Chapter VIII: Part VII: Proceedings of Annual Meeting 287 (4)

In its earliest form (and many cities have not yet passed beyond the first stage) the tenement was a discredited private house, or other building, not originally built for the occupation of several families, but altered for the purpose. Each floor of what was originally a private dwelling was changed so that it could be occupied by a family. Later on—it may be at the beginning—each floor was subdivided between front and rear, so that it could be occupied by two families. One of the chief evils of such tenements arose from cellar occupation, and consequently some of the earliest tenement house regulations relate to the occupation of cellars.

In its second stage the tenement house is built for the purpose, imitating, not infrequently, in a servile manner, the arrangement of the altered house, with its dark rooms, and only gradually being adapted to a new architectural form growing out of its special use. The introduction of running water and city health regulations made it possible and desirable to locate water-closets inside. Courts and air-shafts increased in size. Fortunately, the process of evolution is not exhausted, and is still going on.

The tenement is still regarded in many places as an exotic, not adapted to our climate. But, judging from the history of New York and other cities, West and East, the tenement house has come to stay, and is, perhaps, destined to crowd out other and better forms of housing. I remember well when the first tenement to be dignified by the term apartment house was built in New York. It was in the early 70’s. Now it is a prevailing type of new building for dwelling purposes on Manhattan Island. There were no less than 82,652 tenements in Greater New York at the time of the last census. The development of the tenement has been largely influenced by legislation intended to prevent its worst evils. To test the reason for such legislation, and to define its limitations, a brief summary of particular subjects of regulation is desirable.

Protection against fire is almost universal. Structural provisions directed to this end are contained in the building laws of all cities. In New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Jersey City, Providence, Syracuse and Nashville, all tenements must have fire-escapes. All tenements over two stories in height must have fire-escapes in St. Louis, Baltimore, Louisville, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Denver, Toledo and Columbus. In Chicago, Cleveland and Cincinnati, this rule only applies to tenements over three stories in height. In many cities tenements must be fireproof throughout when over a certain height. In Philadelphia this is true of all over four stories; in Washington of those over five stories; in New York, Buffalo, Louisville, Minneapolis and Denver, of those over six stories in height. In Boston, the limit is 65 feet.

Light and ventilation are protected by minimum open spaces. In Philadelphia there must be open spaces at the side or rear equal to one-fifth of the lot area, and the minimum width of all spaces is eight feet. In Buffalo, under the local law in force before the general state act of 1901 was passed, the minimum width of any outer court was six feet in two-story buildings, eight feet in three and four-story buildings, and one additional foot in width for each additional story. The minimum interior court was eight by ten. In Boston, a clear open space at the rear must be left equal to one-half the width of the street on which the tenement fronts, and there must be two open spaces at least ten feet wide. In some cities the required court area is expressed in square feet, without regard to minimum width or length, and increases proportionately with the height of the building. This principle is adopted in New York, where the minimum width of exterior courts in buildings five stories high is six feet on the lot line and twelve feet between wings, and the minimum area of interior courts on the lot line in buildings of the same height is twelve by twenty-four, reduced this winter in three-story tenements to eight by fourteen. Such buildings must have an open yard at least twelve feet wide in the rear. The height of rooms is almost universally regulated, the minimum usually being eight feet. The height of tenements is limited in many cities.

Water supply is prescribed. In New York, water must be furnished on each floor. In Philadelphia and Buffalo, on each floor, for each set of rooms. In Boston, Chicago, Jersey City and Kansas City, in one or more places in the house or yard.

Water-closet accommodation is very generally prescribed. In Philadelphia, and in New York under the new law, there must be one for every apartment. Under the old law in New York, and at present in Chicago and Detroit, there must be one for every two families. In other cities the unit is the number of persons. It is twenty persons in Boston, Baltimore and Denver; ten persons in Rochester.

The reasons for tenement regulation may be roughly classed as follows—precise classification is impossible, as it is seldom that any particular regulation is attributable solely to a single reason:

The protection of property rights in adjacent property. Such is the reason for regulations requiring fireproof construction in whole or in part. Such is the chief reason for limitations of height and for leaving an obligatory open space at the rear of each house so as to preserve thorough ventilation for the block. The protection of neighbors and the community from unsanitary conditions, by which they might be affected, or which might breed contagion. Under this class falls the great body of sanitary law and tenement house regulation of a sanitary kind. That all legislation which falls within these classes can be justified as a proper restraint on the liberty and property rights of some, in order to protect and preserve the property rights and liberty of others, is clear.

