The housing problem is unique in certain respects. It is not strictly analogous, for example, to the relief prob lem involved in the supply of food and other necessities to those who are of deficient wage-earning capacity. There is in each case the recognition of a normal stand ard, but the method of enforcing it is necessarily different. In the one case the deficiency may be made good from charitable sources ; in the other, it can be made good only by seeing that the buildings are properly constructed in the first instance, or reconstructed, if they are unfit for use as they are. Action by the state is, therefore, neces sary in connection with the housing problem to supple ment charitable relief, which may, indeed, be called upon when there is not income enough to pay the rental of an appropriate dwelling. As in the case of ordinary charita ble relief, and as in the case of hospitals, the controlling consideration is that a decision must be made as to what is a reasonable standard, and we must then stick to it, accepting the consequences, however burdensome. The puerile cry that tuberculosis cannot be eradicated because it would cost a large sum of money to accomplish that result, must be calmly disregarded ; that relief cannot be supplied—o a comprehensive and adequate scale, be cause relief funds may lead to pauperization, cannot be granted; that the housing problem is beyond solution, because for the state to prescribe the conditions under which houses may be erected and occupied is an interfer ence with the ordinary laws of trade, is an argument not worthy of serious consideration. Normal living condi tions require a minimum standard of housing accommo dations, a reasonable chance for recovery from sickness, and a supply of the material necessities of life — not be cause these are necessarily the most important things in life, but because they are an essential physical basis for rational living.
Legislation and inspection are not the whole of im proved housing. It is effected also by improved trans portation facilities, by certain other centrifugal tendencies in modern life, such as the distribution of power through the electric and by the erection of model tene ments, whether on a business or on a philanthropic basis. Every really model dwelling which is a profitable invest ment certainly raises the standard of neighboring dwell ings, creating new demands on the part of tenants, and reassuring doubtful owners as to what it is commercially possible for them to do.
Every improvement in the standard of housekeeping by which foul cellars and courts are cleaned not only adds to the comfort of particular tenants directly concerned but exerts an influence in raising the standard of all compet ing dwellings. The training of janitors and housekeepers, voluntary association among themselves for mutual im provement, and the exaction of a higher standard of effi ciency and of greater responsibility for the conditions in the houses under their care, appear to be probable devel opments of the near future.
Educational propaganda, official inspection, and reason able legislative enactment to prevent the development of 1 When water power or steam is used for direct power it is natural that factories and residences should be grouped in great towns and cities. The easy transmission of power in the form of electricity permits a wider distribution of mills and of homes.
bad conditions are, therefore, the threefold means of main taining a normal standard. So far as the responsibility for preventing the worst evils of unsanitary housing has been assumed by the government, it has been removed from the scope of ordinary relief agencies. There remains, even in communities which have gone farthest in admin istrative control, a field of activity for private charity.
The element of adequacy in the normal standard of shelter cannot be absolutely and uniformly secured by legislation. It has been suggested that three rooms may be assumed to be the normal minimum for a family of five. If this be the correct standard, it is then the part of relief agencies to see to it that the families under their care are not encouraged or allowed to be overcrowded according to this standard. The desirability of economic independence must not be so exaggerated as to obscure the importance of securing adequate shelter. If, for example, a family of five, living in three rooms, could become self-supporting by taking in a lodger, it may well be better that the defi ciency in the income should be supplied than that the lowering of the housing standard should be permitted. The question must be considered, also, when it is proposed to place with collateral relatives a child or old person whose home has been broken up. It is important to know, before deciding on such arrangement, whether or not the addition of one member to the family will mean, for all, overcrowding, according to the accepted minimum. Another temptation to countenance in individual cases a housing standard below the normal is met by relief socie ties when a housekeeper is paid by free rent of basement rooms, which may be fairly good as basements go, but are nevertheless inadequately lighted, damp, and otherwise undesirable to live in. Clearly it is essential in such a case not only to give no encouragement to the objection able plan, but to see that the family is enabled, by whatever means may be required, to move into proper rooms, or at least to move out of the cellar.
In cities which have not yet definitely provided for a certain standard in construction, the responsibility devolv ing on relief agencies is even heavier. Nothing then can be taken for granted, and it is necessary to be on the alert for evils which, in other cities, are provided against by law. It will require more ingenuity to correct the evils when they are discovered if there is no explicit statute, but, with the cooperation of local health authorities, a way can usually be found.
Among the more recent and authoritative sources of information on this subject are the comprehensive work, in two volumes, entitled " The Tenement-House Problem," edited by Robert W. de Forest and Lawrence Veiller, in which is embodied the report of the New York Tenement-House Commission of 1900; and the report, also in two vol umes, of the operations, for the first eighteen months of its existence, of the Tenement-House Department, created in accordance with the recommendations of the Commission above named. With these may be studied to advantage the report of the City Homes Association of Chicago on "Tenement Conditions in Chicago for 1901," edited by Robert Hunter ; the successive annual reports of the Octavia Hill Asso ciation of Philadelphia, and the report of the New Jersey Tene ment-House Commission of 1904; report on "Housing Conditions in Cleveland," by the Housing Problem Committee of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce ; "Housing Conditions in Jersey City," by Mary B. Sayles, published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science ; "Housing of the Working Classes in Yonkers," Ernest Ludlow Bogart ; "The Slums of Great Cities," E. R. L. Gould, Seventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor ; "Housing of the Working People," E. R. L. Gould, Eighth Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor ; " The Social Evil," Report of the Committee of Fifteen, New York ; "How the Other Half Lives," by Jacob A. Riis.