Greeting to the National Public Housing Conference.

My dear Mrs. Simkhovitch:

We have come to realize that a Nation cannot function as a healthy democracy with part of its citizens living under good conditions and part forced to live under circumstances inimical to the general welfare. I recently called the attention of Congress to the fact that millions of Americans still live in habitations which not only fail to provide the physical benefits of modern civilization, but breed disease and impair the health of future generations.

Your organization has the opportunity effectively to carry this issue before the people. You will not be alone in your efforts.

Through the Public Works Administration the Federal Government has carried the fight directly to the slum. Today families taken from sub-standard housing are living happy, healthful lives in our first public housing project, Atlanta's Techwood development, which replaced eleven blocks of noisome slum with good housing at low rents. The Public Works Administration is now opening four more developments and has forty-six others under way.

Ten years ago public erection of fifty-one big, carefully planned community projects, replacing festering slum areas, would have seemed incredible. Yet we are doing this, and it is substantial evidence that the long fight against the slum finally is bearing fruit. If,. indeed, the deeper purpose of democratic Government is to assist as many of its citizens as possible, especially those who need it most, then we have a great opportunity lying ahead in the specific field of housing.

Sincerely yours,

Mrs. Mary K. Simkhovitch,

New York, N. Y.

(This letter was read at the opening of the fourth annual meeting of the Conference, January 22, 1937.)