There is another and increasing class of regulations intended to protect the life and health of those who cannot, it is supposed, protect themselves by any means within their control. Fire-escapes, which are almost universally required by law in non-fireproof tenement houses, belong to this class. There is no such regulation for private houses, and there is usually no such requirement for two-family houses. The reason for the fire-escape in tenements and hotels must rest either on the supposed inability of the inmates to protect themselves, as the owner of a private house can protect himself and his family, or else from the greater number of persons exposed to risk. Of such class also is the law providing that there be a separate water-closet for each apartment, as in New York, or for every two families, as in Detroit and elsewhere, and that lights be kept burning in public halls at night. No such regulations exist for private houses. They can be only justified in tenement houses on the theory that the tenants in such houses must live in them, cannot control their maintenance in these particulars, and are entitled to the protection of affirmative law for these necessities or conveniences. It may be answered that they need not rent rooms in houses not furnished with separate water-closets, and the halls of which are not kept lighted, unless they wish to, and that they should not be restricted in their liberty to rent rooms in such houses, it may be at a lower rent, if they so desire. The reply may be, and in some cities would properly be, that they would have no choice unless the law intervened to protect them. Moreover, it might be urged that in the provision for separate water-closets for each apartment, and in the lighting of public halls, there was an element of protection to public health and morals in which the community had an interest, and which the community by regulation should insure.

I have sought by these illustrations to point the closeness of the dividing line between justifiable restriction of the individual liberty of the house builder and house owner, for the protection of the liberty of others, and paternalism. It is undoubtedly true, as Mr. Lecky states in the concluding part of the paragraph to which I have already referred, that “the marked tendency of these generations to extend the stringency and area of coercive legislation in the fields of sanitary reform is one that should be carefully watched. Its exaggerations may, in more ways than one, greatly injure the very classes it is intended to benefit.” There is real danger lest in our eagerness and earnestness to improve the condition of others, we legislate from the point of view of those fathers and mothers who are always ready to regulate the affairs of every family but their own, and break down the habit of self-dependence and the spirit of individual responsibility upon which the vigor of our American social fabric so largely depends.

Perhaps the most important limitation to tenement house reform, in the construction of new tenements, is the question of cost. If tenements cannot be rented at a profit they will not be built. There are many things which it would be desirable to have in a tenement, each one of which adds to its cost, and if they be required by law to an extent which makes it unremunerative, tenement building will cease. It is undoubtedly desirable that all tenements should be fireproof throughout; indeed, the same may be said of private houses. In 1892, Boston so prescribed; but few, if any, were erected, and the law was consequently modified in 1899.

The amount of rent which the average American workingman in any particular city can pay approximates a fixed quantity. Any legislation which materially increases this rent, or which prevents building and therefore prevents his finding shelter, is quite certain to be repealed. This proposition, however, is not so discouraging as it may appear at the outset. The standard of living among our working classes is steadily improving. What yesterday was a luxury, to-day is a necessity. In many cities, apartments which are not provided with running water are unrentable. Bathing facilities are increasingly in demand, and are frequently being provided. Families that have once lived in apartments where the bedrooms have light and air, will not hire apartments which are dark and unventilated. The supply must meet the demand. Interest rates are receding; economies in construction are being introduced, which some time ago were unknown, largely by the building of houses by the wholesale. The large profits which were demanded as the normal income on tenement houses in the past are no longer expected. Rooms up to the standard of the modern tenement house law can be provided without increasing the rental.

Another limitation in many cities is the prevailing lot dimension. If Dante were to-day writing his “Inferno,” the lowest depth would be reserved for those men who invented the twenty-five foot lot and imposed it on so many American cities. In unbuilt districts, where several lots, whatever be their dimensions, can be purchased and built upon together, the lot dimension does not necessarily control the frontage of the building, and the tendency in such districts in New York is to build tenement houses of wider frontage, which admit of better court arrangement, but there are usually so many lots separately owned, and so many which are situated between lots already built upon, so that their enlargement is impossible, that any proposed legislation prescribing court areas which, however desirable, puts the prevailing lot unit at a disadvantage, will meet with overwhelming resistance. No better illustration of this can, perhaps, be found than the story of New York legislation this winter, of which I intend to speak. From the point of view of proper tenement house construction, happy that city in which land is sold by the front foot, instead of by any procrustean lot unit.

