Welcome to FLMA's Project Website for the Nomination of

Santa Rita Courts

An Austin, Texas Public Housing Project

to the National Register of Historic Places

I found one family that might be called typical. Living within one dreary room, where no single window let in the beneficent sunlight, and where not even the smallest vagrant breeze brought them relief in the hot summer-here they slept, here they cooked and ate, here they washed themselves in a leaky tin tub after carrying the water for 100 yards. Here they brought up their children ill-nourished and amid sordid surroundings. And on this Christmas morning there was no Santa Claus for the 10 children, all under 10 years old, who scrambled around the feet of a wretched mother bent over her washtub, while in this same room her husband, and the father of the brood, lay ill with an infectious disease.....

......No one is more proud of the beauty and attainments of the City of Austin than I.  But for that very reason I am unwilling to close my eyes to needless suffering and deprivation, which is not only a curse to the people immediately concerned, but is also a cancerous blight on the whole community......"

Congressman Lyndon Baines Johnson from his famous "Tarnish on the Violet Crown" speech, delivered on KNOW Radio January 23, 1938

(You can download a copy of the entire speech by clicking here)

Santa Rita Courts occupies a unique place in the history of twentieth century America. The first public housing project funded and built under the 1937 Housing Act that established local public housing authorities, the housing development still functions as public housing nearly seventy years later. This website has been developed to function as an online resource about this public housing community, its history, and its importance.

Santa Rita Courts was the first of three public housing projects built in Austin in the late 1930's.  Santa Rita, intended for occupancy by Mexican families, consisted of 40 units of modern "slum clearance" public housing.  Rosewood Courts, built for African-American families, consisted of 60 units, and Chalmers Courts, built for whites, consisted of 86 units.  All three housing projects were completed in 1939, are currently still in operation, and are managed by the Austin Housing Authority, now known as the Housing Authority of the City of Austin (HACA for short).  Three separate housing projects were built because of the segregationism common at the time.

There are quite a few resources available on the web that do a good job of explaining the history of the American public housing program in general, although few focus on specific public housing projects. The following websites offer a good introduction:

• The Wikipedia entry for public housing does a good job of explaining the concept from an international perspective.
• "The Public Housing Debate" website of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service does a good job of explaining some of the contradictions and difficulties faced by U.S. public housing since its inception. The discussion is focused on Texas and serves as a good basis for comparison with other states and municipalities.
• The former Techwood Homes housing project in Atlanta, which was demolished prior to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, holds the distinction of being the first fully federally funded public housing project in America. But it was NOT funded or built under the 1937 Housing Act, having been funded and built between 1935 and 1936.
• There were several other federally funded public housing developments built with the assistance of the housing division of the Public Works Administration (PWA) such as the Carl Mackley Houses in Philadelphia (entered into the National Register in 1998). The primary purpose of the PWA, however, was to generate jobs, not to build housing. Hence the passage of the Wagner-Steagall bill, the United States Housing Act of 1937. This law, among other things, established the United States Housing Authority.
• The HUD Office of General Counsel contains a pdf copy of the 1937 law, with amendments and changes from the 1998 Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998. The changes are interesting.
• This HUD website lists the major pieces of 20th century federal legislation governing housing in the United States.
• Three Housing Authorities were initially announced by President Roosevelt: New York, New Orleans, and Austin. Congressman Johnson--so the local story goes--had the grants announced in alphabetical order, knowing that recognition of Austin would precede New Orleans and New York. For a fuller description of what actually happened, click here for an excerpt from Ronnie Dugger's excellent 1982 biography of LBJ The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson.
• You may be asking, "so where IS the oldest public housing project in America?"  Good question, and there is no easy answer.  Two leading contenders for the title of "first public housing project" appear to be  the "First Houses" (on East Third Street in New York City (lower east side of Manhattan), which was built in 1934-35, and "Knickerbocker Village" on the lower east side, financed by a loan from the New York State Housing Board in 1933.  Senator Robert F. Wagner Sr. of New York, a strong New Dealer, was a Senate sponsor of the 1937 Housing Act.
• The New York City Housing Authority is the largest in the country.  Historically speaking, it is also one of the best managed.  Take a look at their "plan to preserve public housing" at their website.
• The Austin Housing Authority enjoys the distinction of being the first local housing agency (most of which were public housing authorities) to start construction and to move a resident into a development (Santa Rita Courts) built under the 1937 Housing Act.  Click here for the Wikipedia entry briefly describing the law.
  
  
• As a public service, I have scanned in, in its entirety, the very useful publication Urban Housing: The Story of the PWA Housing Division, 1933-1936. This is a LARGE file (~20mb). Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader greater than version 6.0 required.

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History and Background

• The first annual report of the Austin Housing Authority in 1939 serves as a leading primary source document about how Santa Rita Courts, Rosewood Courts, and Chalmers Courts were site selected, financed, constructed, occupied, and maintained. The pdf file reproduced here is a third generation scan from the files of the Austin History Center.
• The 1948 annual report and the 1988 annual report are also good historical documents, as well as highly informative. Several noteworthy developments took place between the 1939 and 1948 annual reports, perhaps most notably the growth in units at Chalmers and the lack thereof at Santa Rita. The addition of more units at Santa Rita came later.
• The LBJ Library in Austin has a good collection of historic photos of Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson visiting Santa Rita and its first Mexican and Mexican-American occupants from March of 1939. I have also included other historic photos in the file, including interior shots as well as a famous photograph of LBJ in front of what is now 2408 East 2nd. St. in East Austin. I visited the current occupants of that housing unit on 5 June, 2006 and took these photos of the exterior while there. The older photos were probably taken by Neal Douglass of the Austin Statesman.
• This pdf file contains newspaper clippings from the Austin American and the Austin Statesman from 1938 and 1939. Included is a picture of the actual signing of the 1937 Housing Act (LBJ is standing farthest on the left).
• The Sanborn Fire Insurance Company has produced excellent maps for well over a century.  An overlay of the 1935 Austin edition (updated between 1941 and 1953) includes this verbal and pictorial description of Santa Rita.  For the Sanborn map of Rosewood Courts, click here.
• For a recent satellite image of Santa Rita Courts from Google Maps click here. As with the Sanborn Map shown above, the original 40 units constructed in 1938-39 are to the lower right (eastward side) of the picture. For another satellite shot, with street names, click here.
• The USGS 7.5' quadrangle map topographic view of the nominated area can be found here.
• The Latitude/Longitude and UTM coordinates of the original 40 unit housing project are as follows:
  • Northeast corner, located approximately on the street corner of Santa Rita and Prowse is located at 30°15'24.1" N and 97°43'00.5" W. UTM coordinates are 14 623447 E and 3347926 N.
  • Northwest corner, located on the corner of Santa Rita and Pedernales streets is located at 30°15'23.6" N and 97°42'57.5" W. UTM coordinates are 15 623530 E and 3347913 N.
  • Southwest corner, located at Pedernales and 2nd, is at 30°15'19.5" N and 97°42'59.0" W. UTM coordinates are 14 623486 E and 3347791 N.
  • Southeast corner, located near 2402 East 2nd St. which has a latitude of 30°15'20.6" N and a longitude of 97°43'02.5" W. UTM coordinates are 14 623400 E and 3347824 E.
• The site forms an approximate rectangle with a length on either side of 450 feet and a width of 310 feet.

The National Register Nomination