CHAPTER V.

HOUSING AND LIVING CONDITIONS.

General housing and living conditions-Immigrant boarding houses-Rent in its relation to standard of living-Boarders and lodgers-Size of apartments occupiedSize of households studied-Congestion-[Text Tables 516 to 527 and General Tables 281 to 292.]

GENERAL HOUSING AND LIVING CONDITIONS.

The foreign section of the community could well be divided into several distinct parts, each section occupied by one race or nationality of people. Avenue One, for example, is occupied almost exclusively by Polish immigrants; Avenue Two by the Magyars; Avenue Three by the Croatians, while the Slovak, Servian, and other immigrant races reside mostly on Avenues Four and Five. This distribution by races is, of course, not universal, but it is a general statement of the congregation of immigrants of one race in one distinct section or street. Many of the immigrants of one race come from one section or province of the mother country, and consequently desire to have their homes near one another. The natural desire to be with countrymen is encouraged by the steel companies which own houses, and, while no arbitrary distribution of houses is made (the tenant selects his apartment with full freedom), the companies believe that better living conditions occur when the tenants are congregated by race.

The houses occupied by the immigrants are all of frame structure, and are very undesirable from the standpoint of health and fire protection. They are not owned by the companies. It was stated on all sides that the price of land in the community is exorbitant, and, as a result, most of the houses are of three or four stories, covering very small ground space in proportion to their height. Owing to the high price of land, the immigrants themselves are not able to buy and build homes, and they are practically compelled so long as they remain in this community to live in the apartments already existing there. These houses are all built on frail foundations, and usually surrounded on all sides by insanitary puddles of stagnant water, the building itself standing on "made ground." The boarding houses, especially, are insanitary, because they are large and are built under the same conditions as the private dwellings. Most of the immigrant families in the community operate boarding houses.

The housing conditions of the Irish, Germans, and native Americans are better in cases where the length of residence has been long than in those cases where it has been short. The houses themselves are structures of about the same kind as those occupied by the rest of the population, but they are in better repair and in a more cleanly condition. The Polish, Slovak, and Croatian immigrants live in the least desirable of all of the houses in the community. Their homes are in a bad state of repair and care, and little effort is made to have good surroundings.

IMMIGRANT BOARDING HOUSES.

When the steel mills are running on full time, a large proportion of the labor employed consists of unmarried men and men whose wives are not in this country. This condition has brought into existence numerous boarding houses. The boarding houses are all large frame structures, usually three or four stories high. In most cases there are only two rooms on the first floor. One is a large sitting room, poorly furnished, and used as a general assembly room for the boarders, and the other is kitchen and dining room combined. On the second, third, and fourth, if there be a fourth, are the sleeping rooms. These are very small and are utilized to the utmost possibility for bed space. These rooms are usually very poorly lighted, and are very uncleanly. In many cases, where a saloon is operated in connection with the boarding house the saloon occupies the front space on the ground floor. One typical house was described as follows:

There are three good-sized rooms downstairs, one used as a saloon, one as a dining room, one as a kitchen. The floor above and the attic contained 18 very small rooms. In this house lived the saloon keeper and his family, two other families, and 47 boarders. It rented for $80 a month.

RENT IN ITS RELATION TO STANDARD OF LIVING.

The rent payments, although indicating the small cost of living among the foreign-born, are chiefly significant in showing the low standard of living and the high degree of congestion within the immigrant households. In this connection, the following table shows, by general nativity and race of head of household, the average monthly rent payment:

TABLE 516.-Average rent per month, by general nativity and race of head of household. (STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

The average rent paid by the total number of households, as shown in the preceding table, is $6.39 per apartment, $1.80 per room, and $1.08 per person. Of the three classes of households, the highest average rent per apartment and per person is paid by the native-born

of native father. The foreign-born average the highest rent per room, but the lowest per apartment and per person, the low rents per capita showing the tendency to crowd a large number of persons in the apartments in order to decrease the individual outlay for rent.

Of the specific races of foreign birth, the Germans and Irish average a higher rent per apartment and per person, but a lower rent per room than the other races.

The range in rent payments is shown by the following series of three tables, the first of which exhibits, by general nativity and race of head of household, the per cent of households paying each specified rent per month per apartment:

TABLE 517.-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 total number of households, 76.5 per cent, as shown by the foregoing table, pay less than $7.50 each month per apartment. The proportion of households of foreign-born heads paying under $7.50 is 80.3 per cent. Relatively low-rent payments are considerably less common among the native-born of native father. Of the latter, 48.4 per cent pay under $7.50 per month per apartment, and 67.7 per cent under $10.

The table next presented shows by general nativity and race of head of household the percentage of households paying each specified rent per month per room.

TABLE 518.-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.]

Upon referring to the totals in the preceding table it is evident that a larger proportion of households whose heads are native-born, as compared with those of foreign birth, are paying under $2 and $3 per month per room. A comparison of the households of the several races whose heads are foreign-born with those whose heads are nativeborn of native father shows the same tendency, only 27.4 per cent of the Magyar, 53.6 per cent of the Polish, and 65.9 per cent of the Croatian, as contrasted with 74.2 per cent of the households whose heads are native-born of native father are paying under $2 per month per room. Moreover, all the native households are paying less than $3 per month per room, while a considerable proportion of the several races of foreign birth, together with the total foreign-born, are paying between $3 and $4 per month per room, and a small percentage more than $4. The real significance of this table, however, does not become apparent until the showing made by the several classes of households is compared with the following table, showing the percentage of households paying each specified rent per month per person: TABLE 519.-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.]

The preceding table discloses the fact that although a larger proportion of the households whose heads are native-born than of those whose heads are foreign-born are paying under $2 per month per room, a considerably larger proportion of foreign-born than of nativeborn are making lower rent payments per month per person. Thirtyfour and three-tenths per cent of the total foreign households, as compared with 14 per cent of the total native households, show a rent payment under $1 per month per person, and 87.3 per cent of the total foreign-born and 65.1 per cent of the total native-born pay less than $2 per month per person. The same tendency is exhibited in the higher range of rent payments, 9.3 per cent of the total native-born as contrasted with only 0.3 per cent of the total foreign-born households paying more than $4 per month per person. Among the households. whose heads are foreign-born, the lowest standard of living is indicated by the Croatians, followed closely by the Magyars. Of the Croatian households, 41.5 per cent, and of the Poles 31.5 per cent, show a rent payment less than $1 per month per person. The table as a whole clearly indicates that, although the foreign households pay a higher rent per month per room or per apartment, as compared with the native households, such rent payments have no significance in their bearing upon standards of living, for the reason that the foreign-born tend to crowd a large number of persons into apartments and rooms for the purpose of decreasing the rent payment per person.

BOARDERS AND LODGERS.

The small extent to which a separate family life prevails, as well as the congested conditions within the households the heads of which are foreign-born, is exhibited by the table next presented, which shows, by general nativity and race of head of household, the number and per cent of households keeping boarders or lodgers.

TABLE 520.—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.]