The Home Front: World War I, Tenant Activism, and Housing Policy Before the New Deal

During World War I, mass migration to military manufacturing centers and the suspension of most private construction placed immense pressure on urban rental housing markets. Seeking to address the wartime housing "emergency," Congress established the nation's first public housing programs and federal agents based in major cities implemented informal policies to control rents. After the war, national policy shifted away from assisting struggling tenants to promoting homeownership for those who could afford it. However, empowered by the assistance they had received during the war, Philadelphia tenants continued to insist on the need for government action to curtail evictions and rising rents. Though divided by race, ethnicity, income, and political affiliation, struggling tenants shared the belief that the city's housing problems required collective solutions.