The third major policy is also of great importance to the national economy:
an aggressive program to encourage housing construction. The first federal
program to relieve the veterans' housing shortage was announced in February
1946. In 1946 one million family housing units have been put under
construction and more than 665,000 units have already been completed. The
rate of expansion in construction has broken all records.
In the coming year the number of dwelling units built will approach, if not
surpass, the top construction year of 1926. The primary responsibility to
deliver housing at reasonable prices that veterans can afford rests with
private industry and with labor. The Government will continue to expedite
the flow of key building materials, to limit nonresidential construction,
and to give financial support where it will do the most good. Measures to
stimulate rental housing and new types of housing construction will receive
special emphasis.
To reach our long-range goal of adequate housing for all our people,
comprehensive housing legislation is urgently required, similar to the
non-partisan bill passed by the Senate last year. At a minimum, such
legislation should open the way for rebuilding the blighted areas of our
cities and should establish positive incentives for the investment of
billions of dollars of private capital in large-scale rental housing
projects. It should provide for improvement of housing in rural areas and
for the construction, over a 4-year period, of half a million units of
public low-rental housing. It should authorize a single peacetime federal
housing agency to assure efficient use of our resources on the vast housing
front.