The Nome Nugget

Alaska Housing Program Has Reached 'Limit Of Usefulness,' But Remote Dwelling Program Will Continue
By FRANK W. VAILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the Housing and Home Finance Agency feels the Alaska housing program "has reached the practical limit of its usefulness in solving the housing problem in Alaska."

The view was expressed by Albert M. Cole, housing administrator, before a House Appropriations subcommittee last month. His testimony was made public Thursday.

Cole said there are "evident signs of a slackening demand at the price levels at which housing has been made available," and added:

"It is the present intention, therefore, to bring this program to a close as rapidly as present loans can be liquidated."

He said the last loan to be made under the Alaska Housing Program will be that for the Aleutian Homes Project at Kodiak, where 344 single-family units now are under construction for Navy personnel.

Since 1949, he said, 1,472 units of housing have been started with loan assistance under the program and another 5,538 units, principally in multi-family projects, have been assisted by liberalized FHA insurance terms.

Although the government expects to step out of its regular housing program in Alaska, Cole punned that the end of the Remote Dwelling Program is itself "remote."

This is the program undertaken to improve native housing as a means of cutting down the tuberculosis incidence. Limited to $500 per individual, the loans were largely for putting on floors and impermeable roofs in native quarters.

Of some $329,000 spent on this program, there was $218,000 outstanding as of Dec. 31. Most of this, the subcommittee was told, is in default.

Pere F. Seward of the Division of Community Facilities and Special Operations indicated he was dubious about the extent of future repayments.

"You loan it to an Eskimo on his personal note, which he cannot sign in the first place—he makes an X," he explained. "If the fur-trapping season is good, or if the fishing is good, he will pay it back, maybe."

Asked the rate of interest on loans to natives, Seward said it was four percent but added that "the Eskimo doesn't know anything about interest . . . we have had numerous occasions where he has paid the principal but not this interest business. Nobody told him anything about it. It doesn't understand it."