one month after the publication of the Kerner Commission was published, King was assassinated. His murder instigated another wave of riots and in response, and no later than a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. , Congress passed
765-449: A characterization is a simplification of a much more complex set of social phenomena. According to Crump (2002), the term "concentrated poverty" was originally a spatial concept that was part of a much broader and complex sociological description of poverty, but the spatial component then became the overarching metaphor for concentrated poverty and the cause of social pathologies surrounding it. Instead of spatial concentration simply being
918-418: A community, leading to several negative externalities . Crime, drug usage, and educational under-performance are all widely associated with housing projects, particularly in urban areas. As a result of their various problems and diminished political support, many of the traditional low-income public housing properties constructed in the earlier years of the program have been demolished. Beginning primarily in
1071-564: A decisive point in the consolidation of the conservative coalition in Congress. The liberal bloc in the House had been halved, and conservative Democrats had escaped 'relatively untouched ' ". In the House elected in 1938 there were at least 30 anti-New Deal Democrats and another 50 who were "not at all enthusiastic". In addition, "The new Senate was split about evenly between pro- and anti-New Deal factions." The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
1224-554: A disincentive to high-paying businesses to locate themselves in the area. He further argues that the pathologies caused by a concentration of poverty are likely to spread to surrounding neighborhoods, forcing local residents and businesses to relocate. Freeman and Botein (2002) are more skeptical of a reduction of property values following the building of public housing units. In a meta-analysis of empirical studies, they expected to find that when public housing lacks obtrusive architecture and its residents are similar to those already in
1377-739: A four-day bank holiday and implemented the Emergency Banking Act , which enabled the Federal Reserve to insure bank deposits; this was made permanent with Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Other laws established the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which allowed industries to create "codes of fair competition"; the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which protected investors from abusive stock market practices; and
1530-473: A gold outflow. Under the gold standards, price–specie flow mechanism countries that lost gold, but nevertheless wanted to maintain the gold standard, had to permit their money supply to decrease and the domestic price level to decline ( deflation ). As long as the Federal Reserve had to defend the gold parity of the dollar it had to sit idle while the banking system crumbled. In March and April in
1683-704: A home ownership model for Section 8, and expanded the HOPE VI program to replace traditional public housing units. The act also effectively capped the number of public housing units by creating the Faircloth Limit as an amendment to the Housing Act of 1937, which limited funding for the construction or operation of all units to the total number of units as of October 1, 1999 and repealed a rule that required one for one replacement of demolished housing units. According to HUD's Residential Characteristic Report,
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#17327658020141836-573: A materials subsidy for housing construction. However, in the wake of the 1946 elections, President Truman believed there was insufficient public support to continue such materials restrictions and subsidies. The Veterans' Emergency Housing Program ended in January 1947 by an executive order from President Truman. With the Office of Housing Expediter ended, housing efforts moved to look at new, comprehensive approaches to address housing issues. The result
1989-434: A much stronger position. The House contained 169 non-southern Democrats, 93 southern Democrats, 169 Republicans, and 4 third-party representatives. For the first time, Roosevelt could not form a majority without the help of some southerners or Republicans. In addition, the president had to contend with several senators who, having successfully resisted the purge, no longer owed him anything. Most observers agreed, therefore, that
2142-538: A need to house those displaced by the clearance (Massey and Kanaiaupuni 1993). However, those in city governments, political organizations, and suburban communities resisted the creation of public housing units in middle and working-class neighborhoods, leading to the construction of such units around ghetto neighborhoods which already exhibited signs of poverty. Massey and Kanaiaupuni (1993) describe three sources of concentrated poverty in relation to public housing: income-requirements structurally creating areas of poverty,
2295-831: A new program called the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. Under the demonstration program, eligible public housing properties are redeveloped in conjunction with private developers and investors. The federal government, through its Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program (which in 2012 paid for construction of 90% of all subsidized rental housing in the US), spends $ 6 billion per year to finance 50,000 low-income rental units annually, with median costs per unit for new construction (2011–2015) ranging from $ 126,000 in Texas to $ 326,000 in California . In
2448-513: A package of across the board cuts. Additionally, emergency shelters for the homeless were expanded, and home ownership by low-income families was promoted to a greater degree. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act (NAHA), which furthered the use of HOME funds for rental assistance. In his address upon its passage, Bush said, "Although
2601-513: A part of the broad description of social pathologies, Crump (2002) argues that the concept replaced the broad description, mistakenly narrowing the focus to the physical concentration of poverty. The HUD's 2013 The Location and Racial Composition of Public Housing in the United States report found that the racial distribution of residents within individual public housing units tends to be rather homogeneous, with African Americans and white residents stratified to separate neighborhoods. One trend that
2754-588: A provision for the "construction, reconstruction, alteration, or repair under public regulation or control of low-cost housing and slum-clearance projects". Many unemployed people were put to work under Roosevelt on a variety of government-financed public works projects, including the construction of bridges, airports, dams, post offices, hospitals, and hundreds of thousands of miles of road. Through reforestation and flood control, they reclaimed millions of hectares of soil from erosion and devastation. As noted by one authority, Roosevelt's New Deal "was literally stamped on
2907-542: A series of laws and executive orders, the government suspended the gold standard. Roosevelt stopped the outflow of gold by forbidding the export of gold except under license from the Treasury. Anyone holding significant amounts of gold coinage was mandated to exchange it for the existing fixed price of U.S. dollars. The Treasury no longer paid out gold for dollars and gold would no longer be considered valid legal tender for debts in private and public contracts. The dollar
3060-421: A set percentage of a household's income. The 1961 Housing Act quietly introduced a program under Section 23 which allowed local housing authorities to house individuals on their waiting lists in privately leased units through the mechanism of a voucher which covered the gap between household ability to pay and the market rent. This mechanism was repeatedly expanded in later legislation. In response to many of
3213-477: A significant public housing program. Title II of the legislation stated the goal of a "decent home in a decent environment for every American," and the legislation authorized $ 13 billion mortgage guarantees, $ 1.5 billion for slum redevelopment, and set a construction goal of 810,000 units of public housing. Upon its passage, Truman told the press: "[This legislation] opens up the prospect of decent homes in wholesome surroundings for low-income families now living in
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#17327658020143366-593: A steady, sharp upward recovery. Thus the Federal Reserve Index of Industrial Production sank to its lowest point of 52.8 in July 1932 and was practically unchanged at 54.3 in March 1933. However, by July 1933 it reached 85.5, a dramatic rebound of 57% in four months. Recovery was steady and strong until 1937. Except for employment, the economy by 1937 surpassed the levels of the late 1920s. The Recession of 1937
