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Show I HOME OWNING IN OGDEN AND ELSEWHERE. In twenty cities of the United States I campaign is on for home owning, and tlie objects sought arc: First. Work mufct be provided for returning soldiers and sailors and for labor turning from war to peace industries. Second. Immediate stimulation and resummon of home-building activity is necessary in most communities. At present the shortage of dwellings in the United States is estimated at not less than 500,000. and it is probably even greater than the half-million figure. Home building virtually ceased with our entrance into the war. Its resumption resump-tion means local benefit and profit. Third. Home ownership makes for better living conditions, thrift, and increased efficiency. Fourth. The immediate future holds no promise of a reduction of the price of building materials. To delay important and necessary building in the expectation of a decided fall in prices seems ill-advised. In Milwaukee the city is planning a home-building company in which Milwaukee would be the principal stockholder. Prospective home owners could buy stock and get possession of a home, with payments pay-ments thereon distributed in small sums over 1 5 or 20 years. A government official, in a communication to The Standard, explains ex-plains the advantages of the Milwaukee plan. "At first glance this appears to have no points of differentiation over the conventional building and loan association plan.' says the official. "But the unusual feature in the Milwaukee proposal i that H l1 these homes will be made available for laboring people who will buy stock rather than homes. H 9 "The problem Milwaukee is endeavoring to meet grows out of j the necessity of many laborers to change jobs. To own property in H I the concntional sense that if a laboring man must change his em-H em-H ployment and move from one city to another, his home owning tends H J to make him somewhat less free than he would be without his real tj estate. The Milwaukee idea is that he shall buy stock in the corpo-H corpo-H J ration, have possession and all the privileges of ownership and. in the event of being forced to seek employment in some other city eith-4 eith-4 er the city will buy his stock with a proper discount for rent, or he shall be allowed to sell his stock. This plan is incorporated in a bill Bj now before the Wisconsin legislature and is important in that it is in-H in-H dicativc of what private building interests may expect of cities if they Bj do not themselves de be some plan whereby a man may buy his home as he buys his piano or automobile. "In other words, there must be something more to an 'Own Your Own Home campaign than a concerted movement to get people to buy tames along the same old lines. The sort of 'Own Your Own Hj Home' campaign that wMl take hold in America is one that presents a way for I man to save money in building a modest, substantial home, and provides a way for men of comparatively humble incomes H to pay for their homes over a period of years. "Private initiative can perhaps solve this problem better than can I governmental agencies. But the problem ii liere. and if private miti-Hj miti-Hj alive does not ole it governmental initiative will be forced to solve Hg it for the benctil of the country. "The Liberty loan campaign of the war. aside from the military Bj necessities they served, were worth while because they forced the great American nation to become a nation of regular savers of money. In home-building campaigns, of the type which strive to Hj serve rather than to exploit, this very necessary feature is present. A man saes for a specific purpose his home; and he saves because of a determination to meet a responsibility he has signed his name and given his word to pay so much at a certain time. "America needs homes. It is now a problem for real estate and building interests to enlarge and extend the circle so that home owning own-ing is made possible to a larger number of people." The Milwaukee plan might be made to work in Ogden. where there is a demand for hundreds of homes. But The Standard would advise a few changes. Those who become stockholders will be privileged to occupy homes as rapidly as they are built, and shall be charged a rental which will bring a reasonable return on the outlay, and. in addition, ad-dition, shall be assessed wear and tear on the property There is a wide difference in the conduct of tenants. One family will" do little or no injury, while another will almost WTcck a place. There must be a reward for good tenantry and a penalty for abuse of property rights. The Standard would exempt from taxation to the amount of $3000 a home continuously occupied by one family for thirty years, the property to be taxed to the full amount in case of transfer by purchase pur-chase or by will. The object would be to make the liome a refuge in old age, free from the levy of community tribute. Tins would transfer trans-fer to the younger generations the burden of government, and carry with it a form of olclagc pension. It would encourage early liome-building liome-building as a provision against the lost revenue-earning power of old age. It would also tend to compensate for the unfair taxing of homes, which are assessed close to their market value, while big interests in-terests too often escape full taxation because of hidden or intangible assets. |