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“Safe, affordable housing is a basic necessity for every family.
Without a decent place to live, people cannot be productive
members of society, children cannot learn and families cannot thrive.”
Tracy Kaufman, Research Associate
National Low Income Housing Coalition/
Low Income Housing Information Service
http://www.habitat.org/how/poverty.html; 2003
Introduction
The term “shelter,” which is often used to define housing, has a
strong connection to the ultimate purpose of housing throughout the
world. The mental image of a shelter is of a safe, secure place that
provides both privacy and protection from the elements and the
temperature extremes of the outside world. This vision of shelter,
however, is complex. The earthquake in Bam, Iran, before dawn on
December 26, 2003, killed in excess of 30,000 people, most of whom
were sleeping in their homes. Although the homes were made of the
most simple construction materials, many were well over a thousand
years old. Living in a home where generation after generation had
been raised should provide an enormous sense of security.
Nevertheless, the world press has repeatedly implied that the
construction of these homes destined this disaster. The homes in
Iran were constructed of sun-dried mud-brick and mud.
We should think of our homes as a legacy to future generations and
consider the negative environmental effects of building them to
serve only one or two generations before razing or reconstructing
them. Homes should be built for sustainability and for ease in
future modification. We need to learn the lessons of the earthquake
in Iran, as well as the 2003 heat wave in France that killed in
excess of 15,000 people because of the lack of climate control
systems in their homes. We must use our experience, history, and
knowledge of both engineering and human health needs to construct
housing that meets the need for privacy, comfort, recreation, and
health maintenance.
Health, home construction, and home maintenance are inseparable
because of their overlapping goals. Many highly trained individuals
must work together to achieve quality, safe, and healthy housing.
Contractors, builders, code inspectors, housing inspectors,
environmental health officers, injury control specialists, and
epidemiologists all are indispensable to achieving the goal of the
best housing in the world for U.S. citizens. This goal is the basis
for the collaboration of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) and the Centers for Disease and Control and
Prevention (CDC).
Trends in Housing
The term “tenement house” was first used in America and dates from the
mid-nineteenth century. It was often intertwined with the term
“slum.” Wright [5] notes that in English,
tenement meant “an abode for a person or for the soul, when someone
else owned the property.” Slum, on the other hand, initially was
used at the beginning of the 19th century as a slang term for a
room. By the middle of the century, slum had evolved into a term for
a back dwelling occupied by the lowest members of society. Von
Hoffman [6] states that this term had, by
the end of the century, begun to be used interchangeably with the
term tenement. The author noted additionally that in the larger
cities of the United States, the apartment house emerged in the
1830s as a housing unit of two to five stories, with each story
containing apartments of two to four rooms. It was originally built
for the upper group of the working class. The tenement house emerged
in the 1830s when landlords converted warehouses into inexpensive
housing designed to accommodate Irish and black workers.
Additionally, existing large homes were subdivided and new
structures were added, creating rear houses and, in the process,
eliminating the traditional gardens and yards behind them. These
rear houses, although new, were no healthier than the front house,
often housing up to 10 families. When this strategy became
inadequate to satisfy demand, the epoch period of the tenements
began.
Although unpopular, the tenement house grew in numbers, and, by 1850
in New York and Boston, each tenement housed an average of 65
people. During the 1850s, the railroad house or railroad tenement
was introduced. This structure was a solid, rectangular block with a
narrow alley in the back. The structure was typically 90 feet long
and had 12 to 16 rooms, each about 6 feet by 6 feet and holding
around four people. The facility allowed no direct light or air into
rooms except those facing the street or alley. Further complicating
this structure was the lack of privacy for the tenants. A lack of
hallways eliminated any semblance of privacy. Open sewers, a single
privy in the back of the building, and uncollected garbage resulted
in an objectionable and unhygienic place to live. Additionally, the
wood construction common at the time, coupled with coal and wood
heating, made fire an ever-present danger. As a result of a series
of tenement fires in 1860 in New York, such terms as death-trap and
fire-trap were coined to describe the poorly constructed living
facilities [6].