3519-403: A strong bent towards local efforts in locating and constructing housing and would place caps on how much could be spent per housing unit. The cap of $ 5,000 was a hotly contested feature of the bill as it would be a considerable reduction of the money spent on PWA housing and was far less than advocates of the bill had lobbied to get. Construction of housing projects dramatically accelerated under
3672-450: A system of domestic allotments, setting total output of corn, cotton, dairy products, hogs, rice, tobacco, and wheat. The farmers themselves had a voice in the process of using the government to benefit their incomes. The AAA paid land owners subsidies for leaving some of their land idle with funds provided by a new tax on food processing. To force up farm prices to the point of "parity", 10 million acres (40,000 km ) of growing cotton
3825-461: A total of five million. Political and business leaders feared revolution and anarchy. Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. , who remained wealthy during the Depression, recalled that "in those days I felt and said I would be willing to part with half of what I had if I could be sure of keeping, under law and order, the other half." Throughout the nation men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of
3978-501: Is an example of how stigma and judgement around public housing and affordable housing resulted in a significant change in the racial demographics of urban housing. White flight is a sociological response to perceptions that racially diverse neighborhoods will decrease their home value and increase crime rates. McNulty and Holloway (2000) studied the intersection of public housing geography, race, and crime in order to determine if racial differences existed in crime rates when controlled for
4131-431: Is doubled for blacks compared to whites. The study further found that public housing tends to concentrate those who struggle the most economically into a specific area, further raising poverty levels. A different study, conducted by Freeman (2003) on a national level, cast doubt onto the theory that public housing units have an independent effect on the concentration of poverty. The study found that while out-migration of
4284-511: Is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities." Several additional housing acts were passed after 1949, altering the program in small ways, such as shifting ratios for elderly housing, but no major legislation changed the mechanisms of public housing until the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 . This act created the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD),
4437-523: Is observed is that black neighborhoods tend to reflect a lower socioeconomic status and that white neighborhoods represent a more affluent demographic. More than 40% of public housing occupants live in predominantly black neighborhoods, according to the HUD report. Even though changes have been made to address unconstitutional housing segregation , stigma and prejudice around public housing projects are still prevalent. Segregation in public housing has roots in
4590-702: The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which raised rural incomes by controlling production. Public works were undertaken in order to find jobs for the unemployed (25 percent of the workforce when Roosevelt took office): the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enlisted young men for manual labor on government land, and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) promoted electricity generation and other forms of economic development in
4743-537: The Bonus Bill that would give World War I veterans a cash bonus. Congress finally passed it over his veto in 1936 and the Treasury distributed $ 1.5 billion in cash as bonus welfare benefits to 4 million veterans just before the 1936 election. New Dealers never accepted the Keynesian argument for government spending as a vehicle for recovery. Most economists of the era, along with Henry Morgenthau of
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4896-565: The Fair Housing Act which prohibited discrimination in housing. However, since the Fair Housing Act was passed, housing policies restricting minority housing to segregated neighborhoods are still heavily debated because of the vague language used in the Fair Housing Act. In the 2015 Supreme Court case Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project , Justice Kennedy clarified that
5049-734: The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which used only a small capital investment from the federal government to insure mortgages. Construction of public housing projects were therefore only one portion of the federal housing efforts during the Great Depression. In 1937, the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act replaced the temporary PWA Housing Division with a permanent, quasi-autonomous agency to administer housing. The new United States Housing Authority Housing Act of 1937 would operate with
5202-423: The Great Depression 's economic damage was caused directly by bank runs. Herbert Hoover had already considered a bank holiday to prevent further bank runs but rejected the idea because he was afraid to incite a panic. However, Roosevelt gave a radio address, held in the atmosphere of a Fireside Chat . He explained to the public in simple terms the causes of the banking crisis, what the government would do, and how
5355-406: The Great Depression , which began in 1929. Roosevelt introduced the phrase upon accepting the 1932 Democratic presidential nomination, and won the election in a landslide over Herbert Hoover , whose administration was viewed by many as doing too little to help those affected. Roosevelt believed that the depression was caused by inherent market instability , and that massive government intervention
5508-802: The San Francisco Mint , which cost $ 1,072,254 to build, as well as the Keys Overseas Highway in Florida. Although this highway was already built prior to the PWA's existence, PWA funding made the road usable again. The 1935 Labor Day hurricane had heavily damaged the highway, and the Florida East Coast Railway was only able to repair the bridge after the PWA came in and offered assistance. A large majority of PWA projects are still in use today because of one big reason:
5661-467: The Section 8 Housing Program to encourage the private sector to construct affordable homes. This kind of housing assistance assists poor tenants by giving a monthly subsidy to their landlords. This assistance can be 'project based,' which applies to specific properties, or 'tenant based,' which provides tenants with a voucher they can use anywhere vouchers are accepted. Tenant based housing vouchers covered
5814-510: The Securities Act of 1933 was passed. It required the disclosure of the balance sheet, profit and loss statement, and the names and compensations of corporate officers for firms whose securities were traded. Additionally, the reports had to be verified by independent auditors. In 1934, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was established to regulate the stock market and prevent corporate abuses relating to corporate reporting and
5967-697: The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The largest programs still in existence are the Social Security System and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). From 1929 to 1933 manufacturing output decreased by one third, which economist Milton Friedman later called the Great Contraction . Prices fell by 20%, causing deflation that made repaying debts much harder. Unemployment in the United States increased from 4% to 25%. Additionally, one-third of all employed persons were downgraded to working part-time on much smaller paychecks. In
6120-476: The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2020, there were one million public housing units. In 2022, about 5.2 million American households received some form of federal rental assistance. Subsidized apartment buildings, often referred to as housing projects (or simply "the projects"), have a complicated and often notorious history in the United States. While
6273-548: The Williamsburg Houses in Brooklyn . The PWA spent over $ 6 billion but did not succeed in returning the level of industrial activity to pre-Depression levels. Though successful in many aspects, it has been acknowledged that the PWA's objective of constructing a substantial number of quality, affordable housing units was a major failure. Some have argued that because Roosevelt was opposed to deficit spending, there