There is another practical limitation, not necessarily to the enactment of tenement house law, but to its permanence, in the extent to which it, either actually or supposedly, interferes with the profits of builders and material men, and perhaps no better illustration of this practical limitation can be given than a simple recital of the contest over the radical amendment of the New York law which has been waged at Albany during the past few weeks, and which terminated only a few days ago. The New York law of 1901 marked the longest step in advance that tenement house reform in that state has ever taken, though in its provisions for court areas, the particular point in which it was assailed this winter, it does not go so far as the Philadelphia law, and but little further than the previous Buffalo law. It unquestionably increased the cost of construction by its fireproof provisions, as well as, though in a less degree, by its larger court areas. That there would be, this winter, organized effort on the part of building and real estate interests to modify it was certain and inevitable. Many bills were introduced amending it, but my illustration only concerns two, the City Administration bill, in the preparation of which I myself had part, and a bill introduced by a Brooklyn member of the Legislature in the interest of Brooklyn builders and material men, who claimed that they represented the people of Brooklyn. It is a fair question whether Brooklyn did not really have a grievance against last winter’s law. One of the prevailing types of Brooklyn tenements is a three-story house on a twenty-five foot lot, with two families on a floor, making six families in all, each apartment running through from front to rear. These houses had been built with interior courts or air-shafts about two and a half feet wide and ten feet long. These light-shafts were supposed to light and ventilate the interior rooms of each apartment. As a matter of fact, they furnished little light or ventilation to any bedrooms below the top floor. The same type of air-shaft in taller tenements of Manhattan was one of the chief evils against which the new law was directed. These evils were undoubtedly less in a three-story building, but still existed. The minimum interior court or air-shaft permitted by the new law in such buildings was eleven feet wide by twenty-two feet long. Such a court prevented the building of this type of house, and no tenements of this type were consequently built on twenty-five foot lots from the time when the law went into effect. The Brooklyn bill sought to amend the law, as respects three and four-story houses, by permitting a return to the old air-shaft, with an increased width of six inches, and with a somewhat increased length, making it three by twelve. We conceded that under the law it was impossible to build this particular type of tenement on a twenty-five foot lot, with each apartment running through from front to rear, but we demonstrated that it was perfectly practicable to build what seemed to us a much better two-families-on-a-floor tenement on such a lot, by putting one apartment in the front and another in the rear; that it was perfectly practicable to build, under the law, apartments running through from front to rear on a somewhat larger lot, and that the law interfered with no other current type except the one in question. The separate front and rear apartments, which were practical under the new law, are usual in Manhattan, and the rent obtainable from the front apartment differs but little from that obtainable from the rear apartment. Our Brooklyn friends insisted that though Brooklyn was a borough of New York and only separated from Manhattan by the East River, Brooklyn people were so accustomed to apartments running through from front to rear that they would not rent rear apartments, and indeed, that the social distinction between families who could afford to live in the front apartment, and those who would be forced to live in the rear apartment, was so great that they would not rent apartments in the same house.

This proposition may seem strained, but we of the City Administration were finally satisfied that so much regard should be paid to local habits and customs, that it was wise to modify our minimum court areas in three-story houses to such a point as would permit the building of this particular type of Brooklyn house. Plans were then made which demonstrated beyond peradventure that by reducing the minimum court area to 8x14, instead of 3x12, this particular type of house could be built, with bedrooms infinitely better lighted and better ventilated than those opening upon the narrow shaft. One would have supposed that this improved plan, which permitted Brooklyn builders to construct a front-to-rear apartment, for which they claimed so many advantages, would have been received with acclamation as a solution of the difficulty. Not at all. Some insisted that Brooklyn must have what it was accustomed to, narrow air-shaft and all. Others more openminded, while frankly admitting that the new plans made better apartments, which should bring in an increased rental of from fifty cents to a dollar a month, insisted that tenants would not pay more rent, and that because the buildings under these new plans cost say $800 per house more than under the old plans, they would not be commercially profitable, and therefore would not be built. Not a word was said as to the interests of tenement dwellers. There was no dearth of apartments in Brooklyn at current-rents. Indeed, the supply was far beyond the demand. The whole issue turned on the commercial profitableness of building under the law, as amended by the City Administration bill, to meet this Brooklyn condition. The Brooklyn builders were perfectly frank in their arguments. They started with the premise that the building of tenements in Brooklyn must be made commercially profitable; that buildings under the new plan, with a minimum court area of 8x14, would not be commercially profitable, because about $800 was added to their cost, and therefore insisted that the law should be amended to meet their ideas of commercial profitableness. That the purpose of the law was not to promote building operations, or increase the value of real estate, but to provide healthy habitation for tenement dwellers, and that that purpose was certainly being accomplished under the new law so long as tenement dwellers could house themselves without any increase in rent, was ignored, nor if it had been urged would it have seemed to them an argument worth considering.

I am happy to say that they did not succeed, but they demonstrated the influence which can be exerted upon the average legislator by men of their type through their trade and allied labor organizations, and had those who, at the moment, represented the unorganized public in the cities been less active, and had the force of public opinion as voiced by the press been less outspoken, the result might have been different.

