One Third of a Nation is Well-presented but Raises Troubling Questions by Philip Ernest Schoenberg I enjoyed watching “One Third of a Nation” at the Metropolitan Playhouse, on April 30, 2011. Alex Roes directed and revived Arthur Arents One-Third of a Nation, a play created in 1938 for the Federal Theatre Projects Living Newspaper unit on the subject of substandard housing in America. Although the play is more than 70 years old, it does not show its age; it does not creak. Whether or not you agree that is up to government to solve the housing crisis, the Federal Theater “Living Newspaper” format advocates quite skillfully a well-rounded polemical argument without being didactic. We learn without being lectured. I had seen Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged – I” that offers the exact opposing idea that government is not the solution. There we seem really to be in a classroom getting a lecture. I thought the best part of the staging was that some of the male roles were played by women dressed in contemporary clothing of the eras that women would have worn as government officials or as private citizens. In words of a Erik Haagensen, a reviewer, “The show ends with a stirring plea for federal intervention, noting the governments nascent success at the time in building affordable housing for the poor.” The ending reminded me of last few lines of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in which the Socialist Party was growing in strength; in this instance, it was up to citizens to mobilize the government to get more involved. In the end, we sympathize; we want the good guys to win – tenants should not be priced out of their badly constructed and mismanaged homes. Yet the play raises some troubling questions about public policy today. Should the government be in the housing business? Should the government finance advocacy of its programs My parents had been enthusiastic supporters of the New Deal and FDR. My teachers and college professors shared this Gospel. When I attended elementary school PS 201, I walked through Pomonok Public Housing from Electchester Cooperative Housing where I lived. I am the beneficiary of Mitchell-Lama housing. You could not tell the two neighborhoods apart with the same mix of ethnic groups and income levels. My parents also owned a private house “in the country.” New York City public housing is well-managed and is good shape compared to the rest of the country. Nevertheless, it is in trouble as the city, the state, and the federal governments underfund their commitments and try to get the other levels of government to take over their responsibilities. There are half a million New Yorkers in public housing and a waiting list of 100,000 people. Unfortunately, the New York City Housing Authority has a staggering complaints to address by the tenants and is years behind in addressing them. Elevators go without repairs for years but the city winds up paying lawsuits because of the injuries and deaths. It really might be a good idea to sell off public housing in neighborhoods that gentrify and use the funds to build new units in neighborhoods that need to be revitalized or simply to help with the costs. When New York City has taken over private housing, it does not do a better job than the landlords who lost it. This is not public housing. New York City government becomes another slumlord. Then we have the current housing crisis aggravated by various bankers and realtors who successfully got New Deal legislation designed to protect the bankers from themselves and the consumers eliminated. Public officials get their share of the blame for pushing bankers and mortgage companies to issue reckless loans and mortgages to people who took out more than they could afford to pay back. After all, the history of this country is that housing prices always went up. Once more, everybody learned that there is no new economic paradigm. Both government and private industry messed up. Finally, there is the Federal Theater (1935-1939) funded by the Works Progress Administration under the direction of Harry Hopkins. In 1939, Congress decided that the government should not be in propaganda business. In modern form, we have controversy over art projects funded by Federal Government. Thus, we have another problem, should the government be in the advocacy business no matter how noble the cause it is promoting. “Rent control” has hurt 2,000,000 tenants in the long run in NYC. The typical landlord in New York City used to be mom and pop who owned a few unites but if they do an honest job they find it hard to stay in business. Not every tenant pays or is responsible in the upkeep of the apartment. The landlords and tenants become adversaries: no rent is ever high enough for a landlord and no rent is every low enough for a tenant. What you is a third party deciding what a just rent and a just rate of return. No one wants to invest in rental housing which gets a lower rate of return in NYC and you have to spend your time wrangling with the bureaucrats. The New York Metropolitan and New York Life Insurance companies built well-managed projects for working class and middle class people but got out of the business rates of return no longer justified their investments. Instead we have ruthless slumlords such as Pinnacle that use every trick in the book to squeeze tenants as much as possible to get the turnover so they can raise rents. When Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts abolished rent control, tenants benefitted in the long run because more housing was built. No homeless problem emerged.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 05:13:06 +0000
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