Wagner-Steagall+Housing+Act

Wagner-Steagall Housing Act

As a nation we set many goals for ourselves to make sure our country is a success especially when we have an economic crisis like the Great Depression. During this time two of our main goals were to assist States and political subdivisions of States to fix the unsafe house conditions, the acute shortage of decent and safe dwellings, and address the shortage of housing for low-income families. The Roosevelt Administration wanted to establish a national program to build and operate housing that would benefit the poor. To accomplish this goal, the Roosevelt Administration teamed up with New York Democrat Robert F. Wagner and Alabama Democrat Henry B. Steagall to create the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act of 1937. This act later intertwined with the United States Housing Act of 1937 and it also created the United States Housing Agency.

This Act required that the construction of each new public housing unit would be matched by the removal of an equal number of substandard dwellings. By making this type of one-to-one policy, it insured that federal program would only increase the qaulity of the housing without increasing the quantity.  It also made sure that the US Housing Agency would extend long-term, low-interest loans to local housing authorities to finance slum clearence and also provide aid to communities for such construction through annual cash contributions.To get these funds communities were required to exempt such housing  It was often provided to traditional, working-class families who lived in public housing temporarily until they could find alternative housing. from real and personal property taxes and to provide public services, such as police protection and water, to the project tenants at the same level provided to other communities. Local governments charge the public housing agencies (PHA) 10 percent of their rental collections for their services.

Although this plan had many hopes of succeeding it did not go as planned for numerous reasons. Some "wealthier" tenants did in fact leave public housing as the they were replaced by tenants with dim economic prospects. The people in this new demographic were poorer and not just temporarily out of work: they were welfare recipients, elderly persons, the chronically unemployed, people with disabilities, female-headed households, and families with multipleeconomy improved, buteconomic and social needs.White tenants left at a faster rate than did black tenants. In many metropolitan areas, the view of public housing was that only very poor members of racial minorities lived in it. Construction was sometimes shoddy because of scandalous mismanagement and lack of HUD oversight. The buildings were frequently high rises located in high-density developments that proved to be unsuitable for families with young children. As a result of these powerful social, economic, and political forces, many associated public housing with problems in older, deteriorating urban centers of our nation

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By: Veronika Spangler and Meagan Cirillo