The advance of tenement house reform undoubtedly means some diminution in the profit of the landlord, or some increase in rent. Improved tenements must cost more. Someone must pay that cost. If any material rise in rents would produce such opposition to the law as to repeal or modify it, then either the cost must be borne by the landlord, or the law must be modified. Whether the landlord’s rent will by the law proposed in any city be diminished below the point of legitimate profit, cannot be certainly demonstrated until the experiment be tried. Some enlightened landlords, with a sense of their obligations toward their tenants, are perfectly willing to suffer this small diminution of income. Others are not, and the others, who usually constitute the majority, in alliance with the builders and material men, will always seek to prevent legislation which affects their pockets. Tenement house reform must always be militant, not only to gain ground, but to hold the ground that has once been gained.

There is something for almost everyone to do. Let none suppose that our cities, however small, will remain free from the evils of the tenement house, which in larger cities has necessarily evolved in self-protection tenement house regulation. The tenement has come to the United States, like the Canada thistle, to grow and to multiply. The smaller cities need not go through the bitter experience which is teaching New York and other cities their lesson. They can, by timely regulation, prevent the crystallization of unsanitary conditions into brick and mortar. I do not recommend the adoption in every city of the New York law. It was framed to meet the special conditions there existent. The remedy should be no greater than the prevailing or expected disease warrants. A few elementary regulations with regard to court areas, vacant spaces, and regular and official inspection to make certain that these simple regulations are followed in construction and that ordinary sanitary rules are complied with in maintenance, will suffice, if there always be a keen eye to look some years ahead, to meet future needs before they make themselves unpleasantly manifest in your own surroundings, and before conditions are created, as in New York, which cannot be changed except at great cost to owners and to the municipality.

THE HOUSING PROBLEM IN CHICAGO

By MISS JANE ADDAMS

Hull House, Chicago

In considering the housing problem in Chicago, it is at once evident that we are not in the deplorable condition of New York, nor yet perhaps in the happy condition of Philadelphia. Until a year and a half ago, we thought that all our problems in connection with the housing question were in the future. We have a way in Chicago of shoving disagreeable problems into the future, and saying that we will take care of them by and by, when our resources are more adequate, when we have developed a little more civic consciousness. An association of people, however, called the City Homes Association, come eighteen months ago, made a very careful investigation of such tenement districts as we have and their report was startling, even to those of us who knew something of the conditions by daily seeing them.

The time at the disposal of the committee was only six months, and Chicago is very large as to area. We have 187 square miles under city management, and the tenement houses, certainly according to the legal definition given by Mr. De Forest, are scattered more or less through that very large region. It seemed, therefore, better to take three districts, limiting carefully the area of the districts, and to make as careful a study as possible of each. The largest one, in two of the river wards of Chicago, was mainly occupied by Italian immigrants and Russian Jews. The second in size was the Polish district northeast of the business quarter of the city, and the third in size the Bohemian district extended south from the centre. We discovered several things which were very surprising, among them that many of the houses were owned or partially owned by the people living in them. The thrifty Bohemian put his savings into a house, perhaps building at first a house on the front of his lot, living in a few rooms, and so saving rent until he had enough money to build a rear tenement, in the end covering up his lot as much as possible and renting it all out. The Italians to a somewhat lesser extent did the same thing, and the Poles also, so that one could not talk of the effect of tenement house regulation upon the landlord in contradistinction to the effect upon the tenant, for it is very largely the neighbors of the tenants themselves who are the landlords, and the tenant and landlord are represented by the same type of person. Their interests are identical, not in the larger sense, but in the immediate sense, and they stand together either in demanding or opposing certain regulations. The situation is quite unlike that obtaining in the cities where the landlord lives in some other part of the town, and where tenement legislation affects only his property interests and not his human interests.

We also were very much surprised at the density in certain quarters which this investigation disclosed. If the average tenement house density of the three districts investigated were spread throughout the city, we could house within our borders 23,000,000 people. We discovered one-seventh of an acre which was occupied to the ratio of 900 people to the acre, and if that density were applied to our borders we could house, not very comfortably to be sure, all the people of the Western Hemisphere. This seemed to us sufficiently alarming in a city in which it was said that the matter of density was something concerning only the future. The average tenancy in the houses throughout these three districts was only three families to a house. This average means that in many cases there is no real tenement, but a single house. Again, many of these single houses were very small, sometimes containing but two or three rooms, and the average number of rooms to an apartment was 3 116–1000. Although many houses were small and the tenements for each house again small, in certain quarters the density within the houses was very great and the conditions bad. We also found in these three areas almost a hundred full-fledged double-deckers, and a great many more that only escaped being double-deckers through a mere technicality in the definition that had been settled upon. These double-deckers are growing and, unless we have a more vigorous enforcement of tenement house regulations in Chicago, threaten to become very common there.

