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Show Cooperative Action Nets Homes i . Some Cities Talk' Housing: Memphis Actually Builds By BAUKHAGE iNVwi Analyst ami Commentator. L J THEY SOLVE HOUSING PROBLEM . . . Confronted with a housing problem. Dee Alnsworth and Mrs. Marion MacConncIl of Los Angeles purchased a wartime LCVP (landing craft, personnel) for $700 and converted con-verted it into this trim boat with living accommodations. They will sail to Central America ports aboard their floating home. cuts his own timber, hauls it to his own sawmill for sawing, drying and cutting, then hauls it direct to his own building sites in size and amount wanted. So much waste is eliminated that the leftover lumber from a whole house can be hauled away in one wheelbarrow. When brick couldn't be had in the Memphis area, Johnson still managed man-aged He got brick on a swap basis obtaining critical materials and labor for a brick-making concern which used the items thus supplied to make brick for Johnson projects. If he couldn't find the materials mate-rials he needed around Memphis, Mem-phis, he went where he could buy them. He has sent employees em-ployees by air all the way to the west coast to pick up windows and doors, even paying retail prices for them when he had to. WNU Service. 1616 Eye Street, N. W.. Washington, D. C. (This is the fourth of a series describing how Amerimn in-feituity in-feituity is helping to solve one of America's biggest problems the G.l. housing shortage.) WASHINGTON. Thirty-five nun-dred nun-dred new homes started in one year is pretty good record for any fair-sized fair-sized Community especially when the year is 1946, and the city, Memphis, Term., had never started more than 2,400 units a year before. Siime two thousand of last year's "starts" were completed in 1946 Now in the spring of 1947 while some communities still talk about and wish for housing, Memphis is going right ahead finishing up the rest of the 1946 starts and undertaking under-taking more. The answer to this old southern city's success in housing lies partly in the cooperative coopera-tive attitude of city officials who are very conscious con-scious of the vet-e vet-e r a n s housing problem, and partly to individual individ-ual builders who have been willing will-ing to make price sacrifices, work long hours and do whatever was necessary to avercome short- But Johnson couldn't do as well as he does nor keep his costs to veterans vet-erans so low without cooperation of the community. In Memphis the city repays builders of approved subdivisions for their expense in installing in-stalling utilities. The Memphis light, gas and water division, which is publicly owned, has gone so far as to permit utility connections even when no meters were available. Thus, quite a number of houses were finished and families were housed, without having to wait for the hard-to-get meters. As a result of this cooperation Johnson last fall had completed 55 two-bedroom houses which went to Memphis vets for $5,250. Other prices are comparably low, $6,000 to $7,000, and even in the lowest brackets Johnson tries for good design. de-sign. He switches roof lines or the set of a house on a lot, and utilizes other means to avoid the sameness generally characteristic of rows of houses in developments Incidentally Inciden-tally he recently was awarded a prize by National Home Builders association for "Meritorious House Design in 1947." The tenants appreciate this. Not long ago one couple, the first tenants ten-ants in a new subdivision, gave a Sunday night supper for all of Johnson's John-son's workers the shipping clerks, timekeepers, the general manager, the truck drivers and all the people who helped build the house Baukhage aes of materials. mate-rials. Take Wallace E. Johnson for examplea ex-amplea builder who started in December, 1939, to construct one house and who now has to his credit several thousand. He is devotitjg all his energy and ingenuity to housing veterans these days. It takes energy and ingenuity too, but this man who, during the war, was completing a house for a war worker every two and a half hours has what it takes For example, last September when lumber couldn't be bought for love or money, Johnson bought land with standing merchantable timber and a sawmill camp near Pottl Camp, Miss., close to Memphis. This purchase made possible a triple play which has paid off in savings of time and money Johnson Community cooperation aids home builders of Memphis, Tenn., in completing badly needed housing projects. These homes are typical typi-cal of the low-cost projects completed by Wallace B. Johnson. |
