TENEMENT HOUSE PROBLEM. The problem of the making possible a healthful hu man existence under the conditions of dense popu lation in our modern cities. With the growth of great cities, a double movement of population• takes place. The well-to-do are driven from former residential districts by the encroachments of business, while working people crowd into their vacated houses. Rear tenements are built behind the old houses; new structures are put up solely for use as tenements; and the whole process is left in the hands of private builders and landlords, ill-regulated by the municipality, until its two most obvious evils, the danger from epidemics and the danger from fire, force them selves upon public attention.
The fundamental evil of the tenement is crowd ing under unsanitary conditions. Houses built for one family cannot be adapted to hold four or more, sanitary conveniences become increas ingly inadequate, needed repairs are not made, the tenants deteriorate, and the slum is formed. A district built up fully with new tenements and more crowded than the slum may be less de graded, but is hardly more wholesome. A high death-rate, especially among infants, is a normal characteristic of tenement districts. In New York in 1894 the general death-rate for the city was 22.75, but it was as high as 33 in some crowded wards. Jewish quarters, densely popu lated as they are, are exceptional in usually hav ing a death-rate below that for the whole city. In certain rear tenements in New York the death rate for children under five years has been at times over 200 per 1000.
The personal and social evils of tenement life are more far-reaching than the physical. See HOUSING PROBLEM.
A first step in reform is legislation compelling the destruction or renovation of existing dwell ings that are unsanitary, but it is equally im portant to provide for rehousing the displaced population, and to see that new tenements are properly built. The British act of 1890 permits municipal condemnation of unsanitary areas, but requires that all persons displaced shall be re housed on or near the same site. Ordinary
laborers must live near their work, or in the central area of the city, and it is thought a mis take to build in such areas model tenements at a cost requiring rents that only the skilled arti san can pay. To house the artisan in the outer belts, the clerk and similarly paid workers in the suburbs, and to provide quick and cheap transportation, is the effective mode of attacking the housing problem. Such a process is neces sarily slow. So long as old houses stand, and new ones are put up for private profit, a good sanitary and building code is essential, but with it should be provided, as has not usually been clone in American cities; a proper force for in spection and enforcement. Private initiative has proved that model tenements can be commer cially successful in housing either artisans or more poorly paid laborers. As the more obvious evils of over-crowding, malconstrue tion, and insanitation are corrected, the pure ly social aspects of the problem are attacked more and more directly, both by the municipality itself and by private philanthropy. In Great Britain housing improvements on a large scale have been undertaken by the municipalities. Pri vate companies also have been active. The Housing of the Working Classes Act (1890), con solidating and improving a series of laws reach ing back to 1851, permits cities to condemn and acquire economically areas adjudged unsanitary, and to erect and manage new dwellings on the premises. Under this act London spent $1,400, 000 in clearing 15 acres of one of its worst slums in Bethnal Green, laid out the area attractively, and rehoused upon the same site practically all the 5700 people displaced. The County Council later undertook other schemes involving the hous ing of 25,000 persons, and in accordance with the amendment of 1900 began to build workmen's cottages outside the county limits. Several large private foundations, such as the Peabody Fund, have built and successfully run model tenements on a large scale.