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6426-496: The ' towers in the park ' style of Le Corbusier . Jane Jacobs would famously describe the new products as, "Low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism, and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace. Middle-income housing projects which are truly marvels of dullness and regimentation, sealed against any buoyancy or vitality of city life. Luxury housing projects that mitigate their inanity, or try to, with vapid vulgarity ... This
6579-422: The 1920s more than five hundred banks failed per year, and then it was less than ten banks per year after 1933. Under the gold standard , the United States kept the dollar convertible to gold. The Federal Reserve would have had to execute an expansionary monetary policy to fight the deflation and to inject liquidity into the banking system to prevent it from crumbling—but lower interest rates would have led to
6732-774: The 1920s, such as the TVA. The "First New Deal" (1933–1934) encompassed the proposals offered by a wide spectrum of groups (not included was the Socialist Party , whose influence was all but destroyed). This first phase of the New Deal was also characterized by fiscal conservatism (see Economy Act , below) and experimentation with several different, sometimes contradictory, cures for economic ills. Roosevelt created dozens of new agencies. They are traditionally and typically known to Americans by their alphabetical initials. The American people were generally extremely dissatisfied with
6885-543: The 1960s, across the nation, housing authorities became key partners in urban renewal efforts, constructing new homes for those displaced by highway, hospital and other public efforts. When US entry to World War II ended the era of New Deal reforms, the call for public housing from the NAACP , women's groups and labor unions was quieted. As part of the war mobilization, entire communities sprang up around factories manufacturing military goods. In 1940, Congress therefore authorized
7038-658: The 1970s the federal government turned to other approaches including the Project-Based Section 8 program, Section 8 certificates, and the Housing Choice Voucher Program. In the 1990s the federal government accelerated the transformation of traditional public housing through HUD's HOPE VI Program. Hope VI funds are used to tear down distressed public housing projects and replace them with mixed communities constructed in cooperation with private partners. In 2012, Congress and HUD initiated
7191-475: The 19th and early 20th centuries, government involvement in housing for the poor was chiefly in the area of building code enforcement, requiring new buildings to meet certain standards for decent livability (e.g. proper ventilation), and forcing landlords to make some modifications to existing building stock. Photojournalist Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives (1890) brought considerable attention
7344-624: The AAA. In 1936, the Supreme Court declared the AAA to be unconstitutional , stating, "a statutory plan to regulate and control agricultural production, [is] a matter beyond the powers delegated to the federal government". The AAA was replaced by a similar program that did win Court approval. Instead of paying farmers for letting fields lie barren, this program subsidized them for planting soil-enriching crops such as alfalfa that would not be sold on
7497-401: The American landscape". The rural U.S. was a high priority for Roosevelt and his energetic Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace . Roosevelt believed that full economic recovery depended upon the recovery of agriculture and raising farm prices was a major tool, even though it meant higher food prices for the poor living in cities. Many rural people lived in severe poverty, especially in
7650-528: The Democratic Party's base to the New Deal coalition of labor unions , blue-collar workers, big city machines , racial minorities (most importantly African-Americans), white Southerners, and intellectuals. The realignment crystallized into a powerful liberal coalition which dominated presidential elections into the 1960s, as an opposing conservative coalition largely controlled Congress in domestic affairs from 1937 to 1964. Historians still debate
7803-514: The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. However, according to Gotham (2000), Section 235 of the Housing Act of 1968 encouraged white flight from the inner city, selling suburban properties to whites and inner-city properties to blacks, creating neighborhoods that were racially isolated from others. White flight - white people moving out of neighborhoods that have become more racially or ethnoculturally heterogeneous -
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#17327658020147956-765: The Farm Security Act to raise farm incomes by raising the prices farmers received, which was achieved by reducing total farm output. The Agricultural Adjustment Act created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) in May 1933. The act reflected the demands of leaders of major farm organizations (especially the Farm Bureau ) and reflected debates among Roosevelt's farm advisers such as Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, M.L. Wilson , Rexford Tugwell and George Peek . The AAA aimed to raise prices for commodities through artificial scarcity . The AAA used
8109-832: The Federal Government currently serves about 4.3 million low-income families, there are about 4 million additional families, most of them very low income, whose housing needs have not been met. We should not divert assistance from those who need it most." The next new era in public housing began in 1992 with the launch of the HOPE VI program by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development . HOPE VI funds were devoted to demolishing poor-quality public housing projects and replacing them with lower-density developments, often of mixed-income. Funds included construction and demolition costs, tenant relocation costs, and subsidies for newly constructed units. HOPE VI has become
8262-485: The Government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth... I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people. This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms. Franklin D. Roosevelt , 1932 The phrase "New Deal" was coined by an adviser to Roosevelt, Stuart Chase , who used A New Deal as the title for an article published in
8415-557: The Housing Division of the PWA and headed by architect Robert Kohn , the initial, Limited-Dividend Program aimed to provide low-interest loans to public or private groups to fund the construction of low-income housing. Too few qualified applicants stepped forward, and the Limited-Dividend Program funded only seven housing projects nationally. In the spring of 1934, PWA Administrator Harold Ickes directed
8568-412: The Housing Division to undertake the direct construction of public housing, a decisive step that would serve as a precedent for the 1937 Wagner-Steagall Housing Act , and the permanent public housing program in the United States. Kohn stepped down during the reorganization, and between 1934 and 1937 the Housing Division, now headed by Colonel Horatio B. Hackett, constructed fifty-two housing projects across
8721-593: The NRA and the first version of the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) unconstitutional, but the AAA was rewritten and then upheld. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) left the New Deal largely intact, even expanding it in some areas. In the 1960s, Lyndon B. Johnson 's Great Society used the New Deal as inspiration for a dramatic expansion of progressive programs, which Republican Richard Nixon generally retained. However, after 1974
8874-528: The National Housing Association (NHA) was created to improve housing conditions in urban and suburban neighborhoods through the enactment of better regulation and increased awareness. The NHA was founded by Lawrence Veiller , author of Model Tenement House Law (1910), and consisted of delegates from dozens of cities. Over time, the focus of the housing movement shifted from a focus on proper building typology to community development on
9027-610: The New Deal, such as unemployment relief and public works programs. Roosevelt entered office with clear ideas for policies to address the Great Depression , though he remained open to experimentation as his presidency began implementing these. Among Roosevelt's more famous advisers was an informal " Brain Trust ", a group that tended to view pragmatic government intervention in the economy positively. His choice for Secretary of Labor , Frances Perkins , greatly influenced his initiatives. Her list of what her priorities would be if she took
