Supporters
Among the first groups to support (and continue to support) the plans of the Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division was the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, a member union of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Representatives from the Kearny, New Jersey, Local spoke before Congress in support of initiatives put in place by the Lanham Act, while representatives of the Camden, New Jersey, Local were among the first to benefit from the mutual housing program itself, with the construction of Audubon Park, built just outside of Camden. For many years the entire program itself was better known as the "Camden Plan." In a Congressional hearing during March 1941, a union representative stated that:
"In the opinion of the overwhelming majority of the workers, who will live in the homes, the (Mutual Ownership) plan, with a few minor changes, is absolutely foolproof and can assure the United States Government a full return on its investment.. and could ...provide good living space in a good established locality, where you can have an investment in the locality, not down in some slum-clearance district, homes where people can live for many years."
Another representative stated in a July 1941, hearing that:
"Study of this project by the CIO housing committee has confirmed our view that it (mutual housing program) points the way toward a proper answer to the problem of housing permanent workers in established industrial communities."
and
"This plan is the best and most efficient type of public housing) with the most satisfactory relationships with the occupant workers, and the least ultimate expense to the Government."
The National Committee on the Housing Emergency, a private group set up to examine all potential solutions to the defense housing problem, were also strong supporters of the mutual housing program and wrote the following in their final report to Congress:
"After study of the details of a plan of mutual home ownership this committee believes that such a plan includes many advantageous features in the planning, financing and construction of houses for defense workers... So that further experimentation in this direction may be undertaken, this committee urges that funds be made available for defense housing under future appropriations by the Congress be used in part to further such experimentations."
Another very important and powerful supporter of mutual housing was Senator Lanham himself, who stated the following during a March 1941 hearing before Congress:
"My understanding of the original (Lanham Act) was that it was not the purpose to make (homes) ideal, but it was the purpose to build them in areas where they could be used permanently and of a standard that would be suitable for permanent residence, because in that way the Government has the best chance of recouping its investment by the sale of the homes, and, of course, this (mutual ownership plan) is different in that respect from many of these housing projects, because these are built from the standpoint of sale and recouping the expenditure insofar as possible, at the same time affording an opportunity to these industrial workers to get a home where they are permanently engaged."
Read more about this topic: Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)