Abstract

The Politics of Housing: I. Veterans Want Action

Nearly two thousand veterans from thirty-nine states, representing seven major veterans' organizations, gathered in Washington last March to tell their representatives in Congress that they wanted long-range housing legislation, and pronto. For three years the returned soldiers had been demanding that Congress take action to solve the housing crisis, and for the same period the powerful real-estate lobby had been fighting against any effective program. The first round had been won by the real-estate lobby: with an assist from U.S. President Harry S. Truman the lobby killed the Wyatt Emergency Housing Program just as it was beginning to show results. Today housing is as scarce in most parts of the country as in 1945. The goal of the veterans' program was to build 2,700,000 units in two years, including new permanent housing, conversions, temporary housing, trailers, and 800,000 prefabricated units.