In both the building department and in the health department of the city, a great deal is left to the discretion of the inspector. Of course, in the city where the landlord not only owns his house but also lives in it and at least knows which way his tenants vote, this matter of discretionary power becomes an important one. It is very hard for an official to stand out against a certain amount of political pressure, and the consequence is, that while there are laws fairly good on books, this large discretion left to the enforcing officers has made many of them of little account. This is especially true in regard to the yard spaces, which are set between the front and rear tenements, the size of the shafts, and other special regulations. The City Homes Association is trying at present to secure a better code of tenement house legislation, to restrict the discretionary power and thus to limit the very casual and varying judgment of the enforcing official, and to give some sturdy standard in law observances.

In the matter of rents, Chicago is in rather a curious state. The property in the river wards, in which many of these houses are situated, has been held for a long time by its owners upon the theory that finally factories and shipping interests were going to occupy the land. The consequence is, that the little houses which were built very soon after the fire have been allowed to remain, without very much repair and without very much change, and in many cases have become so wretched that only a low rental can be asked for them. The men who own them, content themselves with getting out of the houses about enough to pay taxes and to keep up a minimum amount of repairs. So that the rent of certain houses in the river districts is low. Perhaps this is not low for Philadelphia, although I am sure it will sound low for New York. The average rent paid by an Italian family for an apartment is $4.92 a month, or $1.78 per room a month; the average rent paid by a Bohemian family for an apartment is $5.93 a month, or $1.64 a room; by a Polish family $5.66 for an apartment, and $1.40 for a room; by a Jewish family $8.28; the average rent rising to $2.12 a room. Whenever the question of modern tenements comes up in Chicago, and the cost is carefully gone into, it is found very difficult to furnish apartments in good, satisfactorily well-built houses at so low a rental, and yet once this rental has been established, it is found on the other hand very difficult to ask much more than the current rate. By a strict enforcement of law many of these houses should be demolished. That would rid the city of a number of unsanitary houses and bring conditions to a more normal situation.

What Mr. De Forest says about the twenty-five foot lot, I should very much like to corroborate. It is very difficult to erect a convenient house on a lot 25 feet wide and 120 feet deep. This unfortunate division of property was made in the first instance, doubtless, to enable as many men as possible to own their own separate houses. For a long time we have made a sort of fetich of the house, and have come to believe that a man has a sense of being at home only when he is within four walls standing alone upon one piece of ground. In reality the idea of a home reaches back so much further than the four walls, and is so much more deeply implanted in the human breast than the ownership of land that we do not need to fear that a new type of house will destroy it. But we are timid and would rather be uncomfortable in a little house than to start out in some reasonable way in building apartments. If one has a house 12½ feet wide and 24 feet deep and 24 feet high, one has not a very comfortable arrangement. It is not even rationally divided, but by a purely imitative method; in every house you enter you will find the little hall, the little stairs, and all the other things that presuppose plenty of space. If that same strip of twelve feet had been added to the other strips in the block and the whole treated in some reasonable manner, we could comfortably house the same number of people in a sort of glorified tenement house or apartment house; each family might have at least one large living-room where the members could get together in comfort and have a much better chance for conserving family life than they have in the little square box. Some of us still believe that a workingman has a sense of ownership only when he puts his savings into a piece of ground or the house in which he lives. To tie a workman down to a given piece of ground is often of questionable good. A man may put all his savings into a house on the North Side of Chicago, for instance, and before it is paid for, find himself out of work; his next work may be fifteen miles from that place, in South Chicago. If his house is partially paid for, it is very difficult to get rid of it, and it is also difficult and expensive to travel fifteen miles twice a day. If his property had been in some other form, let us say stocks or bonds, it would have allowed him much more mobility in regard to his labor, and he would have a better chance of adjusting himself to the changing conditions of his trade.

A Housing Conference, it seems to me, ought first of all to look at industrial conditions as they confront the workingman of to-day, not as conditions existed fifteen or twenty years ago, nor as they existed for our fathers. A conference should not consider the workingman of its imagination, nor yet the workingman as he ought to be, but the workingman of to-day as he finds himself, with his family, with his savings, with his difficulty of keeping a place very long, due to the sudden changes in the methods of his trade. His employer is obliged to make constant changes and adaptations in his factory, but his landlord is afraid to try changes in his house. We hold a certain fiction in our minds of what home is and what it ought to be, forgetting how far back it goes, that it can survive all sorts of changes and adaptations, that the one thing which will kill it is that which kills every living thing, _i. e._, lack of adaptation to its environment; if it fails to adapt itself to the situation as it really exists, it is for the first time endangered. If the community, as a whole, gives its mind to it, as the Philadelphia community seems to be doing, and knows conditions accurately and thoroughly, I am sure we are going to see very marked changes in the housing of the poorer people of the modern cities, and we shall no more cling to the single house than to the country store. The time may come, when, if in any city, the death-rate rises above the normal, that the body of public-spirited citizens shall at once feel forced to do something about it, that they shall be filled with a sense of disgrace and feel that a disaster has occurred in their city. At the present moment the death-rate is constantly above the normal, in certain quarters of our cities; we allow it to be high year after year, knowing that it is excessive. This apathy can only be explained on one of two grounds, either that we do not know the housing conditions which exist, or that we are so selfish as to have no sense of responsibility in regard to them.

