University of Virginia Library

Housing and Rent Control

In January, 1942, nearly two weeks before President Roosevelt
requested all Washingtonians not engaged in essential war work to
leave the already crowded capital, Randolph H. Perry, executive secretary
of the Charlottesville and Albemarle Chamber of Commerce,
wrote Representative Howard W. Smith suggesting that non-essential
residents of the District of Columbia move to the uncrowded communities
in neighboring states. “I am sure,” he explained, “that
many of these small cities are in the same position as we in Charlottesville,
where, due to the rapid decrease in University enrollment,
many houses and apartments in the University section of town will
be vacated. For this reason we could take care of a considerable number
of the people from Washington.”[49]

By May many inquiries regarding housing were being received,
particularly from Newport News, Virginia, and Washington. At
the same time it was thought that many vacationists who had habitually
gone to the now crowded seashore resorts were considering inland
recreation, but the difficulties of travel made their coming uncertain.
Actually there was a great decrease in the number of tourists.
A survey published in December, 1942, indicated that in spite of
some gain in population. Charlottesville still had housing facilities
available for nearly 1,000 people. The county meanwhile had suffered

an actual decrease in population. As relatively adequate housing
continued to be available throughout the early war years, rent
control was not instituted in Charlottesville and Albemarle County
until well after V-J Day.

The housing picture, however, was not actually as rosy as it
seemed. In 1940 Albemarle County had had 5,942 dwelling units
of which only 5,513 were occupied, and Charlottesville had had 5,519
of which only 5,269 were occupied. Together county and city had had
679 vacant dwellings, but many of these were sub-standard. In
1940 the average renter paid $15.28 per month in Albemarle County
and $30.46 per month in Charlottesville. As in most other localities,
nearly all house construction was suspended during the war
years. In 1942, for example, building permits authorizing only
$78,515 worth of construction were issued in Charlottesville, as
against $1,047,808 in 1939. During the decade ending in 1942
the annual average had exceeded $450,000. An increasingly large
deficit in housing accumulated until the return of peace found Charlottesville
with a shortage of dwellings.[50]

The opening of the School of Military Government at the University
of Virginia on May 9, 1942, brought a recurring influx of
Army officers. These men, who expected soon to go overseas, frequently
rented homes and brought their families to Charlottesville.
The officers in time finished their courses and departed, but, charmed
by the community, their families often remained for the duration.
Thus Charlottesville filled up with Army families.[51]

For various reasons many landlords were unwilling to rent to families
with small children. On March 23, 1944, the classified advertisement
column of The Daily Progress carried an appeal. “Are
children a disgrace in Charlottesville? I am the wife of a Marine in
active service, with three children under five years old. I am trying
to find a three to five room apartment where I can make a home for
them while their father is risking his life daily to protect you and
your children, but I am turned from every vacant place I have found
on account of the children. I have references from every place I
have lived. I am not asking charity, I am asking a home. Is it a
sin to have children in Charlottesville and to bring them up as law
abiding citizens? Is there a real red blooded patriotic property owner
in Charlottesville who will rent me a home?” Mrs. George H.
Hawkins, who made the appeal, received many answers and soon was
located in a comfortable four-room apartment.[52]

In the early summer of 1945, at the request of the Office of Price
Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U. S. Department
of Labor made a survey of rent conditions in Charlottesville.
In July reports of excessive rentals being charged by landlords caused
Mayor Roscoe S. Adams to make a personal investigation of conditions.
He concluded that the rent situation was “going from bad

to worse” and that some form of control was needed. The local
press meanwhile editorially condemned those landlords who had
“taken advantage of wartime conditions to exact unreasonable increases.”
After waiting a reasonable time for the announcement of
O. P. A. action, Mayor Adams sent telegrams to the deputy O. P. A.
administrator for rent, to Senator Harry F. Byrd, and to Representative
Smith asking whether or not a ceiling would be placed on rents
in the city. On August 8 Representative Smith reported that O. P. A.
did not think the situation in Charlottesville justified rent ceilings.
The same morning a letter informed the mayor that one large property
owner had increased his rents twenty-five per cent as of September
1. Disappointed by the refusal of O.P.A. to take action, Mayor
Adams was left without any effective means of checking rising rents.
Because conditions had changed a great deal for the worse since the
Department of Labor survey and because the city of Charlottesville
was literally bulging at its seams so far as living quarters were concerned,
he felt another survey was needed.[53]

