National Housing Act
The National Housing Act was passed by Congress, and signed into law by FDR, in 1934. It created the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), an agency designed to boost loans for building houses. Before the Great Depression, the federal government had very little involvement in the housing market, so the FHA role was groundbreaking.
This bill is one of those hidden pieces of legislation that radically transformed the possibility for the American working class to have a middle-class life at home, all built on federal guarantees to regulation of the mortgage industry and the mechanics to push money into the hands of homeowners. It propped up whole industries and paved the way to the suburbs that brought workers out of slum and into new (or improved) homes.
Cry Wolf Quotes
How much limitation do you put on your Federal Reserve in running your banking business of this country? There is no limit to that.
This act would affect building conditions in my State. While in many districts the population is quite dense, the districts are widely scattered. The irrigation districts are densely populated, but then there will be wide areas where there is practically no population at all. When you limit the radius to 50 miles you are putting out of business a good many of our building and loan associations because they cannot operate in an area supported by the business they will have in the small areas covered in this bill.
I am not speaking officially for any organization of women but my experience with these groups covering a period of 25 years gives me a very fair idea of the reactions of the women of the Nation to any plan that even suggests regimentation or standardization of their homes. This is also the thought of president of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs who said in a public address of the 11th of this month: ‘We want no standardization of homes, we want individualism, and we sound that note of warning to the Government in our cooperation with them.’
I say that when you set up that type of corporation and you set up that sort of insurance company and operate it in the manner proposed, you are going to close every building association in the United States. They cannot survive under it to save their souls. This is the heart of this whole bill.
