13. 15. 16. ALL INFORMATION SUBMITTED WILL BE KEPT CONFIDENTIAL. ONLY TOTAL FIGURES WILL BE USED. Furn. Zone E Unfurn F 50-$35 G $36-548 Amount spent on rehabilitation since 12/20/50... 14. Number of units where rents were increased since 12/20/50. Number of units where rents were decreased since 12/20/50 Gross monthly rent before decontrol. 17. Gross monthly rent as of 4/1/51... 18. If you do not desire to answer questions 14, 15, 16, and 17, give percentage of increase on all rents. Address Date H 549-575 Signature of Owner/Operator/Manager $76-$95 [For the Los Angeles Times, Friday, April 20, 1951] POLITICAL HOKUM Last August, when rent control was a live issue and the city council majority voted for decontrol, there were a lot of wild threats against this majority along the line that the vengeance of an outraged electorate would be visited upon them. But what are the facts? In the recent primary election 9 of the 10 councilmen who voted for decontrol were reelected, Don Allen being without opposition. The other 8 decontrollers elected at the primary were J. Win Austin, George P. Cronk, Ed J. Davenport, Ernest E. Debs, Harold E. Henry, John C. Holland, L. E. Timberlake, and Leland S. Warburton. Lloyd Davies was the tenth councilman who voted for decontrol and he was defeated for reelection, but the issue of rent control did not enter into the conflict. The people of the district decided that Davies had not devoted sufficient time to his city hall duties. [From the Long Beach Independent, Long Beach 12, Calif., Saturday, April 28, 1951] UNNECESSARY CONTROLS There is a lot of pressure being used in Washington to again enact rent control to apply to areas which have been decontrolled. It is the usual tendency to use controls on everything and everywhere just because some places and products need it. Long Beach would again come under rent control if such a law were passed. Actually Long Beach and its surrounding areas need more renters--not rent control. A trip around almost any part of the city will disclose "for rent" signs in greater numbers than have been seen during the past 10 years. The continuous building programs in Lakewood, Lakewood Park, and other areas is evidence that more "for rent" signs will be prevalent in Long Beach. Large numbers of the city families are moving into these new areas. To see what has happened to "for rent" advertising we checked our own expe rience. We found that the worst period of rental shortages for Long Beach was in 1945-46. During that period "for rent" advertising in newspapers practically disappeared. The housing shortage was so serious it was not necessary to advertise a vacancy. Early in 1947 the big building expansion got underway. By 1948 new houses and apartments were found in all locations. On January 20, 1950, rent control was taken off in Long Beach when it was shown there was no actual shortage of rentals. Our records show that we carried 1,739 "for rent" advertisements for the week preceding rent decontrol in Long Beach. Now there is talk of another control program for every city in the country. The ridiculous part of such a suggestion for Long Beach is shown again by the number of "for rent" advertisements carried by the Independent for week ending the 16th of this month. For week ending April 16, 1951, we carried 2.518 "for rent" advertisements. That means we carried 44 percent more "for rent" ads last week than we did the week before rent controls were taken off 15 months ago. That is surely a sound reason why new controls should not be invoked unless there is a freeze of everything in our economy. Many cities have never taken off controls because they continue to have a serious housing shortage. Other cities decontrolled and now find themselves overcrowded again with defense workers. Control is justified in such cases. It is not justified where rentals exist, as they do in Long Beach at present. Controls should be only on scarce goods and services, because where there are scarci ties, prices will skyrocket. That condition does not exist here as is evident by the "for rent" signs in windows and in the newspapers. That should be the best evidence that controls are not justified in this area.-L. A. C. al income vacancy survey by Apartment Association of Los Angeles County, Inc., Los Angeles 5, Calif. Date____ 2 Vacancies $0-$35 $36-$48 $49-$75 $76-$95 $96 up since decontrol (k) 747 (f) 190 130 2 (g) 377 342 (h) ing ent House Association, 69 1 (i) 329 1,202 1,053 184 31 843 207 on rehabilitation since Dec. 20, 1950--. ts where rents were increased since Dec. 20, 1950ts were rents were decreased since Dec. 20, 1950rent before decontrol--‒‒ rent as of April 1, 1951 esire to answer questions 12, 13, 14, and 15, give increase on all rents. (j) 0 121 8 110 0 840 7,673 2,660 940 2,779 3, 356 2, 167 1,091 12 35 41 9 17 551 350 368 936 621 6 14 2,004 13 2, 017 $951, 594. 