Welfare Housing – Houlton ME

Description

The Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) supported the construction of welfare housing in Houlton ME between 1933 and 1935.

Excerpts from the Annual Town Reports, Houlton Maine:

1933
Partial Cost of Houses Constructed For Welfare Department

13 people involved and the Houlton Planing Mill $1,337.83
Welfare Department – Labor Expenses 41 men employed as laborers $1,525.00 paid from R.F.C. Account. [Reconstruction Finance Corporation was rechartered by FDR to become a quasi National Bank lending agency]

ADMINISTRATION
Besides the High School lot, the Chairman personally supervised the building of six small houses which were occupied when built by those unable at that time to own or rent homes.

Report of Federal Activities in the 1937 Town Report:
Out of the balance of some $900.00 of this first allocation, a second project was accomplished. This included the building of a new road, some 1500 feet long, extending southerly off the Dump Road. The road opened up land owned by the Town where six new Welfare houses were constructed.

1934

FERA projects completed are…. Paint and Repair seven Welfare house, one of which was new construction;

PWA Projects Submitted by Board of Selectmen – As a result of a visitation of the Board of Selectmen by a representative of PWA on March 3, 1935, the following projects have been submitted to the Regional Director of PWA.
$5,000 for five new Welfare houses; and the digging of cellars and building of concrete walls under Welfare houses built in 1933.

1935

CONSTRUCTION OF WELFARE HOUSES $1,184

Welfare Labor Projects – Welfare Labor Projects have consisted in the erection of two new Welfare houses and the repair of two others.

When this author visited the site which is called Bridge Street, only one structure from the New Deal period remained. One recent construction house (perhaps 20 or so years), someones camper trailer and a dilapidated tar paper shack exist at the end of the road. The upper side of the street is taken up by a rental storage facility. The CWA house would be regarded as a tiny house today. According to a notice, the house is used in connection with a rehabilitation program. The condition looked OK from the outside.