Industrial Housing. Andrew J. Thomas

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       Breaking ground for the Bayonne wage-earners' homes. The Mayor of Bayonne and the officers and directors of the Bayonne Housing Corporation start the work

       cheerless "cold water flats," as much as they would pay for the new apartments of the Bayonne Housing Corporation. When the rise in prices of old construction to the level of prices of new construction was finally complete, the wage—earner—even the high-paid one—would find that he could not afford a suitable home. He would accordingly be obliged to accept a reduction in his standard of living.

      It was felt that capital, no less than labor, would deplore any reduction in the standard of living of the workers in industry, and the individuals interested in the Bayonne experiment were ready to lend a hand in placing the production of wage-earners' houses on a sounder business basis.

      That the particular section of the real estate market which produces wage-earners' housing is careless of the social interest, and that it operates inefficiently, with heavy economic waste in many industrial centres of the country—this is a truth well known to housing experts. The fact is that housing suffers from a somewhat obsolete and primitive business system in which ​small-scale methods of operation, heavy overhead, inefficient production, and excessive speculation are the chief causes of failure. From an economic viewpoint, the great need in wage-earners' housing is efficient large-scale production.

      The American worker enjoys his present high standard of living because modern business methods have been introduced into the manufacture of his food, his clothes, his household goods, his education, his recreation, even of his luxuries, and there is every reason why the same efficiency should apply in housing, which, next to food, is the largest item in the wage-earner's budget.

The social responsibility

       Table of Contents

      But the cornerstone of housing policy is the social and civic responsibility. The home is more than an ordinary article of trade, to be bought and sold like a cake of soap or a box of cigars; on the contrary, it is a personal thing, in fact the most fundamental institution of civilization. The sponsors of the Bayonne undertaking felt that the most fundamental defect in wage-earners' housing was, that it was produced with too little regard for the social and civic welfare, which, after all, should be the basis of housing policy, and they sought to cooperate with officials, with other public-spirited organizations and citizens, and with labor in setting the standards of housing as high as possible.

      The charter of the Bayonne Housing Corporation guarantees the social policy in housing. The Company is in the nature of a public enterprise having the support of the Bayonne Chamber of Commerce, and it solicits the active co-operation of labor, officials, and of public-spirited organizations and citizens in bettering housing standards in their city. It may be termed a capitalist enterprise only to the extent that a large-scale housing corporation involves important business responsibilities which necessarily must be assumed by capital interests. Because of its civic character, the Bayonne Housing Corporation may be said to be an unofficial public service corporation, without possessing the usual franchise privileges or being subject to regulation of its acts by the State in the same way that a public utility is controlled.

      This conception of a public-spirited housing corporation which represents all civic interests marks an important advance

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