DISCUSSION OF THE PAPERS READ BY MISS ADDAMS AND MR. DE FOREST:

“Q. Is the discretion, which Miss Addams says is abused in Chicago to such an extent, exercised with regard to the legal court area which should be left unoccupied by the building?

“A. (Miss Addams), I would reply, yes, that buildings are permitted to go up with lesser court areas than provided by law. The matter is so largely in the hands of the office giving the permit that almost every provision is changed. I think we found in this investigation houses which illustrated the encroachment upon and the breaking of every single ordinance found upon the statute books, in regard to the shaft area as well as other provisions.

“Q. I cannot see why the figures mentioned should be unduly low for the rent per room per month, or should be too low to permit a reasonable profit to the owner of property. I have rented a six-room house in Washington, around the corner from one of the best residence districts, for $3.50 per room per month; furnished rooms in New York, near Columbia University, for $2.00 a week, and downtown, near the business part of the city, for $1.50, furnished, with attendance. I wonder if Mr. De Forest can tell us what, under modern conditions in New York City, for example, should be a fair rent which would enable a landlord to get a fair profit on the investment per room per month.

“A. (Mr. De Forest), In New York, rents are, I think, on a business basis. In other words, I do think the landlords expect to receive, and do receive from their tenements a normal income, and, in many instances more than a normal income. The modern tenements which are being put up by the City and Suburban Homes Company of New York, which are now being increased in number, do produce a fair income, representing not less than 4 per cent on the money invested. I refer to the buildings constructed at the present time under the modern requirements of the state law.

“Q. The Washington Sanitary Improvement Company paid 5 per cent from the very beginning and rents its flats for about $3.00 per room per month. The buildings are one to three stories high.

“A. Land is considerably higher in Washington. This land is not less than $150, and usually $200 a foot. The price quoted lowest was $1.78 per room per month, whereas your price was $2.00 a week, for New York; $3.00 and $3.50 per month for Washington.

“Q. We have heard this question from the standpoint of Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, but the clientele of this association, as I understand it, covers the entire country, and I should like to ask Mr. De Forest whether it is not true that the investigation made by the Tenement House Commission of New York disclosed the fact that in virtually every manufacturing city of the country there is to-day distinctly a housing problem for the poor and that definite constructive work needs to be done to remedy the evils.

“A. The investigation made by the Tenement House Commission which covered all the large cities, and some of the smaller ones of the country, includes statistics from twenty selected cities. It is true that the tenement house problem presents itself in a much less degree in some places than in others; it does so to a much less extent in Philadelphia. In other large cities of the country the housing problem exists to a large extent, and so much so in some of the smaller cities that last winter the cities of the second class in New York State—Syracuse, Utica, Albany and Rochester—took up the problem of regulation in these cities. Jersey City, which is directly opposite New York, and which is a comparatively small city, has some of the worst housing conditions in the whole country.

“Q. About how large a proportion of the population is affected by the housing problem in New York?

“A. The total population of New York is about 3,400,000. Out of that population upwards of 2,200,000 live in tenement houses, as legally defined, which includes apartment houses. The proportion in Brooklyn is quite as large as in New York, although there is a smaller number of families per house.

“Q. What is a double-decker?

“A. (Miss Addams), The double-decker was originally, of course, a house, which grew from the fact that there was a front tenement and a rear tenement, and that later the two were joined into one house.

“Q. I would like to ask Miss Addams as to Chicago and Mr. De Forest as to Brooklyn, whether any notice has been taken of the question as to the best pavement for the poor sections of the city, that is, whether asphalt for the lanes and alleys is not, as a rule, cleaner in appearance and in other ways, than other kinds of paving, as cobblestone, for instance.

“A. (Miss Addams), I will ask Mr. De Forest to answer that. Paving is a weak point in Chicago.

“A. (Mr. De Forest), Perhaps I ought to say that I am glad to find some point on which New York has something to say. Most of our congested tenement districts in New York, largely on the East Side, have been paved with asphalt. This is regarded as a matter of grave importance, and was one of the subjects considered by the Tenement House Commission; that in some districts there should be asphalt pavements, because the families almost live in the streets in summer and the children all play there, was one consideration, and keeping the streets clean was another of great importance.

