The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), also known as the Office of Housing within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is a United States government agency founded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, established in part by the National Housing Act of 1934. Its primary function is to provide insurance for mortgages originated by private lenders for various types of properties, including single-family homes, multifamily rental properties, hospitals, and residential care facilities. FHA mortgage insurance serves to safeguard these private lenders from financial losses. In the event that a property owner defaults on their mortgage, FHA steps in to compensate the lender for the outstanding principal balance.
Levittown is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York. It is a suburb of New York City, located halfway between the villages of Hempstead and Farmingdale. As of the 2010 census, the CDP had a total population of 51,881, making it the most populous unincorporated CDP in Nassau County and the second most populous CDP on Long Island, behind Brentwood.
Bristol Township is a township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 54,582 at the 2010 census, making it the 13th largest municipality in the state. Bristol Township, along with Bristol Borough, is a cultural hub for Lower Bucks County, hosting celebrations of African and Latino heritage. Parts of the township consist of the neighborhoods of Fairless Hills and Levittown. It is located within the Delaware Valley.
Levittown is a census-designated place (CDP) and planned community in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The population was 52,699 at the 2020 census, down from 52,983 at the 2010 census.
Middletown Township is a township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 46,040 at the 2020 census. Many sections of Levittown are located in the southern end of the township. The municipality surrounds the boroughs of Langhorne, Langhorne Manor, Penndel and Hulmeville; much of the township beyond Levittown uses Langhorne as its mailing address. The township is located within the Delaware Valley, also known as the Philadelphia metropolitan area.
Charles Herbert Allen was an American politician and businessman. After serving in state and federal elected positions, he was appointed as the first United States-appointed civilian governor of Puerto Rico when the U.S. acquired it after the Spanish–American War. He previously had served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley.
William Jaird Levitt was an American real-estate developer and housing pioneer. As president of Levitt & Sons, he is widely credited as the father of modern American suburbia. In 1998 he was named one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century." While Levitt is credited as being the "father of Suburban development" with the creation of Levittown, NY, this township was founded with overtly racist policies at the behest of Levitt. African Americans or any other minority was prohibited from purchasing or otherwise settling in Levittown, setting the stage for other suburban towns nationwide. Levitt wrote [in the Levittown standard lease, clause 25, 1947] " Levittown homes must not be used or occupied by any person other than members of the Caucasian race."
An FHA insured loan is a US Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance backed mortgage loan that is provided by an FHA-approved lender. FHA mortgage insurance protects lenders against losses. They have historically allowed lower-income Americans to borrow money to purchase a home that they would not otherwise be able to afford. Because this type of loan is more geared towards new house owners than real estate investors, FHA loans are different from conventional loans in the sense that the house must be owner-occupant for at least a year. Since loans with lower down-payments usually involve more risk to the lender, the home-buyer must pay a two-part mortgage insurance that involves a one-time bulk payment and a monthly payment to compensate for the increased risk. Frequently, individuals "refinance" or replace their FHA loan to remove their monthly mortgage insurance premium. Removing mortgage insurance premium by paying down the loan has become more difficult with FHA loans as of 2013.
Rexford Guy Tugwell was an American economist who became part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first "Brain Trust", a group of Columbia University academics who helped develop policy recommendations leading up to Roosevelt's New Deal. Tugwell served in FDR's administration until he was forced out in 1936. He was a specialist on planning and believed the government should have large-scale plans to move the economy out of the Great Depression because private businesses were too frozen in place to do the job. He helped design the New Deal farm program and the Resettlement Administration that moved subsistence farmers into small rented farms under close supervision. His ideas on suburban planning resulted in the construction of Greenbelt, Maryland, with low-cost rents for relief families. He was denounced by conservatives for advocating state-directed economic planning to overcome the Great Depression.
Levittown, a community in the San Juan MSA and part of the municipality of Toa Baja, is one of the largest planned communities in Puerto Rico. Per the 2020 census, the population was 25,591.
Six Moon Hill is a residential neighborhood and historic district of mid-century modern houses in Lexington, Massachusetts.
The Elmwood District is a neighborhood of the City of Berkeley, California. It is primarily residential, with a small commercial area. The district does not have set lines of demarcation, but is focused around College and Ashby Avenues. The most extreme definitions of the district's boundaries do not extend past Telegraph Avenue to the west, Dwight Way to the north, or the Oakland city limit to the south. Elmwood was a streetcar suburb that was developed in the 1900s housing boom following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and was the first Berkeley subdivision to be assigned single-family residential zoning.
In the United States, subsidized housing is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below the market rate, allowing people to live in more convenient locations rather than move away from the city in search of lower rents. In most federally-funded rental assistance programs, the tenants' monthly rent is set at 30% of their household income. Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S. consisted primarily of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local housing authorities which are authorized and funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2020, there were one million public housing units. In 2022, about 5.2 million American households that received some form of federal rental assistance.
Levitt & Sons was a real estate development company founded by Abraham Levitt and later managed by his son William Levitt. The company is most famous for having built the town of Levittown, New York. The company's designs and building practices revolutionized the home building industry and altered the north eastern landscape of the United States with massive suburban communities.
Reverend Willie R. James, Sr. served as an important early civil rights activist in New Jersey starting in late 1950s and helped to end housing discrimination in that state. James later became head of the Burlington County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and remained active in social issues including fighting poverty, job discrimination and ending the death penalty.
SS William Rawle was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after William Rawle, an American lawyer in Philadelphia. Rawle was appointed as United States district attorney in Pennsylvania, in 1791. He was a founder and first president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and for 40 years a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania.
Eight Mile-Wyoming area is located nearly 10 miles (16 km) from Paradise Valley on the northern boundary of Detroit and minimally resembled inner-city neighborhoods. Originally settled in the 1920s by thousands of optimistic migrant farmers, the area became a settlement opportunity for Blacks to construct and own their own homes. The area was fought over for development and housing projects for decades and represented an isolated concentration of Blacks in a vast population of whites.
Daisy D. Myers was an African-American woman who lived with her family in Levittown, Pennsylvania, reportedly designed to be an all-white town, beginning in 1957. She faced months of harassment and violence before security forces intervened to protect the family, leading her to be dubbed the "Rosa Parks of the North".
Carver Court is a historic housing development located at Foundry Street and Brooks Lane near Coatesville in Caln Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Built in 1944 in the International Style, Carver Court is important to understanding the African American experience in Coatesville. The development was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