In a surprise move on January 3, 1946, J. Fulmer Bright, O. P. A.
district director, announced that rent control would be established
in Charlottesville and all of Albemarle County starting February 1.
On that date all residential rentals were to be rolled back fourteen
months to the October 1, 1944, level. Although there was comment
that it had been too long delayed, the action was generally
hailed with approval. After expressing his delight that the government
was taking the situation in hand, Mayor Adams added,
“It is a sad commentary, however, on the conduct and business tactics
of a small minority of the citizens of Charlottesville that such
a step became necessary.”

Landlords voiced most of the opposition. F. L. Harris, president
of the local Real Estate Board, conceded that the situation was
critical and that some rents were too high, but he concluded that the
O. P. A. had acted too late. “They have set October 1, 1944,
which was the peak of prices, as a base,” he admitted, but he also
contended, “It will not work because in justice to property owners
each case will have to be based on a fair return.” After reviewing
the history of local housing construction, he asserted, “There is only
one way to relieve the building shortage in Charlottesville and other
cities: for the government to release building materials and controls,
so that the independent contractors, builders, and producers can get
into the game.”[54]

One renter, a veteran of World War II, replied to the landlords.
“If you have raised the rent on any of your apartments since April,
1941, so much as one dollar without making some structural, ornamental,
or furniture change, so as to make it a better place in
which to live, then in my estimation your rent isn't exactly fair.”
On the same day another renter suggested that the O. P. A. “bring

along workers that shall help us fix up our homes, which are badly
in need of all kinds of repairs.”[55]

Before the coming of rent control efforts had been made to increase
housing in Charlottesville. Recognizing the acute shortage, on February
1, 1945, the National Housing Agency designated Charlottesville
an area in which existing buildings might be converted so as
to provide additional housing units, and during the summer construction
on most of sixty-five new homes authorized by the National
Housing Agency was underway. A special committee of the
Chamber of Commerce, headed by Haynes L. Settle, made a survey
in December of the housing needs and suggested that a corporation
be formed to construct fifty houses to rent for about forty-five or
fifty dollars a month. Later the committee made a trip to Lynchburg
to inspect the prefabricated houses set up there. However,
the most immediate relief to the housing problem came in the form
of one hundred expandable trailers installed on Copeley Hill for
married students at the University.[56]

Bernard P. Chamberlain of Charlottesville, who had been serving
as rationing executive in the O. P. A. district office in Richmond,
was named area rent director for Charlottesville and Albemarle
County on January 18, 1946. His office was located in the County
Office Building in the space formerly occupied by the Albemarle
County War Price and Rationing Board. In announcing the appointment
the O. P. A. district director said, “Mr. Chamberlain is
splendidly equipped to fill the post through training and experience.
As rationing executive he had the responsibility of handling an
annual budget in excess of $100,000 and had supervision over about
thirty-five employees. He conducted this department in a masterly
and efficient manner. As rationing attorney he brought distinction
to the district office by developing certain procedural techniques which
were adopted by other districts throughout the United States.”

