Part 14

The tenement house census shows a total of 3,364 tenement houses in the Greater City, and puts in the possession of the department a body of facts bearing upon the localization of bad housing conditions throughout Pittsburgh. This was the first logical step to be taken toward dealing intelligently and efficiently with the situation. To the accomplishment of this task the main energies of the tenement house division have been devoted up to the present time. From every source in every quarter the cry of "hard times" has been insistent and the authorities up to the present time have deemed it inexpedient to force drastic plans for improvement. They have endeavored to keep things clean, and have insisted upon necessary repairs, but orders relating to structural changes have been held in abeyance pending a revival of more prosperous financial conditions. The process of eliminating privy vaults, however, the most threatening sanitary ill, has been vigorously continued. Thus far 5,723 vaults have been filled up and abandoned and 9,323 sanitary water closets for the use of 10,471 families installed in their places. A census of the first twenty wards shows a total of 5,793 vaults still in use in these wards alone. No figures are as yet available for the remaining twenty-four wards of the Old City,--or the fifteen wards on the North Side.

Some of the worst plague spots in Pittsburgh have been eradicated despite the fact that, by veto of the governor of Pennsylvania, power to condemn insanitary structures was not given to the health authorities. That much remains to be done is, however, as true as it was a year ago, as I found on a recent reinspection. "Tammany Hall," Pittsburgh's classic example of bad housing is no more. Unable to vacate by process of law the old planing mill which had been converted into a tenement, the authorities piled violation notice upon notice at such a rate that the owner found the old shack a losing investment, and at last agreed to tear it down. He told me sorrowfully that if "they" had let him alone until September, he could have made $1,800 on the place,--an amount sufficient to pay his taxes to the city that was ruining him. It seemed a pity some method could not be found by which he might be forced to clean out another choice bit of property which he was renting,--a long, narrow, two-story brick tenement, where ten families and two stores are occupying thirteen rooms. The water supply was a sink in one apartment, and another on the second story floor and a hydrant in the yard. Here also were the closets which are shared by seven families, living in the houses adjoining.

Another familiar eye-sore on Bedford avenue was still standing,--worse still, it was rented out, at least in spots,--three families in the front, and three in the rear buildings,--Negroes and whites. It looked more dilapidated and dirtier than when I visited it last winter. The owner was notified over a year ago that the houses must be repaired and certain alterations made if they were to be occupied as tenements. She pleaded a heavy mortgage and a dying sister. The mortgage still holds, the sister is still dying, she is unable to find a purchaser for the property, and in the meantime two-room "apartments" are still to be secured for twelve dollars a month, with all ancient inconveniences:--water to be obtained from a hydrant in the yard, and shared possibly with eleven families; foul privy compartments also to be shared with neighboring families, and perchance an occasional passerby. None but the lowest class of tenants will live in these to-be-abandoned dwellings, and their continued existence constitutes a grave danger from a sanitary viewpoint, not only to the immediate neighborhood, but to the entire city. So long as the law permits such breeding places for disease, so long will the fight against filth diseases be a losing one.

Stewart's Row, on West Carson street, as I found it late this fall, was evidently destined to maintain the standard of the neighborhood in the matter of bad housing as originally set by its neighbor, Painter's Row; two wooden rows of two-family houses, rickety, leaking, sheltering thirteen families; two vaults at the rear, one with contents exposed; two hydrants the sole water supply; an obstructed drain; the hillside decorated with a disgusting combination of waste water, garbage, and rubbish.

Allegheny has added her quota to the problem of housing in Greater Pittsburgh. The tenement house inspectors in the course of their census-taking have unearthed more than one example of rank conditions on the North Side. In one tenement the ground floor was occupied as a stable; a cellar revealed the piled up accumulations of years; privy vaults flourish and household water supply is noticeable chiefly because of its inadequacy. Over one-fourth of the entire number of tenements found in Pittsburgh are located on the North Side. According to the chief inspector at least fifty per cent of these are in a bad condition.

The Tenement House Department has thus found plenty of work ready at hand for its inspectors. Of the 3,364 tenement houses enumerated by the census, nearly fifty per cent are old dwellings originally planned and constructed to accommodate one family. Frequently, no provision is made to meet the demands of the additional number of families. Privacy is destroyed, closet facilities and water supply are inadequate, cellar and basement rooms are made to do duty as living and sleeping rooms and there is no protection from fire danger. Of the remaining number of tenements less than one-half are new-law tenements.