9180-416: The New Deal. The WPA, headed by Harry Hopkins , engaged in smaller projects in close cooperation with local governments—such as building city halls, sewers, or sidewalks. The PWA projects were much larger in scope, such as giant dams. The WPA hired only people on relief who were paid directly by the federal government, while in contrast, the PWA gave contracts to private firms that hired workers for projects on
9333-501: The PWA allowed the state and local governments to pick what they wanted to have built or repaired, where they wanted the project as well as who they wanted to build it. Such freedom gave local governments the ability to select a truly useful building that could be used for years down the line. The PWA should not be confused with its great rival, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), though both were part of
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#17327658020149486-634: The PWA was abolished and its functions were transferred to the Federal Works Agency in June 1943. The PWA played an indirect hand in the war by helping fund the construction of two aircraft carriers, Yorktown and Enterprise. Both of these ships played a significant role in the victory in Midway when they sank four Japanese aircraft carriers. The PWA also built four cruisers, four heavy destroyers, light destroyers, submarines, planes, engines, and even instruments for these vessels. The PWA helped get
9639-681: The Roosevelt administration launched the Tennessee Valley Authority , a project involving dam construction planning on an unprecedented scale to curb flooding, generate electricity, and modernize poor farms in the Tennessee Valley region of the Southern United States. Under the Farmers' Relief Act of 1933, the government paid compensation to farmers who reduced output, thereby raising prices. Because of this legislation,
9792-637: The Seventies was instrumental in crafting new housing legislation the following year. In keeping with Nixon's market-based approach, as demonstrated by EHAP, Nixon also lifted the moratorium on the Section 23 voucher program late in September, allowing for 200,000 new households to be funded. The full moratorium was lifted in the summer of 1974, as Nixon faced impeachment in the wake of Watergate . The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 created
9945-726: The South. Major programs addressed to their needs included the Resettlement Administration (RA), the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), rural welfare projects sponsored by the WPA, National Youth Administration (NYA), Forest Service and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), including school lunches, building new schools, opening roads in remote areas, reforestation and purchase of marginal lands to enlarge national forests. In 1933,
10098-499: The Treasury Department, rejected Keynesian solutions and favored balanced budgets. At the beginning of the Great Depression, the economy was destabilized by bank failures followed by credit crunches . The initial reasons were substantial losses in investment banking, followed by bank runs . Bank runs occur when a large number of customers withdraw their deposits because they believe the bank might become insolvent. As
10251-460: The U.S.'s economy recover after the Great Depression. Its major objective was to reduce unemployment, which was up to 24% of the work force. Furthermore, the PWA also aimed at increasing purchase power by constructing new public buildings and roads. Frances Perkins had first suggested a federally financed public works program, and the idea received considerable support from Harold L. Ickes , James Farley , and Henry Wallace . After having scaled back
10404-589: The US Housing Authority to build twenty public housing developments around these private companies to sustain the war effort. There was considerable debate over whether these should be permanent dwellings, furthering reformer goals of establishing a broader public housing effort, or temporary dwellings in keeping with the timeliness of the need. The Defense Housing Division was founded in 1941 and would ultimately construct eight developments of temporary housing, though many ended up as long-term housing after
10557-640: The US get ready to fight in World War II, giving the US an advantage with fresh boats, planes, and equipment. The PWA was responsible for the construction of about 34,000 buildings, bridges, and homes many of which are still in use today. Among these is one of the most recognizable bridges in the U.S., the Triborough Bridge , which was renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. PWA funded workers to construct
10710-828: The United States, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Atlanta's Techwood Homes opened on 1 September 1936 and was the first of the fifty-two opened. Based on the residential planning concepts of Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, these fifty-two projects are architecturally cohesive, with composed on one to four story row house and apartment buildings, arranged around open spaces, creating traffic-free play spaces that defined community life. Many of these projects were built on slum land, but land acquisition proved difficult, so abandoned industrial sites and vacant land were also purchased. Lexington's two early projects were constructed on an abandoned horse racing track. At Ickes' direction, many of these projects were also segregated, designed and built for either whites or African-Americans. Race
10863-509: The United States, the federal government provides funding for public housing from two different sources: the Capital Fund and the Operating Fund. According to the HUD, the Capital Fund subsidizes housing authorities to renovate and refurbish public housing developments; meanwhile, the Operating Fund provides funds to housing authorities in order to assist in maintenance and operating costs of public housing. Furthermore, housing projects have also been seen to greatly increase concentrated poverty in
11016-399: The actual work. It created an infrastructure that generated national and local pride in the 1930s and is still vital nine decades later. The PWA was much less controversial than its rival agency, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), headed by Harry Hopkins , which focused on smaller projects and hired unemployed unskilled workers. The Administration created the PWA in an attempt to help
11169-510: The administration, in which he met with Congress for 100 days. During those 100 days of lawmaking, Congress granted every request Roosevelt asked and passed a few programs (such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to insure bank accounts) that he opposed. Ever since, presidents have been judged against Roosevelt for what they accomplished in their first 100 days. Walter Lippmann famously noted: At
11322-430: The aggregate, almost 50% of the nation's human work-power was going unused. Before the New Deal, USA bank deposits were not "guaranteed" by government. When thousands of banks closed, depositors temporarily lost access to their money; most of the funds were eventually restored but there was gloom and panic. The United States had no national safety net, no public unemployment insurance and no Social Security . Relief for
11475-402: The amount of which was determined by a formula focusing on population, given to state and local governments for housing and community development work. The sum could be used as determined by the community, though the legislation also required the development of Housing Assistance Plans (HAP) which required local communities to survey and catalog their available housing stock as well as determine
11628-498: The average annual income in 2013 for a resident of a public housing unit is $ 13,730. The same report classifies 68% of residents as Extremely Low Income, with the largest annual income bracket being $ 5,000 to $ 10,000, containing 32% of public housing residents. Trends showing an increase in geographic concentration of poverty became evident by the 1970s as upper and middle-class residents vacated property in U.S. cities. Urban renewal programs led to widespread slum clearance, creating
11781-565: The average income of farmers almost doubled by 1937. In the 1920s, farm production had increased dramatically thanks to mechanization, more potent insecticides, and increased use of fertilizer. Due to an overproduction of agricultural products, farmers faced severe and chronic agricultural depression throughout the 1920s. The Great Depression even worsened the agricultural crises and, at the beginning of 1933, agricultural markets nearly faced collapse. Farm prices were so low that in Montana wheat
