Defense housing unit

You go looking for one thing, run across something entirely different.

www.shorpy.com

Scroll to “Mother’s little helper.” The picture is of innocents involved in what became a fight between New Deal socialists and private enterprise capitalists. Federal money in the millions was involved; even more millions after Japan’s Imperial Navy attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

“… on June 28, the 1937 United States Housing Act was amended, instructing the USHA to waive income requirements for potential public housing residents, and to apply all remaining monies from low-income housing projects into efforts to house defense workers. Additionally, monies were made available for defense housing through the President's Emergency Defense Fund.”

Source -- Federal Works Agency, "Four Years of Public Housing," p. 4; National Housing Agency, "Public Housing: The Work of the Federal Public Housing Authority," p.6; National Housing Agency, "War Housing in the United States," p.9.

From Wikipedia article, “Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Ownership_Defense_Housing_Division

(The chart lists Avian Village in Grand Prairie, Texas. When my family lived in Grand Prairie (1975-81), we sometimes drove in that area – nice, small 1940s houses. North American Aviation had a plant nearby.

(The mutual ownership idea turned into a fight between New Deal proponents and real estate industrialists, with often-termed “government money” at stake, and, of course, the fights over union or non-union labor.

(A historical marker at Avian Village dodges political questions and makes nice sidesteps: “The private housing industry was unable to keep up with the demand for shelter in these areas. Some federal officials saw the situation as an opportunity for experimentation in architecture and planning, as well as establishment of a pilot program aimed at lowering the cost of quality housing through the use of prefabrication and mass production building techniques. Defense housing officials also wanted to introduce industrial workers to mutual home ownership as an alternative to traditional suburban home ownership.”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/texasmarkers/4721610933/

(Photo by Nicolas Henderson.)