What factors precipitated housing crisis for immigrants and the working poor?

What needed to change? How does this crisis mirror/relate to current conditions of housing in New York?

 

 

The population of immigrants in New York City increased during the 1850 – 1880. During this time, many people were coming to the United States, especially New York. As a result, of the inflation of immigrants in New York, it caused overcrowded and housing issues arise in the heavily populated areas. Many single houses became multifamily homes by extending the property line and increasing the lot sizes. This led to various problem dealing with sanitation, plumbing, overcrowd building, lack of natural sunlight and poor air quality.

Immigrants faced challenging living condition when they arrived in the United States. Landlords permitted 8 to 9 people to live in a single room going against the law. This law was often ignored because building owners paid off city officials to look the other way. Homeowners would max out their housing capacity so more individuals can live in it. Immigrants didn’t have much of a choice but to live in these houses with limited space. People started to buy more land and capital in the 1840s because a lot of people were coming around the world to live in the United States to get better jobs.

One of the main problems with overcrowded buildings was the sanitation and plumbing. There was garbage on the streets for days and sanitation workers would need at least three to four trips a day to get rid of the waste. Plumbing wasn’t any better, for every twenty people they had to share one water closet. The rooms had no vented air or natural light coming in making the environment very hard to breathe in. The streets were grimy and covered with horse manure. When a horse would die on the street, it would be left there for weeks. These poor living conditions lead to disease and other illness that caused people to get sick and die. One change that was needed was for sanitation to do frequent pickup days to get the trash. Plumbing can be improved by increasing the number of bathrooms available to the tenants. The venation systems in the building can be improved by adding windows and working venation systems such as central air.

Currently, in New York, there are housing situations like tenement building from the past. In Chinatown’s Lower Eastside chinses immigrants are forced to live in cramp rooms measuring 54 square foot cubical that they often share with another person. Tenants have shared the same bathroom, laundry area, and cooking space. These immigrants typical make a low income by working low wage jobs.