1930s to one tenth of the pre Depression level of 900,000 units a year were designed, in both the Hoover and the (Franklin Delano) Roosevelt administrations, largely to bolster the existing home financing system" (Fisher 4).
However, it was clear that these and other related measures were adequate to deal with only a small part of the Depression housing problems. These solutions merely helped to save families who were close to losing their homes and did bring some stability to a troubled housing industry. However, as Fried notes:
Far greater innovation was needed for long term health, as was acknowledged by the Roosevelt Administration with the creation in 1934 of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and its system of mortgage insurance an innovation . . . that was to have a profound sociological influence far beyond the stimulation of renewed home construction in the economically bleak 1930s (66).
As much more far reaching as the FHA program was than previous efforts, however, the poor were still left effectively out in the cold.
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