CHAPTER VI.

HOUSING AND LIVING CONDITIONS.

Rent in its relation to standard of living-Boarders and lodgers-Size of apartments occupied-Size of households studied-Congestion-[Text Tables 372 to 383 and General Tables 183 to 194].

RENT IN ITS RELATION TO STANDARD OF LIVING.

The rent paid for the home is necessarily of considerable importance in a study of the living conditions of any class of persons. It can not, however, be considered an absolute criterion of standards of living, the type of house available, the extent to which the boardingboss system prevails or boarders and lodgers are kept by families, and other circumstances, all being factors in the housing of large numbers of industrial workers. It is chiefly significant in its bearing upon congestion, owing to the practice of immigrant households of crowding their rooms in order to reduce the rent payments per capita.

The table first presented shows the average rent paid per apartment, per room, and per person by the 320 households under discussion, according to general nativity and race of head of household: TABLE 372.-Average rent per month, by general nativity and race of head of household.

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[This table includes only races with 10 or more households reporting. The totals, however, are for all races.]

The average monthly rent paid by the 320 households considered is $10.75 per apartment, $2.63 per room, and $1.20 per person. The native-born pay decidedly the highest rent per apartment and per person, but the foreign-born average the highest rent per room. Among foreign households it is generally true that the races paying the highest rent per apartment and per room average the lowest rent per person. For example, the Roumanians pay $14.64 per apartment, an amount exceeded only by the native-born of native father, and $2.92 per room, which is higher than the rent of any other race except the Croatians. Yet the Roumanians average next to the lowest rent per person. Likewise the Croatians pay only $1.09 per person, while their rent per apartment is $12.14 and per room is $2.95.

The Irish, on the other hand, pay a low rent per apartment and per room, but the highest rent per person among the foreign households.

The Slovaks average the lowest rent per apartment of all the races tabulated, but the rents per room and per person are relatively high. The Ruthenians average a low rent per apartment, per room, and also

per person.

The table next presented shows, by general nativity and race of head of household, the range in rent payments each month per apartment:

TABLE 373.-Per cent of households paying each specified rent per month per apartment, by general nativity and race of head of household.

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[This table includes only races with 20 or more households reporting. The totals, however, are for all races.]

Of the 320 households reporting data for this table, 68.8 per cent pay less than $12.50 per month per apartment, 40.9 per cent pay less than $10, 27.5 per cent pay less than $7.50, and only 21.2 per cent pay as much as $15. No native household pays less than $7.50, and only 13.6 per cent pay less than $10, while 41 per cent pay $15 or more. There is considerable difference among the various races in the rent per apartment. Fifty per cent of the Ruthenians and 59.1 per cent

of the Slovaks pay between $5 and $7.50; 40 per cent of the Poles pay between $7.50 and $10 and 30 per cent pay between $10 and $12.50; 42.9 per cent of the Servians pay between $10 and $12.50, but 14.3 per cent pay $15 or more; 33.4 per cent of the Magyars pay between $10 and $12.50, but 15.2 per cent pay at least $15; and 33.4 per cent of the Croatians, or one family in three, pay between $10 and $12.50, while 27.7 per cent pay from $12.50 to $15, and 20.4 per cent pay $15 or more. The Roumanians, with 50 per cent of their families paying at least $15 have only 36 per cent paying less than $12.50. No Polish or Slovak household pays as much as $12.50 a month, and no Ruthenian as much as $15. The Croatians have no household paying less than $5 a month, and this race has the lowest percentages in the groups paying less than $10 and less than $7.50. To what extent the rents paid by various races are affected by size of apartment, the keeping of boarders or lodgers, etc., may be gathered in the series of tables which follows. The first table shows the range in rent payments per month per room paid by these same 320 households, by general nativity and race of head of household. TABLE 374.-Per cent of households paying each specified rent per month per room, by general nativity and race of head of household.