“Q. Do you think that the facilitation of the workingman in change of residence, either within metropolitan borders, or from one city to another, or from one state to another, is a good thing in contemplation of his privileges and duties as an American citizen?

“A. I think that in industry, as it is now organized, with the sudden changes and fluctuations of skill, if the workman is deprived of the power to sell his labor, it is very bad for him. Then I think the adaptable person is a better American citizen than a person who is planted too hard.

“Q. Are you not, therefore, regarding only the rights and the good that may be done to the individual, eliminating altogether his obligations as a citizen?

“A. What I wanted to say was this, that I think we have a way of relegating all the old-fashioned virtues to workingmen and reserving to ourselves the most interesting and more adaptable virtues. We say to our workmen, do not drink, be thrifty and industrious. These are good but negative. We reserve to ourselves the power of developing an interesting life, and all the rest of it. On general principles, if a man can stay in one place and own his house, of course it is better for him both from a financial and social point of view; but there are exceptions, and we all know that the present industrial conditions imply constant change both in methods and place of manufacture, that if we really understood the workingman’s needs and were trying to serve him, we would evolve some such plan as has been evolved in Belgium. A man there puts his savings into the Government Savings Bank, which has all the features of a building and loan association. As I understand it, he may make partial payments upon a house in Brussels, but if his work takes him away from that city to another within the kingdom—let us say Ghent—he may transfer his payments to a house in Ghent. On the other hand he may remain in Brussels, complete his payments until he owns his house or withdraw his stock in his own house, after allowing for proper depreciation, and hold his savings in simple bank stock. The entire arrangement is flexible and adaptable, and transfers the sense of ownership from the simple ownership of land and house, to the more complex one of stock.

“Q. Regarding gardens, playgrounds and gymnasiums, which, in some sections of Philadelphia—namely, the College Settlement—have been located on the tops of buildings for the benefit of children, has that been done in New York and Chicago, and with what success?

“A. I should say, yes, so far as the movement has gone, that is with regard to open playgrounds, not speaking of roof gardens, and with regard to open parks. The small park movement has undoubtedly done a great deal of good, and the children’s playground, so far as it has gone. It has not gone to the extent that its friends desire. So far as roof gardens are concerned, that is, the adoption of roofs for recreation, that has not been done so far as I know. It has been thought of and talked of, but never carried out.”

CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE HOUSING PROBLEM IN PHILADELPHIA

REPORT PREPARED BY THE OCTAVIA HILL ASSOCIATION

The work of the Octavia Hill Association has been one of detailed management of the houses of the poor and not of investigation, but it cannot let this opportunity pass without describing some of the conditions known to it. No comprehensive report of housing conditions in Philadelphia has ever been made. The Seventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor in 1894 on the Slums of Great Cities has interesting data on living conditions at that time in certain sections of the slum districts, while “The Philadelphia Negro,” a social study, by W. E. Burghardt Dubois, published by the University of Pennsylvania in 1899, throws a vivid light on the problem in its relation to the colored population of the Seventh Ward. We believe that the time has come for wider consideration of this important subject. Our purpose in this paper is to urge strongly the importance, if not the necessity, of a thorough investigation and that one may be undertaken in the near future before our situation becomes more serious.

Philadelphia had in 1900 a population of 1,293,697 persons, covering an area of almost 130 square miles, with an average density of about fifteen persons to an acre. Of its 258,690 dwelling-houses more than one-half are two-story dwellings, and its average number of persons to a dwelling is 4.91. These facts show that our problems differ radically from those of New York and Chicago and that it is the house built for occupation by a single family and not the tenement, which is the important feature for us to consider. The excellent system which has made Philadelphia famous and has given it a larger proportion of separate dwellings for the working classes than any city of an equal population, has blinded our eyes too long to the evils which have been growing up about us. Until within a few years the building law was practically a dead letter, and no check was placed on the avarice of the landlord in his desire to gain the utmost possible return from his ground space. Even to-day we have no laws for the enforcement of underdrainage and our municipal departments are unable with their small force of inspectors to cope with the conditions we are facing. These facts have given us problems which though the way to their solution may be plain, yet demand serious consideration.

Philadelphia can be justly proud of the way in which the needs of the regularly employed wage-earner have been met by the small house. In the newer and outlying parts of the city this house is found in its best development. There are rows upon rows, streets upon streets of attractive four and six roomed houses with an increasing number of modern conveniences. Sanitary plumbing, bath, range, furnace, gas, a cemented cellar, a porch and a small yard may be had for from $15.00 to $20.00 a month. Three thousand six hundred and twenty-five two-story houses were in 1901 added to the already large number of these and the Building and Loan Associations bear witness to the continued demand and the increase of popular ownership.

