Housing Act of 1949

What Is the Housing Act of 1949?

The Housing Act of 1949 is a landmark federal law signed by President Harry S. Truman on July 15, 1949. It set a national housing goal, restarted the public housing program created by the Housing Act of 1937, and gave cities federal money to clear and rebuild neighborhoods.

Its declaration of policy, still in the U.S. Code, calls for “a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family.” In his signing statement, Truman said the law gave the federal government, for the first time, effective means to help cities clear slums and rebuild blighted areas. It also authorized a housing research program and aid for farm housing.

How It Works

The act’s main housing provisions:

• Title I: slum clearance and redevelopment. Federal loans and grants helped local agencies acquire and clear land in areas labeled slums or blighted, then make it available for redevelopment. This became urban renewal.
• Title III: public housing. The act authorized 810,000 new public housing units over six years, or 135,000 a year, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Communities had to give families displaced by urban renewal priority for the new units.
• New limits. To avoid crowding out private builders, the act set construction cost limits and required public housing rents to be at least 20% below prevailing market rents for decent housing. Because income limits were tied to rents, eligibility fell. Agencies also had to evict tenants whose incomes rose above the limits.

Results

Construction fell short. After the Korean War began, Truman cut public housing construction to roughly half the authorized rate. Congress cut further, and local opposition blocked some projects. By the end of 1957, only about 210,000 of the 810,000 authorized units were under management, CRS reports.

During the 1950s, the share of nonwhite families in public housing rose from 36% to 46%, CRS reports, partly because urban renewal displaced many Black families.

Criticisms and Limitations

The housing historian Alexander von Hoffman titled his account of the law’s origins and legacy “A Study in Contradictions,” and critics point to several:

• A universal goal, narrow tools. It promised decent housing for every family but leaned on clearance and a limited public housing program.
• Displacement. Relocation help for families uprooted by clearance was often too meager, too late or never delivered, according to the University of Richmond’s Renewing Inequality project. The history of affordable housing in America traces the consequences.
• Concentrated poverty. Lower income limits and evictions of over-income tenants left public housing serving the poorest households, whose rents could not cover upkeep.

The national housing goal remains in federal law and is still cited as a benchmark in policy debates.