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[This table includes only races with 20 or more households reporting. The totals, however, are for all races.]

This table shows that 90.3 per cent of the households are paying under $4 per month per room, 64.7 per cent are paying under $3, and 11.9 per cent under $2, while only 0.3 per cent are paying less than $1 per room. Of the races specified, the only households paying less than $1 per month per room are found among the Magyars. Of those paying under $2 per month per room the Ruthenians lead with 26.7 per cent. Second place is taken by the Servians, with 19 per cent. The lowest percentage is that of the Croatians. Each race except the Croatians and Slovaks reports more than one-half the households as paying under $3 per month per room. The Ruthenian and Polish races have 86.7 and 85 per cent, respectively, paying under $3. All

Polish and Ruthenian households, and 91.3 per cent of the Magyars, are paying under $4 per month per room. The Roumanians have 20 per cent, the Servians 19 per cent, the Slovaks 18.2 per cent, the Croatians 16.7 per cent, and the Magyars 8.7 per cent, paying $4 or over per month per room.

A better comparison among the races is made by computing the rent per person paid by the various households. The table next presented shows by general nativity and race of head of household the number and per cent of households paying each specified rent per month per person.

TABLE 375.-Per cent of households paying each specified rent per month per person, by general nativity and race of head of household.

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[This table includes only races with 20 or more households reporting. The totals, however, are for all races.]

Of the 320 households reporting complete data, 26.9 per cent pay under $1 per month per person, 76.6 per cent under $2, and 90.6 per cent under $3, while only 4.4 per cent pay $4 or more per person. The 22 native households show 31.8 per cent of their number paying at least $4 per person; none of them pays less than $1, and only 18.2 per cent pay less than $2.

Among the foreign races, it is seen that the Ruthenians, with 53.3 per cent, closely followed by the Roumanians, with 52 per cent, report more than one-half of their households paying rent at a rate less than $1 per person. The other races show much smaller proportions, the Magyars, with 15.2 per cent, having the smallest. A large proportion of all the races pay less than $2 per month per person, the Ruthenians showing the largest, or 93.3 per cent, and the Slovaks the smallest, with 63.6 per cent. All the Poles, Roumanians, and Servians, and more than 90 per cent of all other races (except the Magyars, whose figure is 89.1 per cent), pay less than $3 per month per person.

The Slovaks, with 4.5 per cent, report a larger proportion than any other race paying as much as $4 per month per person, followed closely by the Ruthenians and Croatians. No other race pays this amount

per person. Details of races not reporting in sufficient numbers to justify the computation of per cents, may be had from the section of the table giving the numbers involved.

BOARDERS AND LODGERS.

The keeping of boarders or lodgers as a means of augmenting the family income, is a general practice in most immigrant communities. To what extent it prevails in the locality under consideration is shown in the following table, which gives the number and percentage of the households studied that keep boarders or lodgers, by general nativity and race of head of household:

TABLE 376.-Number and per cent of households keeping boarders or lodgers, by general nativity and race of head of household.

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[Information relating to boarders or lodgers covers only immediate time of taking schedule and not the entire year. Boarders are persons who receive both board and lodging.]

Of the total number of households investigated 60.1 per cent have boarders or lodgers. This very high proportion represents in greater part the foreign households. None of the households whose heads were native-born of foreign father have boarders or lodgers, and only 12.9 per cent of the households whose heads were nativeborn of native father. The households whose heads were of foreign birth, on the contrary, in 65.7 per cent of the cases follow the practice of keeping boarders or lodgers. The Roumanians, Servians, and Croatians, in the order mentioned, have boarders or lodgers in a greater number of instances than have the other races for whom information is given. Excepting the Irish and Slovaks, however, all the households keep boarders or lodgers in more than 50 per cent of the cases. The proportion of Irish households keeping boarders or lodgers is only 8.3 per cent, the practice being less universal among households of that race than among the households whose heads were persons native white of native father.