Nearer to the centre of the city also, and in the great mill and factory districts, one finds still the individual home, but here the houses are older, the rows seem longer and more unbroken in their monotony and in innumerable courts and alleys there is surface drainage. Here, also, we find the various features of the problem which grows more difficult in the older parts of the city and as the social scale is lowered. In prosperous times, each small house holds one family. In times of industrial depression the house built for one family must with no additional conveniences, no better arrangements for privacy and comfort, accommodate two or more.

For the purpose of this report we have considered mainly the district in the southeastern part of the city where our own work centres.[4] The five wards, where this district lies, contain about one-tenth of the population of the city and cover about one-eightieth of the area or one and three-fifths square miles. The average density of population in these wards is 123 persons to an acre. In the Third Ward the average number increases to 209. The wards are relatively well provided with park area, but the whole amount used for this purpose is only 16.88 acres out of a total of 1030 acres, which shows the crying need there is for more breathing spaces in these congested districts. There are a number of old graveyards which would be valuable additions to the park area if they were so used. The total number of inhabitants in the five wards is 127,466. Of these, 50,733 are foreign born, 17,611 are negroes. It is impossible to attempt a description of the many phases of life throughout this region. The large numbers of foreigners are grouped together according to nationality, in fairly well-defined geographical areas, each showing many characteristics of its own national life. The slum districts shift their centres somewhat in the changing of populations, but are seemingly as strongly entrenched as ever and extend over increasingly large areas. Architecturally the buildings show great variety. Quaint, gabled frame houses often in the most dilapidated condition, modern brick dwellings, colonial houses of fine proportions, and tenements are found side by side often in picturesque proximity.

The size of the block in Philadelphia is an important factor in any consideration of its housing conditions. This block averages about 400 feet square. By the purpose of the founder of the city it was intended that each house should be in the middle of the “breadth of his ground, so as to give place to gardens, etc., such as might be a green country towne which might never be burnt and might always be wholesome.”[5] This large size has continued to be the plan of the city and has lent itself readily to being cut up into the network of inner courts and alleys which are practically universal. The gardens, however, in all the poorer districts, have totally disappeared. The small house has been crowded onto the ground formerly allotted to them, and the revenue from the land has been increased by an intensive process, which while not building into the air has covered the ground with large numbers of dwellings. It is the limited height of the buildings that is the saving factor. If the houses were high with the consequent increase of overcrowding to the acre, the conditions would be extreme.

From the various types of houses known to us we have chosen for special mention three of those which show most clearly the character and needs of this district. The most striking of these is the occasional large tenement. In the early nineties the great increase of immigration suggested the building of tenements as a profitable investment. The result was a goodly number of scattered houses, built under the law governing the building of the ordinary dwelling-house and showing some of the worst phases of tenement house construction. Narrow air-shafts, lots closely built over, insufficient plumbing, badly ventilated and dark rooms, inadequate fire-escapes, would if multiplied have thrust upon us a problem of a very serious form. These houses hold from sixteen to fifty families. In many instances the yard space is a long narrow strip on which all the rooms are dependent for air and light except those on the front of the building. When the adjoining lot is covered in the same way the result is a narrow well in which sunshine cannot enter and through which there is no circulation of air. In one case, in a house built on the four sides of its ground, sixty-four rooms open on such a well which is seven feet six inches in width, while in another instance a copy of the New York dumb-bell plan is found. This movement was fortunately watched and arrested in its early development. Through the thoughtful action of Mr. Hector McIntosh and with the co-operation of a number of prominent city officials and others, a wise law was framed and accepted by the Legislature. The evil was checked and the building of large and badly arranged tenements prevented.

Under this act of May 7, 1895, the term tenement is defined as meaning every building which is, or is to be, occupied by three or more families, living independently of each other and doing their cooking on the premises. The act provides that not more than 80 per cent of a lot can be built on, except in corner properties, that the width of a yard shall be not less than eight feet, that every room in such houses shall have a window opening upon a street or upon the yard, that every tenement house over four stories high shall be fireproof, throughout. It has also stringent provisions in regard to water supply, sanitation, minimum size of rooms, halls, etc. The cost of building is thus so much increased as to be almost prohibitive.

In 1890 the percentage of families living in tenement houses in Philadelphia was 1.44. Whatever the increase in this figure may be in the census of 1900,[6] it remains true that only the poorest live in one and two rooms, and that as soon as a higher rent can be paid, or a small house can be had at a low rent, the change is eagerly made. The management of all large tenements is very difficult, and manifest evils are sure to follow neglect and inefficiency on the part of the owners. Thus, in a community containing so large a number of small houses, the tide was turned from this plan of housing at a critical moment, the results of which are of far-reaching benefit.