_TENEMENT CENSUS._

_Nationality._ _No. of Fam._ _Nationality._ _% of Total._

American 5,831 American 47.41 Polish 2,054 Slavs 24.64 Hebrew 1,077 Hebrew 8.76 German 963 German 7.83 Negro 597 Negro 4.85 Italian 443 Italian 3.60 Slovak 360 British 1.44 Bohemian 176 Misc. 1.47 Croatian 165 ------ Hungarian 113 100.00 Irish 104 Syrian 98 Lithuanian 67 Russian 57 English 50 Greek 37 Austrian 31 French 21 Welsh 12 Scotch 11 Swedish 10 Servian 8 Finnish 4 Chinese 7 Norwegian 1 Spanish 1 Turkish 1 Danish 1 ------ Tot'l No. of fam. 12,300--No. of people 42,699 No. of fam. --Boarders 3,200 taking boarders 1,532 ------ Total population in tenements 45,899

The accompanying tables show the various nationalities which recruit tenement dwellers and the share contributed by each. Nearly one-half are American born; one-fourth are Slavs. Next in numerical importance are the Hebrews, then the Germans, Negroes, Italians and British. The remaining scattered groups are included under the heading "Miscellaneous." Pittsburgh's tenements shelter 12,300 families, containing 42,699 people; 1,532 families take in boarders and of these boarders there are 3,200. The total number of people living under tenement conditions (three or more families to the house), is 45,899.

The welfare of over forty thousand people is dependent then on tenement house standards and their enforcement in Pittsburgh. This is perhaps eight per cent of the total population, a small proportion when compared with New York for instance. The primary housing problem of the wage-earning population in Pittsburgh, remains then not a tenement problem in the strict legal sense, but a one- and two-family dwelling problem. This is the aspect of the situation which Pittsburgh must face in its entirety if the city is to profit by the experience of older communities.

"If you think Pittsburgh is bad, you ought to see Glasgow," said one man. "Look at the tenements in New York," said another. Yet, if the city's phenomenal growth continues to be equalled by her phenomenal indifference to the necessity of raising the housing standard for her least paid laborers, the day may come, and soon, when Pittsburgh will make a close third to these cities. Because of hard times, vast numbers of immigrants have left Pittsburgh, and temporarily the rental agencies have plenty of idle houses upon their lists. These houses throw light on the situation. Two, three, four, and five-room apartments are available at an average monthly rental of from two and a half to five dollars a room in many sections of the city. There are also some single houses to be obtained for the same price. Over half of these dwellings are without any modern sanitary accommodations, and many are in a wretched state of repair. The majority of the houses are in the most sordid quarters of the city where living is high, at any price. Certain dwellings are offered especially for foreigners or Negroes, dilapidation, lack of conveniences, and an undesirable locality being distinguishing features of these houses.

We label the foreigner as an undesirable neighbor; we offer him the meanest housing accommodations at our disposal; we lump him with the least desirable classes of our citizens; then we marvel at his low standards of living. Give him better, cheaper, houses where he may have a decent and comfortable home, instead of a mere shelter from the elements, unwholesome, overcrowded and expensive, and then see what his standard of living would be.

The natural conformation of the land with its steep declivities, and its winding, tortuous valleys, has added much to the difficulty of the housing situation. Adequate transportation facilities would open up territory on the South and West sides where countless people could be housed. The trend of the mills away from the city to nearby river sites, attracted by lower tax rates and unlimited space will offer further relief and improvement, especially where great employers of labor, in laying out their plants as at Mariana, and Vandergrift and Gary take heed of the proper housing and sanitation of the towns that will grow up about them. As the situation stands to-day, however, bad housing conditions are multiplying in the surrounding industrial towns; and they must face the same problem. Its seriousness demands the formulation of public policies that shall encourage every form of building operation that will produce sanitary houses at low rentals, whether they are private homes or company houses of creditable standard, or dwellings put up by building and loan companies, commercial builders, or co-operative housing companies, along English lines.