11934-590: The bank run progressed, it generated a self-fulfilling prophecy : as more people withdrew their deposits, the likelihood of default increased and this encouraged further withdrawals. Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz have argued that the drain of money out of the banking system caused the monetary supply to shrink, forcing the economy to likewise shrink. As credit and economic activity diminished, price deflation followed, causing further economic contraction with disastrous impact on banks. Between 1929 and 1933, 40% of all banks (9,490 out of 23,697 banks) failed. Much of
12087-542: The banks in the Federal Reserve System reopened within the next three days. Billions of dollars in hoarded currency and gold flowed back into them within a month, thus stabilizing the banking system. By the end of 1933, 4,004 small local banks were permanently closed and merged into larger banks. Their deposits totaled $ 3.6 billion. Depositors lost $ 540 million (equivalent to $ 12,710,128,535 in 2023) and eventually received on average 85 cents on
12240-504: The budget, Lewis Douglas overrode the views of leading senators in reducing appropriations to $ 3.5 billion and in transferring much of that money to other agencies instead of their own specific appropriations. The cautious and penurious Ickes won out over the more imaginative Hugh S. Johnson as chief of public works administration. Political competition between rival Democratic state organizations and between Democrats and Progressive Republicans led to delays in implementing PWA efforts on
12393-623: The call for deregulation of the economy gained bipartisan support. The New Deal regulation of banking ( Glass–Steagall Act ) lasted until it was suspended in the 1990s. Several organizations created by New Deal programs remain active and those operating under the original names include the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and
12546-563: The concentration of poverty, some contended these developments were declared unsuitable for families. One of the most notorious of these developments was the Pruitt-Igoe development in St. Louis, Missouri , constructed in 1955 and 1956. This development posted 2,870 units in thirty-three high rises buildings. By the late 1960s, vacancy rates reached as high as 65%, and the project was demolished between 1972 and 1975. More recent scholarship about
12699-491: The concrete and a third of the steel of the entire nation. The PWA also electrified the Pennsylvania Railroad between New York City and Washington, DC . At the local level, it built courthouses, schools, hospitals, and other public facilities that remain in use in the 21st century. The PWA was supposed to be the centerpiece of the New Deal's drive to build public housing for the urban poor. Public housing
12852-793: The conditions of the slums in New York City, sparking new attention to housing conditions around the country. Early tenement reform was primarily a philanthropic venture, with Model Tenements built as early as the 1870s which attempted to use new architectural and management models to address the physical and social problems of the slums. These attempts were limited by available resources, and early efforts were soon redirected towards building code reform. The New York Tenement Act of 1895 and Tenement Law of 1901 were early attempts to address building codes in New York City, which were then copied in Chicago, Philadelphia, and other American cities. In 1910,
13005-534: The crumbling economy, mass unemployment, declining wages, and profits, and especially Herbert Hoover 's policies such as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and the Revenue Act of 1932 . Roosevelt entered office with enormous political capital . Americans of all political persuasions were demanding immediate action and Roosevelt responded with a remarkable series of new programs in the "first hundred days" of
13158-549: The decline in prices would finally end. In her essay "What ended the Great Depression?" (1992), Christina Romer argued that this policy raised industrial production by 25% until 1937 and by 50% until 1942. Before the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , securities were unregulated at the federal level. Even firms whose securities were publicly traded published no regular reports, or even worse, rather misleading reports based on arbitrarily selected data. To avoid another crash,
13311-461: The demand side of the housing market rather than the supply side by supplementing a household's rent allowance until they were able to afford market rates. EHAP was designed to test three aspects of the impact of vouchers: Ultimately, new legislation on housing vouchers did not wait for the conclusion of the experiment. When the program concluded over a decade later, it was discovered that the program had minimal impact on surrounding rents, but did have
13464-412: The dollar of their deposits. The Glass–Steagall Act limited commercial bank securities activities and affiliations between commercial banks and securities firms to regulate speculations. It also established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insured deposits for up to $ 2,500, ending the risk of runs on banks. This banking reform offered unprecedented stability because throughout
13617-538: The drainage basin of the Tennessee River . Although the First New Deal helped many find work and restored confidence in the financial system, by 1935 stock prices were still below pre-Depression levels and unemployment still exceeded 20 percent. From 1935 to 1938, the "Second New Deal" introduced further legislation and additional agencies which focused on job creation and on improving the conditions of
13770-557: The early developments and activities of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), created by the Housing Act of 1934 . The FHA institutionalized a practice by which it would seek to maintain racially homogenous neighborhoods through racially restrictive covenants - an explicitly discriminatory policy written into the deed of a house. This practice was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1948 in Shelley v. Kraemer because it violates
13923-446: The effectiveness of the New Deal programs, although most accept that full employment was not achieved until World War II began in 1939. The First New Deal (1933–1934) dealt with the pressing banking crisis through the Emergency Banking Act and the 1933 Banking Act . The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) provided US$ 500 million (equivalent to $ 11.8 billion in 2023) for relief operations by states and cities, and
14076-575: The elderly, workers, and the poor. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) supervised the construction of bridges, libraries, parks, and other facilities, while also investing in the arts; the National Labor Relations Act guaranteed employees the right to organize trade unions ; and the Social Security Act introduced pensions for senior citizens and benefits for the disabled, mothers with dependent children, and
14229-415: The emergency budget, which was needed to defeat the depression. It was imbalanced on a temporary basis. Roosevelt initially favored balancing the budget, but soon found himself running spending deficits to fund his numerous programs. However, Douglas—rejecting the distinction between a regular and emergency budget—resigned in 1934 and became an outspoken critic of the New Deal. Roosevelt strenuously opposed
14382-505: The emerging concerns regarding new public housing developments, the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 attempt to shift the style of housing developments, looking to the Garden Cities model of Ebenezer Howard . The act prohibited the construction of high-rise developments for families with children. The role of high-rises had always been contentious, but with rising rates of vandalism and vacancy and considerable concerns about
14535-422: The end of February we were a congeries of disorderly panic-stricken mobs and factions. In the hundred days from March to June, we became again an organized nation confident of our power to provide for our own security and to control our own destiny. The economy had hit bottom in March 1933 and then started to expand. Economic indicators show the economy reached its lowest point in the first days of March, then began
14688-558: The entire GDP of $ 60 billion), the driving force of America's biggest construction effort up to that date. By June 1934, the agency had distributed its entire fund to 13,266 federal projects and 2,407 non-federal projects. For every worker on a PWA project, almost two additional workers were employed indirectly. The PWA accomplished the electrification of rural America, the building of canals, tunnels, bridges, highways, streets, sewage systems, and housing areas, as well as hospitals, schools, and universities; every year, it consumed roughly half of
