Health Departments and the Housing Problem

DESPITE advancing standards of living, 16,000,000 American families live in housing that has basic health deficiencies. This is the hard core of the housing problem that health officials can help to reduce. The housing problem is pervasive; every individual, group, and organization has a stake in attacking it. Unless positive action is taken, this problem can only increase. The housing situation is not static. Heavy outlays of housing goods and services are necessary merely to provide for the population increase, for normal maintenance, and -to mitigate extreme obsolescence. Far heavier outlays are necessary to improve the relative supply of decent housing. These are the relentless dynamics of housing progress. The attack on housing conditions by means of new construction, redevelopment, and public housing has been described extensively, but the opportunities for improving substandard housing by enforcement of health regulations has been given far too little attention. The health department has a unique and personal relationship with the families who occupy substandard housing. The public health nurse and sanitarian are frequent visitors to the slum home and the blighted area. Morbidity and