The two last decades of the 19th century saw the introduction and
development of dumbbell tenements, a front and rear tenement
connected by a long hall. These tenements were typically five
stories, with a basement and no elevator (elevators were not
required for any building of less than six stories). Dumbbell
tenements, like other tenements, resulted in unaesthetic and
unhealthy places to live. Garbage was often thrown down the
airshafts, natural light was confined to the first floor hallway and
the public hallways only contained one or two toilets and a sink.
This apparent lack of sanitary facilities was compounded by the fact
that many families took in boarders to help with expenses. In fact,
44,000 families rented space to boarders in New York in 1890, with
this increasing to 164,000 families in 1910. In the early 1890s, New
York had a population of more than 1 million, of which 70% were
residents of multifamily dwellings. Of this group, 80% lived in
tenements consisting mostly of dumbbell tenements.
The passage of the New York Tenement House Act of 1901 spelled the end
of the dumbbells and acceptance of a new tenement type developed in
the 1890s—the park or central court tenement, which was
distinguished by a park or open space in the middle of a group of
buildings. This design was implemented to reduce the activity on the
front street and to enhance the opportunity for fresh air and
recreation in the courtyard. The design often included roof
playgrounds, kindergartens, communal laundries, and stairways on the
courtyard side.
Although the tenements did not go away, reform groups supported ideas
such as suburban cottages to be developed for the working class.
These cottages were two-story brick and timber, with a porch and a
gabled roof. According to Wright [5], a
Brooklyn project called Homewood consisted of 53 acres of homes in a
planned neighborhood from which multifamily dwellings, saloons, and
factories were banned.
Although there were many large homes for the well-to-do, single homes
for the not-so-wealthy were not abundant. The first small house
designed for the individual of modest means was the bungalow.
According to Schoenauer [1], bungalows
originated in India. The bungalow was introduced into the United
States in 1880 with the construction of a home in Cape Cod. The
bungalow, derived for use in tropical climates, was especially
popular in California.
Company towns were another trend in housing in the 19th century.
George Pullman, who built railway cars in the 1880s, and John H.
Patterson, of the National Cash Register Company, developed notable
company towns. Wright [5] notes that in
1917 the U.S. Bureau of Labor Standards estimated that at least
1,000 industrial firms were providing housing for their employees.
The provision of housing was not necessarily altruistic. The
motivation for providing housing varied from company to company.
Such motivations included the use of housing as a recruitment
incentive for skilled workers, a method of linking the individual to
the company, and a belief that a better home life would make the
employees happier and more productive in their jobs. Some companies,
such as Firestone and Goodyear, went beyond the company town and
allowed their employees to obtain loans for homes from
company-established banks. A prime motivator of company town
planning was sanitation, because maintaining the worker’s health
could potentially lead to fewer workdays lost due to illness. Thus,
in the development of the town, significant consideration was given
to sanitary issues such as window screens, sewage treatment,
drainage, and water supplies.
Before World War I there was a shortage of adequate dwellings. Even
after World War I, insufficient funding, a shortage of skilled
labor, and a dearth of building materials compounded the problem.
However, the design of homes after the war was driven in part by
health considerations, such as providing good ventilation, sun
orientation and exposure, potable pressurized water, and at least
one private toilet. Schoenauer [1] notes
that, during the postwar years, the improved mobility of the public
led to an increase in the growth of suburban areas, exemplified by
the detached and sumptuous communities outside New York, such as
Oyster Bay. In the meantime, the conditions of working populations
consisting of many immigrants began to improve with the improving
economy of the 1920s. The garden apartment became popular. These
units were well lighted and ventilated and had a courtyard, which
was open to all and well maintained.
Immediately after World War I and during the 1920s, city population
growth was outpaced by population growth in the suburbs by a factor
of two. The focus at the time was on the single-family suburban
dwelling. The 1920s were a time of growth, but the decade following
the Great Depression, beginning in 1929, was one of deflation,
cessation of building, loss of mortgage financing, and the plunge
into unemployment of large numbers of building trade workers.
Additionally, 1.5 million home loans were foreclosed during this
period. In 1936, the housing market began to make a comeback;
however, the 1930s would come to be known as the beginning of public
housing, with increased public involvement in housing construction,
as demonstrated by the many laws passed during the era [5].
The National Housing Act was passed by Congress in 1934 and set up
the Federal Housing Administration. This agency encouraged banks,
building and loan associations, and others to make loans for
building homes, small business establishments, and farm buildings.