14841-631: The federal government the largest employer in the nation), the Social Security Act and new programs to aid tenant farmers and migrant workers. The final major items of New Deal legislation were the creation of the United States Housing Authority and the FSA, which both occurred in 1937; and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 , which set maximum hours and minimum wages for most categories of workers. The FSA
14994-417: The first decades of projects were built with higher construction standards and a broader range of incomes and same applicants, over time, public housing increasingly became the housing of last resort in many cities. Several reasons have been cited for this negative trend including the failure of Congress to provide sufficient funding, a lowering of standards for occupancy, and mismanagement at the local level. In
15147-599: The first year, and $ 6 billion in all, to supply employment, stabilize buying power , and help revive the economy. Most of the spending came in two waves, one in 1933–1935 and another in 1938. Originally called the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works , it was renamed the Public Works Administration in 1935 and shut down in 1944. The PWA spent over $ 7 billion on contracts with private construction firms that did
15300-550: The funding resources of the G.I. Bill to start a new mortgage. However, there was not enough housing stock to accommodate the demand. As a result, President Truman created the office of Housing Expediter by executive order on January 26, 1946, to be headed by Wilson Wyatt. Through this office, government intervened in the housing market largely through price controls and supply chain restrictions, despite political pressure from some factions to directly construct housing. Efforts moved to focus exclusively on veterans housing, specifically
15453-550: The gap between 25% of a household's income and established fair market rent . Virtually no new project based Section 8 housing has been produced since 1983, but tenant based vouchers are now the primary mechanism of assisted housing. The other main feature of the Act was the creation of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). While not directly tied to public housing, CDBGs were lump sums of money,
15606-614: The heels of the passage of Title I and the Housing Act of 1949. Urban renewal had become, for many cities, a way to eliminate blight, but not a solid vehicle for constructing new housing. For example, in the ten years after the bill was passed, 425,000 units of housing were razed under its auspices, but only 125,000 units were constructed. Between Title I and the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 , entire communities in poorer, urban neighborhoods were demolished to make way for modern developments and transportation needs, often in
15759-434: The home ownership market through the expansion of the FHA. Ginnie Mae was initially established to purchase risky public housing projects and resell them at market rates. In addition, Section 235 originated mortgage subsidies by reducing the interest rate on mortgages for low-income families to a rate more comparable to that of the FHA mortgages. The program suffered from high foreclosure rates and administrative scandal, and
15912-458: The homes was completed. Permanent, federally funded housing came into being in the United States as a part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Title II, Section 202 of the National Industrial Recovery Act , passed June 16, 1933, directed the Public Works Administration (PWA) to develop a program for the "construction, reconstruction, alteration, or repair under public regulation or control of low-cost housing and slum clearance projects ...". Led by
16065-508: The housing projects constructed in the prior two decades. HUD Secretary George Romney declared that the moratorium would encompass all money for Urban Renewal and Model Cities programs, all subsidized housing, and Section 235 and 236 funding. An intensive report was commissioned from the National Housing Policy Review to analyze and assess the federal government's role in housing. This report, entitled Housing in
16218-616: The informal conservative coalition . By 1942–1943, they shut down relief programs such as the WPA and the CCC and blocked major progressive proposals. Noting the composition of the new Congress, one study argued The Congress that assembled in January 1939 was quite unlike any with which Roosevelt had to contend before. Since all Democratic losses took place in the North and the West, and particularly in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, southerners held
16371-537: The initial cost of the PWA, Franklin Delano Roosevelt agreed to include the PWA as part of his New Deal proposals in the "Hundred Days" of spring 1933. The PWA headquarters in Washington planned projects, which were built by private construction companies hiring workers on the open market. Unlike the WPA, it did not hire the unemployed directly. More than any other New Deal program, the PWA epitomized
16524-712: The job illustrates: "a forty-hour workweek, a minimum wage, worker's compensation , unemployment compensation , a federal law banning child labor , direct federal aid for unemployment relief, Social Security , a revitalized public employment service and health insurance". The New Deal policies drew from many different ideas proposed earlier in the 20th century. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold led efforts that hearkened back to an anti-monopoly tradition rooted in American politics by figures such as Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson . Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis , an influential adviser to many New Dealers, argued that "bigness" (referring, presumably, to corporations)
16677-469: The late 1970s and 1980s. Since that time, cities across the country have implemented such programs with varying levels of success. Changes to public housing programs were minor during the 1980s. Under the Reagan administration, household contribution towards Section 8 rents was increased to 30% of household income and fair market rents were lowered. Public assistance for housing efforts was reduced as part of
16830-421: The local level. Ickes instituted quotas for hiring skilled and unskilled black people in construction financed through the PWA. Resistance from employers and unions was partially overcome by negotiations and implied sanctions. Although results were ambiguous, the plan helped provide African Americans with employment, especially among unskilled workers. When Roosevelt moved industry toward World War II production,
16983-562: The market rate, allowing people to live in more convenient locations rather than move away from the city in search of lower rents. In most federally-funded rental assistance programs, the tenants' monthly rent is set at 30% of their household income. Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S. consisted primarily of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local housing authorities which are authorized and funded by
17136-475: The market. Federal regulation of agricultural production has been modified many times since then, but together with large subsidies is still in effect. Subsidized housing in the United States In the United States, subsidized housing is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below
17289-677: The money came from the PWA agency. PWA also built warplanes, and the WPA built military bases and airfields. To prime the pump and cut unemployment, the NIRA created the Public Works Administration (PWA), a major program of public works, which organized and provided funds for the building of useful works such as government buildings, airports, hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, and dams. From 1933 to 1935, PWA spent $ 3.3 billion with private companies to build 34,599 projects, many of them quite large. The NIRA also contained
17442-775: The narrative of racially segregated housing in the 20th Century. The rebellion in Detroit in 1967 was a symptom of racial tension that was in part due to unfair housing policies. In July 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued a commission, led by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner to determine the causes of the riots. The Kerner Commission clearly articulated that housing inequality was solely determined by explicitly discriminatory policies. It stated that " White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it ". The Kerner Commission blatantly condemned white institutions for creating unequal housing opportunities, specifically highlighting restrictive covenants as
