OCR Text |
Show Albuquerque Venture Is Successful 6 Vet Cooperative Provides Homes at Reasonable Cost By BAUKIIAGE News Analyst and Commentator. VVNI Service. Ifilfi Eye Street, N. VV., asliinc ton, I). C. fVm ' e i ') a 5rifi describing describ-ing how American ingenuity is helping to solve one of America's biggest problems prob-lems the G.I.'s So. 1 headache the housing shortage.) WASHINGTON. As congress prepares pre-pares for the home stretch, some veterans' organizations are promising promis-ing that lifting the rent and construction con-struction controls will start such a rash of construction that everybody's housing problem will be solved. Others Oth-ers say that would be the knell to any kind of a veterans' housing program. pro-gram. Rep. Jesse Wolcott of Michigan, who wrote the bill modifying restric- build houses for themselves might solve the problem for other veterans. veter-ans. He took this Idea to Max Kas-lo, Kas-lo, who operates the local veterans' referral center. Robinson also talked to Virgil Judy, local housing expediter. The idea clicked. Interested veterans vet-erans got together; drew up a constitution con-stitution and by-laws; filed paiers of incorporation. Community Aids Vet Enterprise As word got around, the Albuquerque Albuquer-que community pitched in to help. A local architect donated his services serv-ices on the first house and pledged to provide blueprints, floor plans. et cetera at special rates for subsequent subse-quent houses. A concrete block manufacturer furnished the blocks for one dwelling; dwell-ing; a landscaping firm offered to do the landscaping without charge; an awning company contributed the awnings. Other business firms wished the association well; promised to sell it materials at reduced prices. But the contributions and reduced prices don't apply to any single house. They are to be prorated among all houses, tions passed by the house, told me he believed that the veterans wanted not pri-oritles, pri-oritles, but houses. His bill, he thinks, will make the latter possible. Opponents Oppo-nents claim the opposite that two and a half billion dollars worth of building applications for so that each association member will benefit from the savings. So far the association has the second sec-ond and third houses almost completed; com-pleted; the fourth about half-finished. Membership has swelled to 75, and because the association feels that a new house in Albuquerque means a vacant house for rent or sale eventually, the membership isn't limited to just veterans. Association operations are flexible. A parson may become a member by buying one share of stock for $100. (This is credited toward his house.) He may buy more than one share of stock if he wishes, although he is not permitted more than one vote. Eacb member buys his own lot and has the privilege of selecting the design of his own house. However, How-ever, the house cannot be any bigger big-ger than 1.200 square feet (around average size), and construction must meet FHA standards and building code requirements. Members can have the co-op build for them, or they may merely purchase the materials ma-terials through the organization. All labor is paid for, but members can reduce the cost of their houses by working on their own or other houses under construction. If a plumber who is working full time on other jobs spends Saturdays doing plumbing work on one of the cooperative cooper-ative houses, he will be given credit at the standard plumbers' pay for ttr hours he works. Quite a few members have done this but most of them are men with office jobs, anxious to pitch in and get the houses built. When they work on the project, they are assigned as laborers and receive credit at laborers' la-borers' pay. There are a few unaccustomed un-accustomed blisters and callouses, but they enjoy the novelty, and houses are going up fast. Baukhage higher priced construction has been built up as a backlog. With restrictions re-strictions ofT, opponents say chances for cheap house-building will go with the wind. At this writing, the senate sen-ate has not yet said its say. Meanwhile, some veterans are getting houses on their own. Drawing for Homes Climaxes Project For example, a few weeks ago in Aibuqtierque, N. M , a man put his hand into a hat and pulled qut a house. It happened on a bright sunny sun-ny Sunday, when the New Mexico Housing Cooperative association held a drawing for the first houe completed under its new building program. There were 58 members of ihe housing association who had a chance to move into that first house the 58 people who were paid-up members. They gathered on the sandy lot where the house stands. There were more than 200 persons, counting sweethearts, wives, kids and friends, attending the drawing. The lot is on Arvada avenue in northeast Albuquerque. You can see the desert from there and the purple mountains rising in the distance. The house is a single-story single-story bungalow of Spanish style with n low-pitched roof like so many of the homes you see in the Southwest. It is made of concrete block, covered cov-ered with white stucco. The drawing was a gala affair. The people, dressed in their Sunday best, perched on the piles of lumber or sat on the hoods of automobiles to watch the association's president. M. E. Holly, place the 58 slips of paper in his hat. Assistant City Manager Arthur Staton drew the first name Buward E Lee. There were whistles and shouts of congratulation. By coincidence, it hapiened that Lee had been the first man to put up his money to buy stock when the association was organized. or-ganized. Real poetic justice that he should get the first house. The drawing continued. All 57 remaining numbers were drawn. The name drawn second was to get the second house completed, to the third name drawn went the third house, and so on. Soon each association member would have a house similar to the Lee's a comfortable five-room bungalow bun-galow with hardwood floors, steel casement windows and an attached garage Lee said he couldn't possibly pos-sibly have bought the place if it hadn't been for the co-op. It cost him $6,350, complete with lot. The New Mexico Housing Cooperative Cooper-ative association developed from the idea of Veteran Paul Robinson, a tall rawboned engineering graduate of Remember York? L. L. Coryell of Lincoln, Neb., couldn't believe a two-bedroom bungalow could be provided for veterans for only $5,250. To him goes a copy of the third story in i this series how they did it In rl pa. M. E. Holly, president of the I Albuquerque, N. M., Housing Cooperative Co-operative association, reads the name of the lucky veteran who will occupy the first house constructed con-structed by the organization. I the Colorado School of Mines. When Robinson returned from a several-year several-year tour of duty with the navy, he couldn't find a home in Albuquerque. Albuquer-que. Finally he bought a lot, designed and personally supervised construction construc-tion of a two-bedroom house. When he had finished, he found he had spent $4,300 (making allowance for a salary for himself) for a house that compared favorably with what was costing other Albuqerque veterans vet-erans about $7,000 in the open market. mar-ket. Robinson thought a veterans' cooperative co-operative through which men could |