II
THE CAMP COTTAGES
1. GENERAL COST
The pressure to provide permanent shelter is shown to have been keenly realized by the Corporation from the beginning of its work, and, before the Corporation was called into existence, by the army officials, the Finance Committee, and the American National Red Cross. On September 10, 1906, therefore, the Department of Lands and Buildings had ground broken for the building of cottages in the official camps.[178] From that date until March 19, 1907, the work was steadily continued, the contractor being spurred by the offer of a bonus if certain houses were completed within ninety days, and the threat of a forfeiture if a longer time were taken. When the task was done 5,610 cottages had been erected; 4,068 of three rooms and 1,542 of two rooms each. There had also been built 19 two-story tenement houses which sheltered about 650 persons. The total cost of the cottages and tenement houses including painting, plumbing, sewering, flush toilets, hoppers, water and gas connections, the moving of tanks from the principal parks, the laying of sidewalks, and a proportion of office expenses, was, as is shown in [Table 64], $884,558.81.
The total cost of the 19 tenement houses, including painting, sewering, patent flush toilets, water, gas in each room and in halls, sinks in kitchen, baths and public laundries, was $41,678.95, an average of about $2,200 per tenement. The 15,288 rooms in the two- and three-room cottages cost, on the average, about $55 per room.
The erection of these cottages was essentially if not entirely a business proposition. Little machinery was demanded. A superintendent of building construction, aided by a small clerical force, constituted the actual working body. After purchasing the lumber in large quantities, the Department contracted with five large constructing companies to erect the cottages in camps situated in different parts of the city.
The contractors assumed the responsibility of supplying labor and other service; the Department, that of inspecting the completed work. It was planned to charge a monthly rental of $4.00 for the two-room and $6.00 for the three-room cottages, but the plan of collecting rent from the cottages located on city property was vigorously opposed by the mayor and made illegal by a special ordinance. However, the technicality was avoided and the law satisfied by substituting, for the form of lease, a contract of purchase and sale, whereby the occupant agreed to buy outright the house occupied by him and to pay for it in monthly instalments which equaled in amount the rent formerly agreed upon. The amounts advanced on the cottages by the occupants were later refunded to those who purchased lots on which to place their cottages. The total amount collected was $117,521.50 of which $109,373 was refunded. The amount of $8,148.50 was unclaimed at the date of the investigation. About 5,343 of these houses were, upon the breaking up of the camps, moved either by individuals or the Associated Charities to purchased or rented lots and became the permanent homes of the owners. Thus ground rent, hitherto practically unknown in the city, is now paid by many of the camp refugees.
The cottages were moved to all sections of the city, even to surrounding towns and counties, and in not a few cases ownership was exchanged many times. Visits were made to addresses given for 1,137 of these removed cottages, as a result of which a total of 680 fairly complete records was secured and the findings tabulated. The investigators tried to get the present location of the remaining 457 cottages from cottagers whose addresses at the date of removal from camp were similar to those of unidentified recipients, but the clue was useless, as the cottages either had not been moved to the addresses given, or had later been moved again by the owners. Eighty-seven cottages are known to have been sold to others and their original owners to have effectually disappeared from the community; 23 cottagers are known to have refused to pay, or been unable to pay, ground rent, the lot owners in consequence having seized their cottages; and nine cottages were rented and the owners could not be found. The 680 families found and interviewed had, with few exceptions, owned and occupied the same cottages in the camps. The exceptions were the occupants of the houses moved by the Associated Charities and the few who had not made their home in the official camps but were given cottages.