HEALTH

NEW HAVEN DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

Vol. LV, No. 3	March, 1928

This article excerpted from p. 3 of the issue.

Previous to the present survey, housing conditions in New Haven were studied in 1910, 1912 and 1917. In the earliest survey the prevalence of dirty backyards due to inadequate garbage collection and to privy vaults was emphasized. Stress was also put on cellar dwellings and overcrowding. In the 1912 survey room congestion was found to the extent of an average of 136 people for every 1001 rooms. In the 1917 study, dark halls were found to be common; 21 per cent of the toilets inspected were dark and fire escapes were inadequate.

The construction and maintenance of dwellings, especially tenements, is governed by both State and local legislation. The enforcement of these laws and regulations involves four branches of the City government: the Departments of Building Inspection, Fire Service, Police and Health.

The Department of Health through its force of sanitary inspectors is responsible for the maintenance of sanitary conditions in buildings and yards. The five inspectors work by districts and in addition to the investigation of complaints they conduct routine inspections of the districts under their control.

Within the past year, a careful study of the 3179 tenement houses in New Haven has been made by the five Department of Health inspectors as a part of the New Haven Health Survey being done through the Community Chest and a number of interesting things have been found.

The inspectors find that there are 3179 tenements which includes every house which is rented as a residence for three or more families. These 3179 tenements house 49,999 persons or 27 per cent of the total population of the city. It is evident from the past record that in the future more and more people will live in the tenement type house and hence its construction should be rigorously safeguarded.

The three-story tenement is the typical building of this class in New Haven. Of the total tenements, 1800 are of brick or stone construction. Of the 1182 families provided for by new tenements in 1926 and 1927, 65% will be housed in fire resistant buildings. In the tenement houses over three stories, fire escapes are required. Of 554 fire escapes inspected, 473 were of metal and 81 of wood.

During this study it was noted that 9% of all apartments were unoccupied. Overcrowding found in earlier studies has been reduced until New Haven has a splendid record of only 3% of apartments overcrowded. There are now only 89 persons per 100 rooms in the tenements. Only 13 apartments were found where there was less than 500 cubic feet of air space per person. In 97% of all occupied apartments there was over 1000 cubic feet per person.

Lighting of Apartments: The surveyors visited 48,695 rooms and found only 351 that were dark and 41 classed as semi-dark. The law requires that every room shall have at least one window opening on a street, yard or court with an area equal to one-eighth of the floor area of the room. In only 80 instances was it noted that basements were used for living purposes.

Toilet Facilities: The law requires that in every new tenement house there shall be a water closet in every apartment of three or more rooms and in smaller apartments one closet for every two apartments. Every water closet must be ventilated by a window, register, vent flue or sky light. Ideally, every toilet should be ventilated and lighted by an outside window. Today in New Haven, tenement houses are practically all being built with toilets having outside windows. The greatest improvement during the past ten years in the New Haven tenement house situation has been the improvement in toilet accommodations. In 1912 one-third of all toilets studied were dark and in 1916 one-fifth. In the present study 11,699 closets were found for 12,640 apartments. This means that over 10,000 apartments have their own water closets and less than 2000 small apartments share common toilets. The tenement houses are well equipped with bath tubs. Of the 3197 tenement houses, 2195 were reported as having tubs, 704 without tubs, while for 280 houses no report was made. There are 18,157 sinks and wash bowls in the 3179 tenements or one for almost every three people.

General Conditions and Upkeep: A careful inspection of rooms, yards, stairs and cellars showed that the sanitary conditions were good in about 75% of instances, fair in 22% of cases and bad in only 3%. Further attention to the sanitary condition of cellars seemed to be indicated. Garbage cans were present in 2940 instances and absent in 42 cases.