If the Federal Housing Administration approved the plans, it would
insure the loan. In 1937, Congress passed another National Housing
Act that enabled the Federal Housing Administration to take control
of slum clearance. It made 60-year loans at low interest to local
governments to help them build apartment blocks. Rents in these
homes were fixed and were only available to low-income families. By
1941, the agency had assisted in the construction of more than
120,000 family units.
During World War II, the focus of home building was on housing for
workers who were involved in the war effort. Homes were being built
through federal agencies such as the newly formed Federal Housing
Administration, formed in 1934 and transferred to HUD in 1965.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau (USCB) [7],
in the years since World War II, the types of homes Americans live
in have changed dramatically. In 1940, most homes were considered
attached houses (row houses, townhouses, and duplexes). Small
apartment houses with two to four apartments had their zenith in the
1950s. In the 1960 census, two-thirds of the housing inventory was
made up of one-family detached houses, which declined to less than
60% in the 1990 census.
The postwar years saw the expansion of suburban housing led by William
J. Levitt’s Levittown, on Long Island, which had a strong influence
on postwar building and initiated the subdivisions and tract houses
of the following decades
Figure 1.2.
The 1950s and 1960s saw continued suburban development, with the
growing ease of transportation marked by the expansion of the
interstate highway system. As the cost of housing began to increase
as a result of increased demand, a grassroots movement to provide
adequate housing for the poor began to emerge. According to Wright
[5], in the 1970s only about 25% of the
population could afford a $35,000 home. According to Gaillard [8],
Koinonia Partners, a religious organization founded in 1942 by
Clarence Jordan near Albany, Georgia, was the seed for Habitat for
Humanity. Habitat for Humanity, founded in 1976 by Millard Fuller,
is known for its international efforts and has constructed more than
150,000 houses in 80 countries; 50,000 of these houses are in the
United States. The homes are energy-efficient and environmentally
friendly to conserve resources and reduce long-term costs to the
homeowners.
Builders also began promoting one-floor mini homes and no-frills homes
of approximately 900 to 1,200 square feet. Manufactured housing
began to increase in popularity, with mobile home manufacturers
becoming some of the most profitable corporations in the United
States in the early 1970s. In the 1940 census, manufactured housing
were lumped into the “other” category with boats and tourist cabins:
by the 1990 census, manufactured housing made up 7% of the total
housing inventory. Many communities ban manufactured housing from
residential neighborhoods.
According to Hart et al. [9], nearly 30% of
all home sales nationwide are of manufactured housing, and more than
90% of those homes are never moved once they are anchored. According
to a 2001 industry report, the demand for prefabricated housing is
expected to increase in excess of 3% annually to $20 billion in
2005, with most units being manufactured homes. The largest market
is expected to continue in the southern part of the United States,
with the most rapid growth occurring in the western part of the
country. As of 2000, five manufactured-home producers, representing
35% of the market, dominated the industry. This industry, over the
past 20 to 25 years, has been affected by two pieces of federal
legislation. The first, the Mobile Home Construction and Safety
Standards Act, adopted by HUD in 1974, was passed to aid consumers
through regulation and enforcement of HUD design and construction
standards for manufactured homes. The second, the 1980 Housing Act,
required the federal government to change the term “mobile home” to
“manufactured housing” in all federal laws and literature. One of
the prime reasons for this change was that these homes were in
reality no longer mobile in the true sense.
The energy crisis in the United States between 1973 and 1974 had a
major effect on the way Americans lived, drove, and built their
homes. The high cost of both heating and cooling homes required
action, and some of the action taken was ill advised or failed to
consider healthy housing concerns. Sealing homes and using untried
insulation materials and other energy conservation actions often
resulted in major and sometimes dangerous buildups of indoor air
pollutants. These buildups of toxins occurred both in homes and
offices. Sealing buildings for energy efficiency and using
off-gassing building materials containing urea-formaldehyde, vinyl,
and other new plastic surfaces, new glues, and even wallpapers
created toxic environments. These newly sealed environments were not
refreshed with makeup air and resulted in the accumulation of both
chemical and biologic pollutants and moisture leading to mold
growth, representing new threats to both short-term and long-term
health. The results of these actions are still being dealt with
today.
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