A Chamber of Commerce report states: "The city of Pittsburgh, along with its vast industrial development, has grown so phenomenally in population during the past ten years that it has been clearly impossible for the growth in housing accommodation to keep pace. Careful and comprehensive investigations show conclusively that the housing facilities of the Greater City have completely broken down, not only in point of reasonably proper conditions but in amount of available real estate."

"We have not the time, nor is it our function to investigate the housing situation of the city. Let the charitable or philanthropic agencies make a systematic study of the evils that exist, and we will gladly lend the support of our influence to any recommendations which they may offer," said a leading spirit in one of Pittsburgh's great commercial organizations. To this man the proper housing of the workingman had a charitable aspect.

"We don't want to go into the housing business. We are manufacturers, not real estate dealers. We may be forced to build houses in certain new districts in order to attract and hold labor, but in an old, settled community let the laboring man take care of himself. We don't believe in paternalism." I quote the president of a great steel company.

Said a prominent real estate man: "There certainly are other more attractive investments for private capital than the building of small houses,--taxes are high, the demand for such dwellings has fallen off considerably and the returns are uncertain, owing to the difficulty of collecting rents in times such as these."

And the laboring man says: "I want a decent home at a moderate rental, within reasonable distance of my work." Can he get it? Rigorous sanitary work by the health authorities will help. But more than that is needed.

PITTSBURGH'S HOUSING LAWS

EMILY WAYLAND DINWIDDIE

SECRETARY NEW YORK TENEMENT HOUSE COMMITTEE; FORMER SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR OCTAVIA HILL ASSOCIATION, PHILADELPHIA

One would expect to see bad housing in Pittsburgh as a natural result of the congested condition of the city, partially hemmed in by waterways, and of the presence of an increasing population of factory workers ready to accept whatever living accommodations are available near their places of employment. Unhealthful homes, however, are especially dangerous in Pittsburgh, where their influence has been combined with that of city crowding, and of smoky, gas-laden air and polluted water. Badly constructed houses and defective drainage are an evil in the case of the country laborer, but far worse for a Pittsburgh factory employe.

The tenement, with its usual accompaniments, has been a growing menace, although it has not yet obtained so great a hold as in many large cities. In 1900, one-ninth of the total population of the city was living in buildings now legally defined as "tenements,"--that is, occupied by three or more families each. Since that time it is said that the proportion of tenements and tenement dwellers has become considerably larger.

The city has recognized its dangers and a beginning has been made in the framing of state legislation and city ordinances to meet them.

The housing and health laws applying to Pittsburgh in many respects are like those for Philadelphia. There is no department of health, but there is a bureau of health in the Department of Public Safety, and similarly a bureau of building inspection.

The powers of the Bureau of Health in relation to housing conditions are more limited than those of corresponding departments in many other cities in the lack of authority to vacate buildings unfit for habitation. The writer had occasion to visit in Pittsburgh a large ramshackle frame tenement house, insufficiently lighted and ventilated, dirty and miserably overcrowded. The building, which had originally been a mill, was obviously unfit for occupation. For some time "Tammany Hall" had been almost as notorious in Pittsburgh as the infamous "Gotham Court" was in New York. The whole frame work was so poorly constructed that it seemed hopeless that the owner would consider improvements worth while for a building of this character, yet the Bureau of Health could not have the house vacated, and the tenants continued to live in their wretched quarters.[8]

[8] After long delays this house has now been torn down. The Bureau of Health took a determined stand in requiring compliance with the law if the building was to continue to be occupied as a tenement, and the owner finally became wearied and had the house destroyed.

Since 1867, one year after its creation, the Board of Health in New York has had authority to vacate buildings unfit for occupation, and in 1887 it was expressly included in the law that this power applied to any building "unfit for human habitation because of defects in drainage, plumbing, ventilation, or the construction of the same, or because of the existence of a nuisance on the premises, and which is likely to cause sickness among its occupants." This provision is still in force at the present day and has been extended to the Tenement House Department as well. In the course of a year the latter department alone vacated between one and two hundred houses. Similar powers are held in other cities. In Boston and Chicago they are exercised. In Washington many buildings have been not only vacated, but demolished. Nor is this authority confined to the largest cities; Jersey City, with a population 100,000 less than Pittsburgh's, and Rochester, with 40,000 less than Jersey City, both have health boards with full powers in this regard.