17595-414: The neighborhood, property values are not likely to fluctuate. However, a review of the literature yielded no definitive conclusions on the impact of public housing on property values, with only two studies lacking methodological flaws that had either mixed results or showed no impact. Others are skeptical of concentrated poverty from public housing being the cause of social pathologies, arguing that such
17748-531: The new structure. In 1939 alone, 50,000 housing units were constructed—more than twice as many as were built during the entire tenure of the PWA Housing Division. Building on the Housing Division's organizational and architectural precedent, the USHA built housing in the build-up to World War II, supported war-production efforts and battled the housing shortage that occurred after the end of the war. In
17901-634: The non-poor and in-migration of the poor were associated with the creation of public housing, such associations disappeared with the introduction of statistical controls, suggesting that migration levels were caused by characteristics of the neighborhood itself rather than the public housing unit. Concentrated poverty from public housing units has effects on the economy of the surrounding area, competing for space with middle class housing. Because of social pathologies incubated by public housing, Husock (2003) states that unit prices in surrounding buildings fall, reducing city revenue from property taxes and giving
18054-472: The planning of the entire agricultural sector of the economy and was the first program on such a scale for the troubled agricultural economy. The original AAA targeted landowners, and therefore did not provide for any sharecroppers or tenants or farm laborers who might become unemployed. A Gallup poll printed in The Washington Post revealed that a majority of the American public opposed
18207-611: The poor was the responsibility of families, private charity and local governments, but as conditions worsened year by year demand skyrocketed and their combined resources increasingly fell far short of demand. The depression had psychologically devastated the nation. As Roosevelt took the oath of office at noon on March 4, 1933, all state governors had authorized bank holidays or restricted withdrawals—many Americans had little or no access to their bank accounts. Farm income had fallen by over 50% since 1929. Between 1930 and 1933, an estimated 844,000 non-farm mortgages were foreclosed on, out of
18360-445: The population could help. He closed all the banks in the country and kept them all closed until new legislation could be passed. On March 9, 1933, Roosevelt sent to Congress the Emergency Banking Act , drafted in large part by Hoover's top advisors. The act was passed and signed into law the same day. It provided for a system of reopening sound banks under Treasury supervision, with federal loans available if needed. Three-quarters of
18513-528: The populations most in need of assistance. These were submitted as part of the CDBG application. Again in response to the growing discontent with public housing, urban developers began looking for alternate forms of affordable, low-income housing. From this concern sprang the creation of scattered-site housing programs designed to place smaller-scale, better-integrated public housing units in diverse neighborhoods. Scattered-site housing programs became popularized in
18666-416: The potential to tighten the market for low-income housing, and communities were in need of an infusion of additional units. Some therefore argued that public housing was the appropriate model for cost and supply-chain reasons, though vouchers did not appear to overly distort local housing markets. In 1973, President Richard Nixon halted funding for numerous housing projects in the wake of concerns regarding
18819-412: The president could at best hope to consolidate, but certainly not to extend, the New Deal. James Farley thought that Roosevelt's wisest course would be "to clean up odds and ends, tighten up and improve things [he] already has but not try [to] start anything new." In any event, Farley predicted that Congress would discard much of Roosevelt's program. As noted by another study, "the 1938 elections proved
18972-514: The primary vehicle for the construction of new federally subsidized units, but it suffered considerable funding cuts in 2004 under President George W. Bush who called for the abolition of the program. In 1998, the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act (QHWRA) was passed and signed by President Bill Clinton . Following the frame of welfare reform , QHWRA developed new programs to transition families out of public housing, developed
19125-561: The private sector job market. The WPA also had youth programs (the National Youth Administration ), projects for women, and art projects that the PWA did not have. New Deal The New Deal was a series of domestic programs, public work projects , and financial reforms and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, with the aim of addressing
19278-430: The progressive magazine The New Republic a few days before Roosevelt's speech. Speechwriter Rosenman added it to his draft of FDR's presidential nomination acceptance speech at the last minute. Upon accepting the 1932 Democratic nomination for president, Roosevelt promised "a new deal for the American people". In campaign speeches, Roosevelt committed to carrying out, if elected, several elements of what would become
19431-709: The progressive notion of "priming the pump" to encourage economic recovery. Between July 1933 and March 1939, the PWA funded and administered the construction of more than 34,000 projects including airports, large electricity-generating dams, major warships for the Navy, and bridges and 70 percent of the new schools and a third of the hospitals built in 1933–1939. Streets and highways were the most common PWA projects, as 11,428 road projects, or 33 percent of all PWA projects, accounting for over 15 percent of its total budget. School buildings, 7,488 in all, came in second at 14 percent of spending. PWA functioned chiefly by making allotments to
19584-481: The projects continue to operate as mutual housing corporations owned by their residents. These projects are among the very few definitive success stories in the history of the US public housing effort. During World War II, construction of homes dramatically decreased as all efforts were directed towards the War. When the veterans returned from overseas, they came ready to start a new life, often with families, and did so with
19737-591: The proximity of public housing units. The study found that "the race-crime relationship is geographically contingent, varying as a function of the distribution of public housing". This suggests that a focus on institutional causes of crime in relation to race is more appropriate than a focus on cultural differences between races being the cause of differing crime rates . Public housing units were often built in predominantly poor and black areas, reinforcing racial and economic differences between neighborhoods. These social patterns are influenced by policies that constructed
19890-499: The reinforcement of patterns of poverty via the location of the public housing units, and the migration of impoverished individuals towards the public housing, although this effect is relatively small in comparison to the other sources. A study of public housing in Columbus, Ohio , found that public housing has differing effects on the concentration of black poverty versus white poverty. Public housing's effect on concentrated poverty
20043-414: The sale of securities. In a measure that garnered substantial popular support for his New Deal, Roosevelt moved to put to rest one of the most divisive cultural issues of the 1920s. He signed the bill to legalize the manufacture and sale of alcohol, an interim measure pending the repeal of prohibition , for which a constitutional amendment of repeal (the 21st ) was already in process. The repeal amendment
20196-457: The short-lived CWA gave locals money to operate make-work projects from 1933 to 1934. The Securities Act of 1933 was enacted to prevent a repeated stock market crash. The controversial work of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was also part of the First New Deal. The Second New Deal in 1935–1936 included the National Labor Relations Act to protect labor organizing, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief program (which made
20349-421: The squalor of the slums. It equips the Federal Government, for the first time, with effective means for aiding cities in the vital task of clearing slums and rebuilding blighted areas. This legislation permits us to take a long step toward increasing the well-being and happiness of millions of our fellow citizens. Let us not delay in fulfilling that high purpose. Discontent with Urban Renewal came fairly swiftly on
