THE RELATION BETWEEN COST OF HOUSING AND TOTAL INCOME.

“It must be made possible to live within one’s income.”

The thrifty French rule is one fifth for rent. In towns where land is cheap and wood abundant, or in college communities exempt from taxes, comfortable housing is found in this country for as little as fifteen or eighteen per cent of the total income. In some mining towns where all prospects are uncertain and the house has no particular social significance the rent may be even lower, although it is often very high. It depends on the demand, on competition rather than quality. In our older and more settled communities it is most common for rent to use up one fourth the salary of all town dwellers with incomes within our limits. This was true in Boston fifty years ago, and it is true to-day in dozens of cities and towns personally investigated. It is not unknown that a teacher or business man should exceed this in the hope of a rise in salary by the second year. Adding the expenses of operating the house, of repairs and additions and improvements if the house is owned, nearly half the money available must go for the mere housing of the family.

If it is true, as I believe it is, that for each fraction over one fifth spent for rent a saving must be made in some other direction in the daily expense, less service, less costly food, or less expensive clothing, or, last to be cut down, less of the real pleasure of life, it will be seen what a far-reaching question this is, how it touches the vital point, to have or not to have other good things in life.

A large part of the increase is due, as we have said, to increased demand for sanitary conveniences, but far more potent is the pressure resulting from the price of land.

This pressure has led to the building of smaller and smaller apartments, so that four and six rooms are made out of floor-space sufficient for two. It sounds better to say we have a six-room flat, even though there is no more privacy than in two rooms, for the rooms are mere cells unless the doors are always open. It is not uncommon in such suites renting for $50 to $60 per month for six rooms, to find three of them with only one window on one side, with no chance for cross-ventilation unless the doors of the whole suite are open.

This style of building prevails even in the suburbs where air and sunshine should be free. The would-be renter looking at such suites with all the doors open and the rooms innocent of fried fish and bacon does not think of the place as it will be under living conditions when privacy can be had only by smothering.

The model tenements in New York rent for one dollar per week per room; the better houses for double, or two dollars for 450 cubic feet. Many of those I have examined renting for forty to sixty dollars per month give no more space for the money, only a little better finish marble and tile in the bath-room, for instance.

The three-room tenement does, however, shelter as many persons as the six-room flat, hence there is more real overcrowding. In all these grades of shelter it is fresh air that is wanting. What wonder the white plague is always with us? What remedy so long as millions sleep in closets with no air-currents passing through?

Accepting the French rule, the artisan who rents the model tenement at $3.50 per week should earn $3 a day wage for six days. If he earn only $2, then more than one quarter must go for housing. There are hundreds of Italian families in New York who pay only $2 per month for such shelter as they have, but it is only providing for the primitive idea of mere shelter, not for the comforts of a true home life. After the fashion of early man, these people spend their lives in the open air, eat wherever they may be, and use this makeshift shelter as protection from the weather and as a place of deposit for such articles as they do not carry about with them and for such weaklings as cannot travel.

As man rises in the scale of wants he pays more, in attention and in money, for housing, because he leaves wife and children to its comforts while he goes forth to his daily tasks. As ideals rise, the proportion rises until even one third of his earnings goes for mere shelter. But this limits his desires in other directions, so that it becomes a pertinent question, when is it right to give as much as one third of the moderate income for housing? As every heart knows its own bitterness, so every man knows his own business and what proportion of his income he is willing to spend for a house, for the comforts of life pertain largely to bed and board. It must be acknowledged, however, that comfort and discomfort are so largely matters of habit and personal point of view that education as to ideals is an important duty of society in its own defence.

If two people without children prefer to spend more on shelter than on any other one thing, then with $3000 a year, $1000 may be given for rent if that covers heat, light, and general outside care. But the family with children to consider must not think of allowing one third for rent under our very highest limit of $5000 a year, and it is unwise even then. In fact the ratio must be governed by circumstances. It is true, however, that the conditions must be interpreted by a fixed principle in living and not by any mere fashion or prejudice of the moment.

The one question every person asks when these suggested improvements are discussed is, but how much will it cost? Thus confessing that cost, not effectiveness, is the measure; that old ideals as to money value still rule the world. It costs too much to have a furnace large enough to warm a sufficient volume of air, it costs too much to put in safe plumbing, it costs too much to keep the house clean, and so on through the list. We have been too busy getting and spending money to study the cost of neglect of cardinal principles of right living. The farmer knows the cost of his young animals, but the father cares little and knows less of what it ought to cost to bring up his children of the economy of spending wisely on a safe shelter for them.

A new estimate of what necessary things must cost has to be made before the present generation will live comfortably in presence of the account-book.

Here again a readjustment is coming; some expenses in house construction common now will be lessened or done away with; for example, fancy shapes, grooved and carved wood, projecting windows and door-frames.

It is usual, when the various new methods are brought up, to estimate the cost as additional to all that has gone before, rather than to see in it a substitute for much that may go.

Our family with $1500 income may safely pay $300 for rent, if that covers enough comfort and does not mean too much car-fare.