When rent control became effective February 1, it was announced
that landlords had until March 15 to register their property with
the area office, although the new ceilings were effective at once. Special
registration periods were held in Charlottesville, Crozet, and
Scottsville, during which volunteer workers explained the rent control
regulations and assisted property owners in preparing forms.[57]

Some home owners who otherwise would have rented rooms to
war-veteran students at the University of Virginia were unwilling
to do so because of their fear of “red tape.” By February 21 reports
to this effect had become so numerous that Chamberlain felt it necessary
to refute them. After pointing out that anyone who had an
extra room could do a conspicuous service by renting it to a veteran
who was trying to get an education under the G. I. Bill of Rights,
Chamberlain declared that the reports had been based on misconceptions
of the rent control regulations. “In the first place,” he

said, “there is very little Government red tape involved in leasing
rooms. Secondly, undesirable roomers may be evicted promptly.
Thirdly, the rent ceilings generally prevailing here in September,
1944, were sufficiently high to insure a reasonable profit to any landlord.”
Generally speaking, the people of Charlottesville and Albemarle
responded well to the appeal for rooms for veterans, so well
in fact that the University was able to enroll more students than it
had ever before thought possible. A few property owners, however,
remained for a time reluctant to rent houses which they hoped to sell
in the near future because they were not sure they would be able to
evict a tenant at the time of sale.[58]

As March 15, 1946, approached there was a rush of landlords to
register their properties. By the twelfth approximately 3,150 housing
units had been registered, over 300 registrations being received on
that day. It was estimated that there remained seven to eight hundred
housing units to be registered. About 125 landlords had also
filed petitions for upward adjustments of rent. On the other hand,
numerous tenants requested downward adjustments. Commenting
on conditions found in Charlottesville, Lunsford L. Loving of Roanoke,
deputy rent executive for Virginia, who helped set up the local
office, said he was shocked by the high rents found in some cases and
added that rent control was needed in the city far more than in any
other area in which he had worked. The demand for homes was so
great that a “House for Rent, ten minutes drive” advertisement in
the newspaper brought sixty prompt replies.[59]

When O. P. A. expired at midnight, June 30, 1946, rent control
temporarily ceased to exist in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
Stepping into the breach, the Real Estate Board asked property
owners not to raise rents and reminded them that if rents went up
Congress would have to reestablish some form of control. The
Board also set up a Fair Rent Committee with H. T. Van Nostrand
as chairman to review cases of unfair rents and to use “moral pressure”
to keep rents at approximately O. P. A. levels. The committee
had little chance, however, to show what it could do since
rent control was restored without change on July 26. Meanwhile,
many landlords had increased rents. In an atmosphere of rising
prices this was to be expected. A few of these same landlords had
been guilty of exceeding O. P. A. ceilings and had been forced to pay
triple damages to their tenants. Now they were anxious to charge
all the traffic would bear. A report from the Richmond office of
O. P. A. that rents in Charlottesville had increased forty-two per
cent in the first week of July was branded as exaggerated, but Chamberlain
expressed the opinion that rents had risen thirty per cent,
while Leonard H. Peterson, executive secretary of the Charlottesville
and Albemarle County Chamber of Commerce, said the rise had been

less than ten per cent. Whatever the amount of the increase, tenants
welcomed a return to the June 30 level.[60]

A year later, July 1, 1947, rent control was again extended, but
in a somewhat modified form. The average citizen by this time
had become accustomed to rent control, and, if he had a home, he
accepted the extension thankfully. There were many, however, who
had been unable to find living quarters. In October, 1947, more
families were living doubled up than ever before. In Charlottesville
over 500 households were sharing living accommodations. Recent
marriages, the return of additional servicemen, and increased enrollment
at the University created a demand for homes which exceeded
the supply of new houses, hundreds of which had been constructed
during the preceding year.[61]

During the war public opinion concerning the Office of Price Administration
was as various as the individual natures of the millions
affected by its regulations. Many felt that it was oppressive. In the
early part of the postwar transition era higher prices and a disillusioning
continuation of relative scarcities in nearly all types of consumer
goods made some citizens reconsider and reverse their adverse
judgments. As prices continued their upward spiral during the
summer and autumn of 1947, when rental ceilings were the last
remaining vestige of the formerly comprehensive program of O. P.
A., there was constant talk to the effect that rationing and price control
should be revived. At the same time mounting construction
costs impeded efforts to solve the housing problem and left many
veterans wondering when they would get the home of their own
for which they had traveled half way around the world to fight.