federal-housing-policy Timeline
Decades
1930s
July 22, 1932 - Federal Home Loan Bank Act
- Intended to lower the cost of home ownership
- Established the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and Federal Home Loan Banks
- To charter federal savings and loans, and lend to financial institutions to indirectly finance home mortgages
- "Public Law 304 was ineffective."
- "...to establish a credit reserve for mortgage lenders and thus to increase the supply of capital in the housing market."
- Source: Kenneth T. Jackson, "Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States", 1985, pp194.
- Tags: federal-housing-policy hoover
1933 - Home Owners' Loan Corporation
- Refinancing for nonfarm home mortgages in default
- To prevent foreclosure
- Borrower offered loan over longer period with lower interest rate
- HOLC purchased mortgage loans from lenders and refinanced for the borrowers
- Was favorable for lenders because entire remaining purchase price was bought, plus taxes
- Tags: fdr federal-housing-policy new-deal
1937 - Housing Act of 1937
- Also called Wagner-Steagall Act
- Created the United States Housing Authority within Department of the Interior
- Lent money for low-cost construction to states and localities
- Tags: federal-housing-policy new-deal
1940s
1949 - Housing Act of 1949
- Part of Harry Truman's Fair Deal
- Five main elements
- Federal financing for slum clearance
- Increased authorization for FHA mortgage insurance
- Federal funding for public housing units
- Funding for research on building techniques
- Financing for farm housing
- Direct inspiration from Blighted Areas Redevelopment act of Illinois
- Created a Land Clearance Commission
- Could acquire land in blighted areas, demolish structures, and sell at a discount to private investors who would bulid profitable structures
- Illinois Relocation Act was passed at the same time
- Provided money to build public housing for 15% of those displaced by urban renewal
- Created a Land Clearance Commission
- Source: Beryl Satter, "Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America", 2009, pp47-49.
- Tags: fair-deal federal-housing-policy
1950s
1954 - Housing Act of 1954
- Series of amendments to Housing Act of 1934
- Based on the Illinois Urban Community Conservation Act of 1953
- Radical because for the first time blight prevention, not just removal was defined as a "public purpose" and cause for invoking eminent domain
- Drafted by University of Chicago and Chicago Metropolitan Housing and Planning Council (MHPC) leaders to provide federal funding for their local urban renewal projects
- Source: Beryl Satter, "Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America", 2009, pp50-51.
- Tags: federal-housing-policy