![]() ![]() July 22, 1932: President Hoover signs the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to establish a monetary reserve for mortgage lenders. July 21, 1932: Congress passes the Emergency Relief and Reconstruction Act to address low-income housing. 1931: President Herbert Hoover convenes the National Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership to address the emergency in the construction industry and the rising number of home fore-closures. Chronology: 1931–1932: More than 3,600 banks suspend operations. As a result, public housing initiatives met with very limited success in the late 1930s. Unlike obtaining help for private homeowners, getting public support for housing programs for the most needy citizens was much tougher in 1930s America. The locations of these structures were almost always in the poorest parts of central cities. Slowly, the idea to provide temporary housing for those in need evolved to providing permanent housing for the most disadvantaged members of society. The New Deal's Wagner-Steagall Housing Act of 1937 became the first housing legislation where the federal government recognized housing as a social need. Initiatives in this area involved the federal government using public tax money to build dwellings for the benefit of those who could not pay market rates for shelter. The second major housing front dealt with the inner-city slums. Their houses were generally built on the outskirts of cities, in the suburban areas. The beneficiaries of these programs were typically white, middle-class individuals who could afford to buy houses in the first place. The FHA's enduring legacies were long-term mortgages insured by the federal government and the establishment of national standards of home construction. The HOLC's lasting legacies were long-term, low-interest, mortgages, and the establishment of uniform national appraisal methods throughout the real estate industry. It accomplished this by refinancing shaky mortgages. The HOLC began as an emergency agency to stop the avalanche of homeowner defaults. Then, as part of the broad-ranging New Deal economic policies under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (served 1933–1945) came the Home Owners' Refinancing Act of 1933 that created the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the National Housing Act of 1934 that created the Federal Housing Authority (FHA). First, during President Herbert Hoover's stay in the White House, the Home Loan Bank Act of 1932 was passed. First, in the early 1930s, Congress passed three measures to relieve both distressed homeowners and banks and, as a result, to get new construction restarted. federal government, recognizing the need for government intervention, attacked the housing problems on two broad and distinct fronts. The default and subsequent foreclosure of mortgages was a major contributor to the banking crisis of the early 1930s.īeginning in the 1930s, the U.S. The home financing system was sliding toward complete collapse. By 1933, 40 to 50 percent of all home mortgages in the United States were in default. In foreclosure the bank seizes and auctions off the borrower's property to pay off the mortgage. This situation, called default, led to fore-closure by the holder of the mortgage, generally a bank. To make payments on their home loans, known as mortgages. Many believed an upturn in construction activity was key to stimulating economic recovery.Īnother critical housing situation facing Americans in the early years of the Great Depression was foreclosure. The crisis in housing attracted special attention. The building of new homes came almost to a halt, repairs went unfinished, and slums expanded. In 1929, with the onset of the Great Depression, housing problems quickly worsened. However, since the mid-nineteenth century, social reformers recognized some housing in cities as inadequate and demanded changes. Housing was not considered an appropriate responsibility of government. During the next year, a thousand mortgages a day were being foreclosed.įrom the time urban settlements first appeared in America during the eighteenth century, selecting, constructing, and purchasing a place to live had been left to the individual. In 1932, 273,000 people lost their homes. The problem of foreclosures quickly became critical as the Great Depression began. President Herbert Hoover (served 1929–1933) wrote these words in a letter during his term in office. "The literally thousands of heart-breaking instances of inability of working people to attain renewal of expiring mortgages on favorable terms, and the consequent loss of their homes, have been one of the tragedies of this depression" (quoted in Glaab and Brown, A History of Urban America, 1983, p. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |