A New Housing Chief

To THE ALREADY overworked Washington alphabet the President has added the DDHC, a division of the Office of Production Management which will be in charge of "defense housing co-ordination." It will, in fact, have much more power than appears in the name, for the chief of the division, Charles F. Palmer, will assume control, apparently, of all Federal housing agencies. The most important of these is the FHA, if importance be measured in terms of extensive activity. But the United State Housing Authority under Nathan Straus is also to become one of the co-ordinated agencies, despite the attempts of the Administrator to tie his program to the preparations for defense.

How much money will be allotted to USHA hereafter may depend in part on what Mr. Palmer decides to do with the loan-and-grant machinery in the housing authority. Last November, when Mr. Palmer -was the housing expert for the National Defense Advisory Commission, he said that defense housing was primarily a task for private enterprise. This shrewd observation probably ruffled the fur of the bureaucratic Administrator of USHA.

CHARLES F. PALMER '18