HOUSING: 180° Turn

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Back to the Barracks. Whether or not this controversy simmered down, home building on any scale would not really get under way for months: the effects of the lumber strike, shortages of labor and other materials were still very real. Last week, as winter deepened, the Senate voted unanimously to turn 75,000 units of war housing over to veterans and their families, remodel Government dormitories to house 11,000 more, find room for 14,000 in Army barracks. The University of Washington planned to put up student veterans in portable houses shipped from the Hanford atomic bomb project. In Cleveland, a federal auditor suggested that old B-29s and Liberator bombers be turned into homes.

One thing was certain: the U.S. would be using makeshift housing for a long time. The country was short at least 4,660,000 dwellings, would have to build at top speed for ten years to catch up.