THE NOME NUGGET !
Published Monday. Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME. ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 6it<
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
W. A. Boucher . Owner-Publisher
Emily Boucher ...Local Editor
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943. at the postoffice
at Nome. Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska,^ Wednesday, January 5, 1949
END OF THE HOUSING BOOM
(By Clarke Beach) 1
The boom in home building is over, at least tempor
arily. !
The end of the bousing boom after the first World j
War in 1925—4 years before the whole economy began:
to disintegrate. But leading economists here see no such
dire portent in this drop in housing production.
The main reason, as they interpret it, is that the.
builders have been putting up houses for the carriage,
trade. And now the bloom is off that market. Most of:
the people who were badly in need of houses after the!
war and could afford to pay high prices for them arej
taken care of. The peak of that demand passed in late
1946 and early 1947.
The people who still want to invest in the new, rela
tively high priced homes, moreover, aren’t finding it so
easy to finance them as they did a year or two ago. In
terest rates have gone up a bit. Some sellers are requir
ing larger down payments. And veterans, who used to
do a large part of the buying, are finding it harder to get
loans. Lenders do not consider the government’s financ- ;
ing arrangements for veterans as attractive as they once
did. j !
“In general,” said one prominent economist in the
housing field, “people are losing faith in the housing'
market at the present prices.”
The Housing Act of 1948 doesn’t seem to have had!
much effect on the home construction industry. That,
act contained most of the financing features of the re
jected Taft-Ellender-Wagner housing bill. It was in
tended to make it easier to finance the building and
buying of homes costing about $11,000 or less.
The sponsor of the act. Rep. Wolcott (R.-Mich.), pre
dicted that as a result of it 1,000,000 new non-farm
dwelling units would be started in 1948.
As now estimated by the Labor Department, how
ever, the housing starts totaled only 925,000. Thej
monthly total of new houses started began to drop ;n,
June, and it went down steadily from then on. The drop
wasn’t seasonal. The winter buliding lull ordinarily .
doesn’t come until October or November.
The experts in the Commerce and Labor Departments
predict that only 875,000 housing starts will be made in
1949. Even if the Taft-Ellender-Wagner Bill is passed,
which political observers think is certain, it will mean
no more than an extra 30,000 to 35,000 additional hous
ing starts during the year
It will thus be probably well over a year before the
all-time record for home building is equalled—937,000
dwelling units in 1925. (These were built when the U.
S. population was only 115,831,963. Now it is about
147,280,000.)
The decline has not hit the construction industry as a
whole. Both the volume and dollar value of over-all con-;
struction has been steadily rising. Commerce and Labor
expect about the same amount of construction in 1949
as in 1948, although predicting that the cost of building
will be 5 per cent higher.
Industrial construction is expected to decline in 1949.
But offsetting both that and the fall in home construc
tion are anticipated rises in the amount of construction
work to be done in commercial, institutional, public
utiltiy and governmental construction work. Most of the
latter is expected to be schools and hospitals built for
the Veterans’ Administration and the Public Health
Service.
The volume of home construction is not actually low.
In 1946 only 413,000 housing units were produced. The
-average in the 1930*s was only 273,000 a year. In 1947 it
jumped to 914,000 units.
NOW HE'S JUST ANXIOUS, PERIOD.
r' x,
v
TVRTRAIT Of ®
A WSiAN r /
LEADER *H0¥ V/£
ANXIOUS / f/
TO HAVE AN MU
UNDERSTANDING IJ
WITH M | R
The low period in the thirties built up a large housing
ently finding both although perhaps not in the quanti
ses she would like.
deficit. This was made worse after the war when the
marriage rush, followed by rising birth rates, created
new families, all wanting homes of their own.
But most of the people who now are in need of homes
are in the low and low-middle income group. The ex
perts estimate that 6,000,000 such families need new
dwelling places. The best hope for boosting home con
struction, they say, lies in building to meet the demands
of this group.
Many government housing experts and economists,
as well as some members of the Senate and House, be
lieve that builders can make a fair profit in the con
struction of low prices homes, and that some of them
will turn t othis now that they have skimmed the cream
from the housing market. They concede, however, that
only government subsidy can make it feasible for pri
vate interests to build for the very low income families.
