On the West Side, also, thirteen of the sixteen families were housed in four-, five-, six-, or seven-room dwellings, the five-room type predominating. In the Lake Park district the five-room type was most frequent, there being eleven of these out of a total of thirty-seven, six of six rooms and seven of seven rooms, the next largest group being five of eight rooms.
On the South Side in the district from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street, out of a total of ninety-nine there were eighteen families in five-room dwellings, seventeen in four-room, nine in three-room, ten in six-room, fourteen in seven-room, and eight in ten-room dwellings. In the district north of Thirty-first Street the predominating size was six-room dwellings, of which there were eleven, and there were nine of four rooms, seven of five rooms, and seven of seven rooms, the rest scattering from one-room dwellings to one dwelling of thirteen rooms. From Thirty-ninth to Sixtieth streets, six-room dwellings were most frequent, there being eight of these out of a total of thirty-six, and there were seven of five rooms, six of six rooms, and six of seven rooms. The dwellings occupied by Negroes south of Thirty-ninth Street, it should be noticed, are larger than those north of that street.
The grouping of the 274 families according to number of persons is as follows:
| Families | Persons to Family |
|---|---|
| 48 | 4 |
| 40 | 2 |
| 35 | 3 |
| 37 | 5 |
| 30 | 7 |
| 29 | 6 |
| 22 | 8 |
| 17 | 9 or more |
| 16 | Not recorded |
| 274 |
Four persons to a "family" was the most common type, there being forty-eight of these out of the 274. In the Woodlawn and Ogden Park districts the group of three was predominant. The North Side district grouping of two persons to a family is partly due to the inclusion of nine "groups" of one person each who were interviewed mainly for data bearing upon industrial relationships. The tables show a total of sixteen such groups in the eight districts; but they are not deemed sufficient to vitiate the statistics.
Negroes have more space in their living quarters than do other Chicago people housed in similar grades of dwellings. They were usually found in dwellings of five rooms for each family, while the prevailing size among the foreign groups was four rooms, as disclosed by the Chicago School of Civics housing studies from 1909 to 1917. In the School's earliest study of the Negroes it was said:
The colored families do not as a rule live in the small and cramped apartments in which other nationalities are so often found. Even the families who apply to the United Charities for relief are frequently living in apartments which would be considered adequate, as far as the number of rooms is concerned, for families in comfortable circumstances.
Some marked exceptions, of course, were found.
The four-room dwelling was found to prevail among the Slovaks of the Twentieth Ward, the Lithuanians of the Fourth Ward, the Greeks and Italians in the neighborhood of Hull-House, the various central and southern European nationalities who work in the South Chicago steel mills and live near-by, and among the Jews, Bohemians, and Poles of the West Side.
The lodger problem.—The prevalence of lodgers is one of the most conspicuous problems in the Negro housing situation. It is largely a social question. The difficulty of finding a home adequate for a family of four or five persons at a reasonable rent has forced many Negroes to take over large buildings in better localities and in better physical condition but with much higher rents. To meet these rents they have taken lodgers. It was seldom possible to investigate the character of the lodgers. The arrangement of these large houses, originally intended for single-family use, prevents family privacy when lodgers are added, making a difficult situation for families with children. Again, the migration brought to the city many unattached men and women who could find no other place to live except in families. Thus it happens that in Negro families the lodger problem is probably more pressing than in any other group of the community. Not only do lodgers constitute a social problem for the family, but, having little or no interest in the appearance and condition of the property, they are in many instances careless and irresponsible and contribute to the rapid deterioration of the buildings.