Housing Projects Curtailed As Married Vets Decrease

With the number of married students decreasing, the University last night announced a further curtailment in the emergency housing program undertaken at the end of the war.

Plans call for an orderly withdrawal from such temporary housing in Boston and Cambridge, to be completed by the Fall of 1951.

The University's plans call for:

(1) Increased rentals on all temporary housing, effective in the fall of 1950, to make these projects self-supporting. The amount of the increase will not be determined until total cost figures for the current academic year are available next June.

(2) Occupancy limited strictly to married veteran students who are degree candidates. Tenants who have completed degree work or are taking only a limited program will be eliminated.

(3) Removal of 72 units of temporary housing at Harvard Way Extension (adjoining the Graduate School of Business Administration in Boston) in the summer of 1950.

(4) Removal of remaining FPHA temporary units in the summer or fall of 1951. These include 36 units at Andover Court, 18 units on Memorial Drive at Western Avenue, 6 units on Francis Avenue and 6 units on Massachusetts Avenue at Jarvis Street, all in Cambridge.

(5) Closing of three cooperative houses operated by the University in Cambridge by the fall of 1951, or earlier if demand falls off materially. These dwellings-- at 9 Oxford Street, 9 Bow Street and 3 Channing Place--have accommodated 18 student families.

174 Units Unaffected

The University is informed that the 174 permanent housing units not owned, by the University but offered married students at Shaler Lane, Holden Green and Gibson Terrace by The Trustees of the Harvard Housing Trust are not affected. Rental conditions there, it is expected, will remain unchanged.

The units involved are the remaining part of the temporary arrangements made by the University at the close of World War 11 to assist married veteran students in their housing. The number of married students reached a peak in the fall of 1946, when 3,300 were registered. The number has dropped to approximately 2,400 this year, and a further drop is indicated for subsequent years.

The majority of the married veteran students during these years have lived in privately-operated dwellings, obtained in part through the cooperation of the University Housing Office.

Many Occupants Graduating

A recent survey indicated that about 50 percent of the married students now occupying temporary housing under University auspices would be completing there courses by the fall of 1950. With a few exceptions, remaining tenants expect to finish by September, 1951.

Immediately after the end of World War II, the University established a special housing office for married student veterans. Under its guidance, family units were provided in temporary war-surplus housing in Cambridge and Boston and at Harvardevens Village, near Ayer. The Hotel Brunswick was leased and furnished for the use of couples. Cooperative houses were established in Cambridge to provide for additional married student veterans.

Lack of demand caused the termination of the Brunswick Hotel operation in June of 1948. In the fall of 1948, the army announced that it would take over Harvardevens Village in June of 1949. Family units on Jarvis Field were removed last summer to make way for the new Graduate Center, to be opened next fall, which will provide permanent dormitory facilities for 600 students.

On the basis of past experience, realestate consultants believe that most of the families displaced by the new program who require continued residence near the University can be accommodated.

They believe that it is becoming progressively less difficult for married students to locate quarters outside University control and that rental housing conditions will continue to improve.