The Cost of Shelter

by Ellen H. Richards

If a fetish stands in the way of social progress, do away with it. If the idea of home as the shell is standing in the way of developing the idea of home as a state of mind, then let us cast loose the load of things that are sinking us in the sea of care beyond rescue.

It is quite possible that we may return to that state of mind in which there was a pleasure in caring for beautiful objects. The housewife of colonial days did not disdain the washing of her cups of precious china or doing up the heirlooms of lace and embroidery. When our possessions acquire an intrinsic value, when all the work of the house which cannot be done by machinery is that of handling beautiful things and has a meaning in the life of the individual and the family, service will not be required in the vast majority of homes: then we may approach to the Utopian ideal of the nobility of labor.

"The plain message that physical science has for the world at large is this, that were our political and social and moral devices only as well contrived to their ends as a linotype machine, an antiseptic operating-plant, or an electric tram-car, there need now, at the present moment, be no appreciable toil in the world, and only the smallest fraction of the pain, the fear, and the anxiety that now make human life so doubtful in its value. There is more than enough for every one alive. Science stands as a too competent servant behind her wrangling, underbred masters, holding out resources, devices, and remedies they are too stupid to use."[⁴]

⁴ [H.G. Wells.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE COST PER PERSON AND PER FAMILY OF VARIOUS GRADES OF SHELTER.

"The strongest needs conquer."

An outlay of $1500 to $2500 will secure a cottage in the country, or a tenement with five or six rooms in the suburbs, for a wage-earner's family. The rent for this should be from $125 to $200 per year, but, as in the case of the model tenements in New York, a minimum of sanitary appliances and of labor-saving devices is found in such dwellings. They are adapted to a family life of mutual helpfulness and forbearance.