The HLM system was created in 1950 in response to France's postwar housing crisis. The low level of construction during and between the two world wars, the rural exodus that had started to take place in France (directed mainly at Île-de-France, the Paris region) and the baby boom, contributed to a deficit of an estimated four million residences. Eugène Claudius-Petit, the Minister for Reconstruction and Urbanisation, promoted a scheme of massive construction of socially subsidised residences to address this problem. The new system took its foundations from the HBM ("" – "inexpensive housing") system, which had been created in 1889 and financed mainly by charitable sources rather than the state.