FUNDAMENTALS OF HOUSING REFOEM/ 



By Dr. Jamks Fobd, 

 Harvard University. 



A housing problem may be said to exist wherever any portion of a 

 population dwells under conditions dangerous to health, safety, or 

 morality. The problem is present to some degree in every American 

 city. It is usually occasioned primarily by the lack of guidance of 

 urban growth, by poor planning of buildings, faulty construction, 

 and defective sanitation; it is aggravated by the greed of some 

 landlords, the carelessness of some tenants, and ignorance of the 

 laws of hygiene on the part of both. The result of bad housing is ill 

 health, both physical and moral, and thereby industrial inefficiency, 

 unemployment, and a long chain of preventable social maladies, 

 which are very costly to the community, and which place a heavy 

 handicap upon individual and social achievement. 



HOUSING AND PUBLIC HEALTH. 



Man's dwelling exerts a marked influence upon his life and char- 

 acter. From one-third to one-half of his time — and much more 

 than half of the time of W'Omen and children — is spent in the home. 

 Bad housing conditions affect health insidiously by slowly under- 

 mining the vitality and thus rendering the individual susceptible to 

 disease. But bad housing conditions also constitute an environment 

 favorable to the life of the germs of a number of diseases. For ex- 

 ample, the bacillus of pulmonary tuberculosis can live for weeks and 

 even months in a dark, damp, ill-ventilated and ill-kept environ- 

 ment — in other words, in basement dwellings, in dark halls and dark 

 chambers. The germ of typhoid fever may not only be conveyed 

 through the water or milk supply of a city, but is stated also to be 

 carried by flies and vermin from the filth in which it was deposited 

 to the food of urban households. 



Thus a city with an insanitary water supply, or with manure pits 

 and garbage pails uncovered in which the fly may breed and privies 

 in which the bacillus may be picked up, is an environment favorable 



1 Revised and extended by authoi* from article in " The American City," New York, 

 May, 1913, 



741 