The next housing boom, they believe, will not start
before 1950, and the bulk of the dwelling units will con
sist of low priced houses and apartments. It will be
stimulated, they say, not only by a public housing and
slum clearance bill next session, as well as the Housing
Act of 1948; but also by developments within the indus
try which will lower the cost of construction.
SWEDES FIND NEUTRALITY EXPENSIVE—
BUT WORTH IT
STOCKHOLM, (/P)—Here where everything is cost
ly—and neutrality is no exception—the Swedes seem
to be buying largely of that commodity. Norway m-v
have made up her mind to join a western alliance. Den
mark may have done the same thing.
But not the Swedes. There isn’t a sign here which
might indicate they’ll go into any western, or for that
matter, eastern military alliance. It’s straight down the
road for Sweden as usual. But, all this is costly.
Prices are high and there are lots of things from the
west that one used to see around this beautiful, charm
ing city of the north, which just aren’t here anymore.
“Dollars.” You hear that word in a lot of places and
usually acompanied by “Oh, how I wish I had some.”
But then they shake their heads and say, “Well, there
doesn’t seem much chance of that.”
The Swedes are not exciting themselves with war
talk. Many with whom you talk believe that should a
third one come, they will probably be able, as in the
case of the other two, to keep clear of the shooting.
There may not be many Americans in Sweden, but
there certainly is a high population of American cars
The people here seem better dressed than many places
in Europe. This goes for the working class, too, and
while the housing situation still appears to be bad, it is
getting better.
With her pre-war German market gone, Sweden is
still looking about for buyers and markets, and appar
.Alaska Public •
1
I
i Health Program
Will Continue
- 1
• 1
‘There is every indication that
the present program of public
' health in Alaska will continue and
expand,” commented Dr. C. E. Al
brecht upon his return from con
ferences in the States. He added
tha* the Territory’s role in the de
fense and economic development
of the nation is well recognized.
After attending the yearly meet
ing of the American Public Health
Association in Boston, Dr. Al
brecht met with the State and
I Territorial Health Officers in
j Washington, D. C. This meeting,
called by the Surgeon General of
the United States Public Health
Service, showed a strong interest
in the development of local health
units for the nation. These local
units will assure better Public
Health Programs in all communi
ties. Legislation will be introduced
at the next Congress to provide
funds for this program. Alaska’s
| illo ment for this program will be
I considerable.
It was also stressed at this meet- ^
I ing that the nation now has a great
! need for public health organiza
; lion, woefully inadequate for any
! national emergency. There is a se
j rious shortage of trained person
| nsl and a lack of over 100,000 hos
pital beds. At the present time
most of these shortages exist in
the rural areas where the need is
the greatest.
i Other agencies contacted by Dr.
Albrecht included the ■ American
i Public Health Association, ;he
i National Tuberculosis association
and the American Social Hygiene
Association, for discussion on the
Alaskan Health Plan and the re
, cruitment of personnel to carry on
! this program.
I While in Chicago Dr. Albrecht
visited the University of Chicago
Clinic, where twelve Alaskan crip
pled children are receiving he
oest of orthopedic cure. “I am im
pressed by the inestimable value
of this project and the cooperation
of the many individuals concerned 1
.vho malic this program possible,”
Dr. Albrecht stated. Two crippled
chi! *r:n are accepted monthly by
the clinic tree of charge, and their
transput* ation is furnished by the
National Red Cross.
The Commiss:oner of Health al
so visited the Tice Laboratories in
Chicago, source of the BCG vac
cine being used by the Health De
, partment for the vaccina t i o n
against tubreculosis.
Enroute home, Dr. Albrecht met
with officials of the United States
Public Health Service in San
Francisco. The main object of dis
cussion was the Arctic Health In
stitute. This facility, to be located
at the University of Alaska, will
attract leading specialists to work
on many public health and medi
cal problems peculiar to Alaska,
such as sewage disposal in perm
anently frozen ground and hous
ing. This should be a forward
step in alleviating many unsolved
problems of living conditions in
the interior.
While in Seattle Dr. Albrecht
inspected the remodelling of the
power barge, sister ship of ^ne
“Hygiene,” which will be station
ed at Kodiak. Negotiations are un
derway for the purchase and
equipping of a river barge and
railroad car which will carry addi
tional public health services to the
residents of Interior Alaska. These
1 units should be ready for use by
• Spring.