The rooming houses with one exception are conducted by colored people, who act either as janitors or as hosts. In only one case, as far as our investigation extended, did we find a white woman running a rooming house for colored people. Many of these houses are in reality run by Whites, who keep a colored janitor or manager in the House. Several of the big rooming houses on lower Wylie Avenue, for instance, are conducted for a local white merchant, who keeps a colored janitor in each of them, and only visits them to check the books and collect the rents. In many instances however, houses are operated by colored people, who either run or lease them. Most of these lessees or owners are Pittsburghers, but a few are newcomers, who, having brought a bit of capital with them have opened rooming houses as investments. Some of these people have become the prey of cunning landlords. In one case in the down town section, a colored migrant rented an old and dilapidated shack, paying fifty dollars a month, and was unaware that the contract signed by him specified that he pay for his own repairs. The Negro claims that as the house is very old and in such bad condition, it would cost him an additional fifty dollars each month to keep it habitable.
TABLE NUMBER VI
Number of Rooms Per Family of 157 Negro Families
The deplorable housing of migrant families is shown in [table number VI]. Of the 157 families investigated, seventy-seven or 49% live in one room each. Thirty-three or 21% live in two-room apartments, and only forty-seven families or 30% live in apartments of three or more rooms each.
Of these forty-seven families, thirty-eight kept roomers or boarders, totalling one hundred and thirty-one, or an average of 3.5 roomers per family. Eighty-one of the total of one hundred and thirty-nine houses inspected, had water inside the house, while fifty-eight houses secured water from yard or street hydrants or from neighbors. Only thirty-four of the total were equipped with interior toilet facilities; the rest had outside toilets. Of the latter, forty-two had no sewerage connections, and used filthy, unsanitary vaults.
The rents paid for the “residences” described above appear in the following table:
TABLE NUMBER VII
Rents Paid by 142 Families Investigated