44 6, 264 314 3,862 (Signature of owner, operator, or manager) (Address) ubmitted will be kept confidential. Only total figures will 7.7 We appreciate the opportunity to give you our conclusions using situation in Long Beach-particularly in the light to reactivate rent controls on a Nation-wide basis. be interested to know that our directors recently recomesentatives in Congress vigorously oppose H. IL 1840, , and other identical or similar rent-control me "that an emergency exists with resp -due to the acute shortage of all types of hous * B abbyte Zuurde Shower bee We not only objected to the unrealistic premise, but to the many arbitrary provisions of the act as well. In presently decontrolled areas, such as Long Beach, the standards set up in these acts for reestablishing rental price levels are exceptionally stringent. Owners of newer properties especially would be penalized. In the opinion of our directors it would be a blunder of serious magnitude to subject our property owners to such burdensome and arbitrary restrictions in the face of our present well-balanced situation. It not only would be unfair, but wholly unwarranted. Recent chamber studies clearly indicate that there is no housing shortage in Long Beach, and there won't be if builders are allowed to continue to build homes in ratio with evidenced demand-that rental vacancies far exceed demand at the present time-and that increases in rental prices since decontrol in January of 1950 have been much less proportionately than for other commodities and services. In fact, a recent spot study of over 500 apartment units showed that rents actually have been reduced in a number of instances in order to attract tenants. This situation was strikingly evidenced by recent experience in connection with reactivation of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard in January of this year. In a brief 4 months' period the Navy has recruited a personnel of about 5,000, and it is expected that their total force will reach 6,000 by early summer. Many people, including executives of the shipyard, expected that this would throw a terrific housing burden on the community. Such, however, was not the case. As a result of a meeting called by the chamber early in February, shipyard executives were literally flooded with rental listings. In checking with the housing section Friday of last week, we found that they have been calling landlords to determine if facilities listed were still available. and on the same rental basis as initially submitted. In a high proportion of instances not only were the facilities still unrented, but in a number of cases landlords offered to reduce the monthly rental if suitable tenants could be obtained. One reason, of course, for this unexpected turn of affairs is the fact that approximately 70 percent of the personnel recruited already were living in the In our opinion, however, this situation will prevail throughout the present emergency. The Nation-wide scarcity of manpower alone will require that the shift be in product rather than in workers. In fact, a recent statement by the Department of Defense indicated, in effect, that defense mobilization need not-and without a doubt will not-result in a large-scale migration of workers. area. Douglas Aircraft Co.--the largest single employer in the area-reports similar experience. Over the period of the past year they have gradually recruited from a force of approximately 8,000 to their present level of 11,500. They do not even maintain a housing service section, and report that at no time during the past 3 years has housing in this area posed any problem. They also recruit chiefly from within the area. The reason, of course, for our fortunate position with respect to housing 18 the unprecedented program of residential building in the area. As you will see from the attached summary of a study recently made by our chamber, private housing in the area has increased 72.8 percent as of December 31, 1950. This does not include 3.920 units of Federal housing built during the war, which brings our total increase to 78.5 percent. During the same period population in the area increased 77.8 percent. A further indication that our people are adequately housed is shown by the ratio of persons per dwelling unit in the city of Long Beach at the present time (population divided by the number of occupied units in the city). Our current ratio is 2.67 persons-even lower than the 2.81 ratio that existed in 1940 when we had a 10-percent vacancy factor. During the year 1950 alone 8,862 units of residential housing were built in the area. Lakewood Park, Inc., the largest subdivider in southern California, reported 7,050 starts, of which 6,000 were completed and occupied at the end of last year. They presently have plans on file for the erection of another 7,000 to 8.000 single-family residences, together with several hundred-possibly as many as 1,000-multiple-family units. Within the past several days plans have been announced by three other builders in this vicinity for a total of 1,005 single-family residences. These firms are the Aldon Construction Co., in Lakewood Plaza (builders for Walker & Lee); Harry Coonen, in the vicinity of Fifty-second Street and Orange Avenue; and Cunning |