The house may cost $3000 if built on the old lines, and if the land it is placed on is not too expensive.

A fire-proof house such as is described in the July number of the Brickbuilder and Architect, 85 Water St., Boston, and probably also a house of reinforced concrete, will cost at present some $10,000 besides the land. Because of freedom from repairs it should be possible to rent such houses for $500, which will bring them within the reach of our $3000 a year family, but not within the means of the $2000. What is to be done?

It will be remarked by some that little attention has been given in these pages to the various so-called cooperative plans, like Mrs. Stuckert’s oval of fifty houses connected by a tramway at each level, with a central kitchen from which all meals come and to which all used dishes return, with a central office from which service is sent, etc.

Frankly, to my mind this is not enough better than the apartment hotel, as we now know it, to pay for the effort to establish it. As now evolved by demand, the establishments renting from one to fifteen thousand a year are on progressive lines. According to Mr. Wells, this shareholding class is on the way to extinction in any case, fortunately he also thinks, and the student of social economics need not concern himself with its future, only so far as its example influences the real bone and sinew of the republic, the working men and women who make the world the place it is.

Within the ten-mile radius it has been usual to include a front yard, if not a garden, in the house-lot. The cost of keeping this in the trim fashion decreed as essential, of planting and pruning of shrubs, of maintaining in immaculate condition the sidewalks and front steps, like most of the items in cost of living, is due to changed standards, just as the cost of table-board has advanced from $3 to $6 without a corresponding betterment in quality.

Engle’s law, “The lodging, warming, and lighting have an invariable proportion whatever the income,” does not hold under modern conditions for the group we are considering, for our wise ones need the best, and not a few of them are unwilling to buy their family sanctity at the price of a closet in the basement for the faithful maid.

Plans may look well on paper, the completed house may seem attractive, but when the family live in the house its deficiencies become apparent. Cheap materials, flimsy construction, damp location, any one of a dozen possibilities may make the family uncomfortable, may cost in heating and doctor’s bills, may compel a moving before the year is out. Cheap houses in this decade are suspicious; the more need for a knowledge on the part of young people of what may be expected.

For this reason it is a part of sound education to give a certain amount of attention to living conditions in the high-school curriculum. It is as important as book-keeping; for of what avail are money and business, if the home life is perilled? Besides, some of the pupils may have attention called to deficiencies which they may show talent in overcoming.

Courses in Home Economics and Household Administration in colleges and universities should be directed to careful study of this branch of sociology.

There is a great opportunity before women’s clubs and civic-improvement associations to arouse an interest in the provision of suitable shelter for the young families in their several neighborhoods. Concerted movement by the Federation could revolutionize public opinion within a decade.

The student of social science may well say that the first effort should be directed to a rise in the pay of these educated young men; that no family should be expected to live on the sums here considered; that it is not right even to consider a way out on the present basis. Possibly so. Much agitation is abroad in relation to the pay of teachers, clerks, and skilled workmen, but that is another question which cannot be considered here.

The salaried class has so enormously increased of late years because of the great consolidation of business interests that the final adjustment has not been made. The one fact of uncertain tenure of position and uncertain promotion has profoundly affected living conditions, ownership of the family abode, and, incidentally, marriage.

There are prizes enough, however, to keep the young people on the alert for advancement, and they feel it more likely to come if they establish themselves as if it had arrived.

There is no denying that in the estimation of a large number of the groups we are considering, the question of neat and orderly service, the capped and aproned maid, the liveried bell-boy and butler, express like the smoothly shaven lawn a certain social convention; and because it means expense, the house in working order means more than shelter: it sets forth pecuniary standing in the community. So long as this means social standing also, so long will the professional and business family on $2000 a year be shut out, because these adjuncts to a luxurious living are impossible. Can society afford to shut out the intellectual and mentally progressive element, or must it accept as normal these salaries and make it respectable to begin on them? It is the strain which unessential social conventions give to the young families that leads the business father to speculate in order to get into the $10,000-a-year class, and that leads the young scientific and literary man to take extra work outside of his normal duties. This sort of thing cannot go on without serious danger to the Republic. Cleanliness and good manners should be insisted upon, but they may be secured on $3000 a year if too much else is not required. How to secure them on $1500 is a problem to be solved, for cleanliness costs more each decade.

After all is said, if the young people have an earnest purpose in life it is easy to plan a method of living and to carry it out. The sacrifices one must make in the house superficially, in the consideration of a certain class, are cheerfully borne and soon forgotten.

Little discomforts which affect only one’s feelings and not one’s health make rather good stories after they are over. What is worth while? Are we become too sensitive to little things? Do we imagine we show our higher civilization by discerning with the little princess the pea under twenty-four feather beds?

Let our shelter be first of all healthful, physically and morally. If to gain these qualities we must take a house in an unfashionable neighborhood, it should not cause distress. Why is this particular region unfashionable? Is it not merely because certain would-be leaders choose to live beyond their means in company with those who are able to spend more?

Why not be honest and happy? Live within your income and make it cover the truest kind of living.