Apart from this lack, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health in relation to existing houses other than tenements, has under state law much the same general authority and obligations as in other cities. Its duty is to have nuisances abated and conditions dangerous to health removed. Specific provisions, however, affecting the proper maintenance of one-and two-family dwellings are almost entirely lacking, although these are found in Pittsburgh in much greater numbers than the tenement houses, and as shown in recent investigations, are greatly in need of regulation. The state laws contain practically no requirements for them except in regard to the cleaning of privy-vaults and to plumbing. There is no city sanitary code. A general state health law of 1895 gives the director of the Department of Public Safety in conjunction with the Bureau of Health, power to prescribe rules and regulations for enforcing the provisions of the act, but the power has never been exercised to frame sanitary requirements for dwelling houses. Dark, damp cellar rooms, wholly under ground, one "town pump" serving as the sole water supply for thirteen houses; water-closets in dark unventilated holes under sidewalks, are examples of conditions found in Pittsburgh, and not definitely prohibited except in tenement houses. An ordinance to prevent cellar occupancy and to provide for the cleaning up of unsanitary conditions in houses other than tenements was introduced in councils the past year by the Chamber of Commerce, but it failed to pass. Such absence of requirements tends seriously to block the sanitary improvement of the smaller houses. Specific mandatory provisions make for uniform, fair treatment, requiring as much of one house owner as of another. They give efficient health authorities a stronger case in dealing with offenders and make it more difficult for inefficient ones to evade their responsibilities. A code is needed.

* * * * *

... PROSPECTUS ...

=THE TENEMENT IMPROVEMENT COMPANY,=

Modeled after the Octavia Hill Association of Philadelphia, was formed for the betterment of the housing of the poor of Pittsburgh, for the following reasons:

First. There is no tenement house commissioner in Pittsburgh.

Second. Laws relating to the water supply, sewerage, garbage collecting, overcrowding and use of houses for immoral purposes, are either not in existence or not enforced:

Third. There are within a radius of twenty-five miles of Pittsburgh 35,000 Slavs, 4,000 Bohemians, 30,000 Poles, 10,000 Croatians, 8,000 Ruthenians, 1,000 Russians, 2,000 Servians, 35,000 Italians: these low-class foreigners must of necessity overcrowd the already congested districts.

Fourth. Conditions such as these make for moral and physical contagion, intemperance, pauperism, crime, anarchy and the destruction of the home.

Fifth. This city is already aroused to the necessity of caring for the children before they become criminals, but these efforts are of little value unless strengthened by the influence of decent and respectable homes.

Sixth. Pittsburgh, in proportion to its wealth and prosperity, has done nothing to improve the housing conditions of the very poor.

=The Purpose of the Company= is to buy, build or remodel tenements in the worst localities, put them in sanitary condition, install tenants of moral character at the same rents paid before and have weekly visits of inspection made by women rent collectors. The Company will agree to manage, on these same lines, tenement houses for property holders on commission.

* * * * *

FOLDER OF 1893.

The beginning of housing reform in Pittsburgh.

* * * * *

An important ordinance, dealing with one unsanitary feature of the city, was passed by councils in 1901. This makes it unlawful to continue the existence of cesspools and privy-vaults on any lot contiguous to a public sewer. A state law of 1901 prohibited the construction of a new cesspool or privy-vault on premises where a sewer was adjacent, and the same prohibition was previously contained in the plumbing regulations of the Bureau of Health, issued in 1895; but existing privy-vaults are made unlawful only by the ordinance of 1901. This provision is of great value. The privy-vault may be tolerated in country districts, but in small city yards, close to kitchens and bedrooms, groceries and butcher shops, its dangers are increased a thousand fold. The risk is especially great where typhoid is prevalent, as is the case in Pittsburgh, where as far back as the health records go the disease has been practically epidemic and where up to 1908 the typhoid rate was higher than in any other city. That the contagion of typhoid fever is contained in the discharges of the patient, and that the specific organism may live in these for a long period is well known, but only in the past decade has the part played by house flies in the dissemination of the disease been emphasized: "Flies are attracted to all kinds of filth. A fly after lighting on the discharges from a typhoid patient thrown into one of the vaults may have on its legs the specific bacteria and can then carry the infection from place to place; it may be to the food of the nearest neighbor, or to that in a nearby street stand or shop, or it is possible it may carry it to a greater distance."