The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot

by Chicago Commission on Race Relations

TYPES OF NEGRO HOUSING

Lack of repairs to the houses in the "Black Belt" is accounted for by the fact that owners do not regard the buildings as worth repairing, and that tenants can always be found, even though it is necessary to reduce rents somewhat. This reduction is indeed notable. The School of Civics found that while in 1909 50 per cent of the houses examined on the South Side rented for as much as $16 a month, in 1917 only 13 per cent could command as high a rental as that; that in 1909 the prevailing rents were $15 and $16 as against $10 and $12 in 1917.

On the West Side the area studied generally was that bounded by Lake Street, Ashland, Austin, and Western avenues. Here the situation was little better. One-third of the families visited in the three selected blocks bounded by Fulton and Paulina streets, Carroll Avenue and Robey Street were Negroes. The remaining two-thirds represented sixteen nationalities. It was reported that the white residents could get advantages and improvements for their houses that a Negro could not. While 35 per cent of the houses were reported in good repair, 31 per cent were described as "absolutely dilapidated" and in a worse state of repair than those in any other districts studied except the Jewish district. The report said:

Broken-down doors, unsteady flooring, and general dilapidation were met by the investigators at every side. Windowpanes were out, doors hanging on single hinges or entirely fallen off, and roofs rotting and leaking. Colored tenants reported that they found it impossible to persuade their landlords either to make the necessary repairs or to release them from their contracts; and that it was so hard to find better places in which to live that they were forced either to make the repairs themselves, which they could rarely afford to do, or to endure the conditions as best they might. Several tenants ascribed cases of severe and prolonged illness to the unhealthful condition of the houses in which they were living.

That there was a continuing demand even for the shacks and shanties of the "Black Belt" is evidenced in a report made by the Urban League of Chicago in 1917 that only one out of every thirteen Negro applicants for houses to rent could be supplied. At the height of the demand applications for houses were coming in at the rate of 460 to 600 a day, and only ninety-nine were available for renting purposes. This was due, of course, to the growing stream of Negroes arriving daily from the South.

Covering the same area on the South Side as that studied by the School of Civics in 1917 a canvass was also made in 1917 by Caswell W. Crews, a student at the University of Chicago. He found that tenants had remained in these dwellings in some instances as long as twenty years after their unfitness had become evident, because the rent was low and they could find nowhere else to go. He mentioned the mass of migrants from the South who, because of their ignorance of conditions in Chicago as to what was desirable and what was to be had for a given sum, fell an easy prey to unscrupulous owners and agents. Mr. Crew's description said:

With the exception of two or three the houses are frame, and paint with them is a dim reminiscence. There is one rather modern seven-room flat building of stone front, the flats renting at $22.50 a month and offering the best in the way of accommodations to be found there. There is another makeshift flat building situated above a saloon and pool hall, consisting of six six-room flats, renting at $12 per month, but in a very poor condition of repair. Toilets and baths were found to be in no condition for use and the plumbing in such a state as to constantly menace health. Practically all of the houses have been so reconstructed as to serve as flats, accommodating two and sometimes three families. As a rule there are four, five, and sometimes six rooms in each flat, there being but five instances when there were more than six. It is often the case that of these rooms not all can be used because of dampness, leaking roofs, or defective toilets overhead.

The owners are in most instances scarcely better off than their tenants and can ill afford to make repairs. One house in the rear of another on Federal Street near Twenty-seventh had every door off its hinges, water covering the floor from a defective sink, and windowpanes out. A cleaning of the house had been attempted, and the cleaners had torn loose what paper yielded readily and proceeded to whitewash over the adhering portion which constituted the majority of the paper. There were four such rooms and for them the family paid $7 a month.

In 1920 a cursory examination by investigators from the Commission showed that the only change in the situation was further deterioration in the physical state of the dwellings.