Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1918 — To Spend Fifty Millions For Workers’ Homes [ARTICLE]

To Spend Fifty Millions For Workers’ Homes

Government Plans to House Its Big New Army of Shipbuilders. TOBE DONE IN RECORD TIME Community Houses, Equipped Like Club; for Single Men—Homes With All Modern Conveniences for Married Men—Standardization for High Speed. By JAMES H. COLLINS. In a hastily remodeled 'suite of Washington offices today sits a man who has a war task that appeals to the imagination. Between now and July 1 he is to build $50,000,000 worth of homes for ■workers In Uncle Sam’s new shipbuilding army, which is being mobilized from the picked mechanics of every state in the union. This army will number something like 40,000 men. Fifty million dollars Invested in houses for a work force of that size gives $125 per man. That seems rather a limited sum of money with which to provide anybody with warm sanitary living quarters, having baths, hot and cold water, steam heat, electric light, modern kitchen facilities, and all the comforts of home. Yet this man is going to make his $125 per man suffice for the job and carry out his construction in record time. It is interesting to figure with him a little I—if 1 —if you just remember that present figures must be rough estimates to a certain extent. First of all, he can eliminate a large proportion of this shipbuilding army, because many of the new shipyards are handy to cities with ample housing and all conveniences, and Uncle Sam w’ill'solve the housing problem in those places by improving the transportation service between a man’s work and his home. But other shipyards have been created in undeveloped spots along our wide stretches of seacoast, and in these places it becomes necessary to provide workers with modern living quarters. Community Dwellings. ■*• Thousands of these shipbuilders will be single men, and for them a special type of community dwelling has been designed on the order of a club house. Each community dwelling will accommodate 125 men. Each man will have a room to himself and it will be an outside room. Each clubhouse, moreover, Will be divided into five groups or separate clubs of from 25 to 30 men. Each of these separate clubs will have shower baths and a large community lounge, making it possible for a worker to find a congenial crowd of his own and for that little community subdivision to organize its own home life, amusements, sports, social affairs, and studies. Each club house will have a community dining room with modern kitchen and serving facilities, giving Joard on the mess plan at reasonable rates and with minimum labor. These community club houses are to be of frame construction, but standard type. Many of them will be erected In localities which are not likely to become permanent shipbuilding centers. Therefore, permanent construction has not been the chief necessity. Nevertheless, they will be substantial enough to last 25 years if need be, and where erected in localities with severe winter weather will lack nothing In warmth. When the plans for such houses were standardized by the shipping board experts, they achieved two results in house building that seemed to be new. First, speed of construction. All the doors, windows,, pipes, and other things that go Into a house were put on a harts of uniform rtsaa. Much

of the work in building a single house, as«anyone who has paid the bills will know, consists in sawing, cutting, and fitting the material. Everything Cut to Fit. With standardization of every possible item, most of this cutting and fitting will be done in factories and the material shipped ready to be put together by carpenters and plumbers. Second, the cost of housing an individifal was reduced to a most reasonable figure. It is still too early to give totals in dollars and cents, but present estimates indicate that the investment in these community homes for single workers will not exceed $350 per man this including living quarters, baths, community lounges for each club of 25 men, kitchen and mess-hall facilities, hefcting and lighting—everything. If all the housing appropriation for shipworkers were spent on these community dwellings homes would be provided for about 125,000 men, or nearly one-third the whole emergency shipbuilding army. But many of the new shipworkers will be married men with families, and for-them separate dwellings are being built. Something like 50 types of five, six, and seven room cottages have been

studied and reduced to staudaids In the same way. Everything is calculated for quick, economical, durable construction. Each separate dwelling will have its bathroom, heating, lighting, and kitchen equipment. Moreover, great pains have been taken to avoid any appearances of standardization or monotony in exterior design. Only the materials and inside appointments have been reduced to standards while exterior lines and ornament may be modified aecortling to local conditions to secure individuality and beauty. That is not all. The plans have been drawn for these individual family cottages with the idea of permanence. In so far as possible, they will be erected at shipyard sites which are fairly certain to be permanent. Single men are free to move to temporary employment for and disperse if shipyards are abandoned when peace comes. Married men with families cannot do this, of course, so they will be assigned to the permanent yards x as fast as possible with the expectation that they may live there for years. The plans take into account not only the provision of homes for them when they are shifted into shipbuilding to meet the war emergency, but the purchase of their own homes on installment payments equivalent to rent if they feel that the new locality is a suitable one In which to work and live, and bring up a family. Present estimates indicate that the family houses can be erected for considerably less than $3,000 each. This does not Include the cost of land, nor has that been figured in the building of community houses for single men.

The major part of this great building program will have been completed by the Ist of July. Some idea of its magnitude may be given by comparison with other building operations. On a peace time basis an equal investment would build five Woolworth buildings or two Equitable buildings. Hearing for All Comers. Naturally, the magnitude of a building program like that and the promptness with which it must be carried out appeals to the imagination not only of the shipyard workers who are to live in these dwellings and the American citizens who are interested in them as part of our war program, but to many persons who wish to assist with advice, plans, inventions, and special schemes and devices for speeding up the job. To the offices where this program is being carefully laid out have come in the past few w T eeks men with all sorts of proposals for the building of houses and dormitories in record time, and of many kinds of emergency materials and construction. Those having the project in hand have gjven a hearing to all comers, and moreover, gone afield themselves to investigate promising new methods. In the end, however, as the outcome of careful investigation and plans, these shipyard dwellings will be erected pretty much on standard lines of tried and proven materials with all elements of speed and economy centered in standardization of materials and largescale building by well-equipped contractors with capable organizations.