20502-455: The story of Pruitt-Igoe, which has often been used as a parable for the failures of large-scale public housing in the United States, has elucidated that the unraveling of the complex had more to do with structural racism, disinvestment in the urban core, white flight, and the diminishing post-industrial incomes of the buildings' residents than with high rise architecture or the nature of publicly owned and -operated housing. The Act also impacted
20655-477: The unemployed but also to build needed schools, municipal buildings, waterworks, sewers, streets, and parks according to local specifications. While the regular Army and Navy budgets were reduced, Roosevelt juggled relief funds to provide for their claimed needs. All of the CCC camps were directed by army officers, whose salaries came from the relief budget. The PWA built numerous warships, including two aircraft carriers;
20808-541: The unemployed. The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibited "oppressive" child labor, and enshrined a 40-hour work week and national minimum wage. In 1938, the Republican Party gained control of Congress and joined with conservative Democrats to block further New Deal legislation, and some of it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court . The New Deal produced a political realignment, reorienting
20961-506: The various federal agencies; making loans and grants to state and other public bodies; and making loans without grants (for a brief time) to the railroads. For example, it provided funds for the Indian Division of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to build roads, bridges, and other public works on and near Indian reservations. The PWA became, with its " multiplier-effect " and a first two-year budget of $ 3.3 billion (compared to
21114-580: The war. One of the most unusual US public housing initiatives was the development of subsidized middle-class housing during the late New Deal (1940–42) under the auspices of the Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division of the Federal Works Agency under the direction of Colonel Lawrence Westbrook . These eight projects were purchased by the residents after the Second World War and as of 2009 seven of
21267-547: Was a negative economic force, producing waste and inefficiency. However, the anti-monopoly group never had a major impact on New Deal policy. Other leaders such as Hugh S. Johnson of the NRA took ideas from the Woodrow Wilson Administration, advocating techniques used to mobilize the economy for World War I . They brought ideas and experience from the government controls and spending of 1917–1918. Other New Deal planners revived experiments suggested in
21420-567: Was a new concept in the United States, tested for the first time during the New Deal. With this in mind the PWA constructed a total of 52 housing communities for a total of 29,000 units, which was less than what many supporters of public housing had hoped for. The first public housing community built by PWA was the whites-only Techwood Homes in Atlanta, Georgia . The PWA also built one of the first public housing projects in New York City ,
21573-487: Was a temporary downturn. Private sector employment, especially in manufacturing, recovered to the level of the 1920s but failed to advance further until the war. The U.S. population was 124,840,471 in 1932 and 128,824,829 in 1937, an increase of 3,984,468. The ratio of these numbers, times the number of jobs in 1932, means there was a need for 938,000 more jobs in 1937, to maintain the same employment level. The Economy Act , drafted by Budget Director Lewis Williams Douglas ,
21726-475: Was allowed to float freely on foreign exchange markets with no guaranteed price in gold. With the passage of the Gold Reserve Act in 1934, the nominal price of gold was changed from $ 20.67 per troy ounce to $ 35. These measures enabled the Federal Reserve to increase the amount of money in circulation to the level the economy needed. Markets immediately responded well to the suspension in the hope that
21879-687: Was also one of the oversight authorities of the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration , which administered relief efforts to Puerto Rican citizens affected by the Great Depression. Roosevelt had built a New Deal coalition , but the economic downturn of 1937–1938 and the bitter split between the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) labor unions led to major Republican gains in Congress in 1938. Conservative Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined
22032-541: Was dramatically scaled down in 1974. The Section 236 program subsidized the debt service on private developments which would then be offered at a reduced rates to households below a certain income ceiling. The Housing Act of 1970 established the Experimental Housing Allowance Program (EHAP), a lengthy investigation in the potential market effects of housing vouchers. Vouchers, initially introduced in 1965, were an attempt to subsidize
22185-462: Was largely determined by the neighborhood surrounding the site, as American residential patterns, in both the North and South, were highly segregated. Coming out of the housing movement at the turn of the century, the 1930s also saw the creation of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC), which refinanced loans in order to keep the housing market afloat. The National Housing Act of 1934 created
22338-401: Was necessary to stabilize and rationalize the economy. During Roosevelt's first hundred days in office in 1933 until 1935, he introduced what historians refer to as the "First New Deal", which focused on the "3 R's": relief for the unemployed and for the poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. Roosevelt declared
22491-410: Was not enough money spent to help the PWA achieve its housing goals. Reeves (1973) argues that Roosevelt's competitive theory of administration proved to be inefficient and produced delays. The competition over the size of expenditure, the selection of the administrator, and the appointment of staff at the state level, led to delays and the ultimate failure of PWA as a recovery instrument. As director of
22644-429: Was passed on March 15, 1933. The act proposed to balance the "regular" (non-emergency) federal budget by cutting the salaries of government employees and cutting pensions to veterans by fifteen percent. It saved $ 500 million per year and reassured deficit hawks, such as Douglas, that the new president was fiscally conservative. Roosevelt argued there were two budgets: the "regular" federal budget, which he balanced; and
22797-448: Was plowed up, bountiful crops were left to rot and six million piglets were killed and discarded. The idea was to give farmers a "fair exchange value" for their products in relation to the general economy ("parity level"). Farm incomes and the income for the general population recovered fast since the beginning of 1933. Food prices remained still well below the 1929 peak. The AAA established an important and long-lasting federal role in
22950-514: Was ratified later in 1933. States and cities gained additional new revenue and Roosevelt secured his popularity especially in the cities and ethnic areas by legalizing alcohol. Relief was the immediate effort to help the one-third of the population that was hardest hit by the depression. Relief was also aimed at providing temporary help to suffering and unemployed Americans. Local and state budgets were sharply reduced because of falling tax revenue, but New Deal relief programs were used not just to hire
23103-410: Was rotting in the fields because it could not be profitably harvested. In Oregon , sheep were slaughtered and left to rot because meat prices were not sufficient to warrant transportation to markets. Roosevelt was keenly interested in farm issues and believed that true prosperity would not return until farming was prosperous. Many different programs were directed at farmers. The first 100 days produced
23256-504: Was the Housing Act of 1949 , which dramatically expanded the role of the federal government in both public and private housing. Part of Truman's Fair Deal , the Act covered three primary areas: (1) It expanded the Federal Housing Administration and federal involvement in mortgage insurance, (2) under Title I, it provided authority and funds for slum clearance and urban renewal , and (3) initiated construction of
23409-401: Was the last major New Deal legislation that Roosevelt succeeded in enacting into law before the conservative coalition won control of Congress. Though he could usually use the veto to restrain Congress, Congress could block any Roosevelt legislation it disliked. Nonetheless, Roosevelt turned his attention to the war effort and won reelection in 1940–1944. Furthermore, the Supreme Court declared
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