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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 30, 1962)
rgentina Housing By LARRY DAY Buenos Aires lUPIi The fet ed "Villas Miserias' or "Mis ery Villages" that surround Buenos Aires are symptoma tic of one of Argentina's most acute problems - housing. A team of experts from the Inter American Develop ment bank which visited Ar gentina recently estimated there is a deficit of 1.5 million dwellings in this country. Worst of the problem are the rag-tag tin and packing crate shacks clumped together in the "Villas Miserias," in which some 750,000 persons live. In thousands of other cases three and four families of middle class Argentines live under one roof, sharing one bathroom and one kitchen. Engaged couples either have to move in with their in-laws when they marry or put off the wedding, sometimes for years, while they hunt for an apartment. And yet, Argentina is not a landlord's paradise. Not long ago a man who owned three apartment houses com mitted suicide because, as he said in a note, he couldn't even pay taxes on his proper ty with the earnings from the apartments. 'Key Money' It is an exaggeration with all too real consequences. Landlords place ads saying "Lovely Two-R o o m Apart ment, Close In, 13,000 Pesos (115 dollars) a Month." To rent a house in a nice neigh borhood costs anywhere from S350 to $1000 dollars a month. People who rent apartments with relatively low monthly rents pay the owner as much as S1000 dollars in a sort of down payment called "key money." Then there are families who occupy whole floors of apart ment houses and pay less than S50 dollars a month rent. Fam ilies living in three or four room homes who pay S5 a month. Owners of entire apartment houses have mar ried children living with them because they can't vacate any of their apartments. A military junta caused this situation in 1944 when it overthrew the existing gov ernment. The junta froze rents at their 1944 level and ruled that no one could be dis located from their dwellings for any reason except non payment of rent. Then came the era of Dic tator Juan Domingo Peron. The 1944 decrees were made law and put on the statute books. An inflationary spiral that started in the 40's and continues today pushed prices sky high. But rents stay froz en. It was then that the black market "key money" came in- Silent Auction Is Set This Weekend At Ashland Library Ashland-The annual Silent Auction of books and prints from exhibits and collections of the Institute of Renaissance Studies will be held Friday through Sunday at the Ash land public library. A number of fine prints and valuable publications will be offered, to be awarded on the basis of the highest written bid submitted by interested persons. Of particular interest in the collection will be a print of Rembrandt's famous "A r i s totle Musing on the Bust of Homer." The original of the painting was brought last year by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a reported S2.000, 000. Among publications to be fold are a number of dupli cate books from the Festival collection. Also available will be copies of "Drama and Re ligion in English Mystery Plays," an authoritative work by recent Institute Lecturer Dr. Eleanor Prossor. Included In Selections Included in the large selec tion of prints to be offered will be "The Queen's Leaves." tt portfolio of four illustra tions bearing on the current Festival season. The 1962 edition of the Queen's Leaves features "Street Cries of London," the work of Orlando Gibbons which formed the musical basis for this season's music dance production of "A Thieves Ballad." Each print bears a number of figures and musical notations from Gib bon's famous work. Biddins slice's may be ob tained at (he library desk or the Plaza information boolh. The written bids should be left with Institute personnel or at the library rick only. Institute Director Dr. Mar gerv Bailey has reminded pa trons and FesSival company members that the Friday-Sunday period marks the final sale cf the noted publication "Ashland Studies in Shake-jpeare." f-J mm - "JJ 'QUONSET TOWN' Housing is one of Argentina s most acute proolems. A team of experts from tne Inter American Development Bank which visited Argentina recently esti mated there is a deficit of 1.5 million dwellings in Buenos Aires. One solution is "Quonset Town," a couple of miles 4 : 11.1:, I ! 'VILLAS MISERIAS' This is on of the worst problems in Argentina, according to a team from the Inter American Develop ment Bank. These are rag-tag tin and pack ing crate shacks clumped together in fetid "misery towns" that surround Bueons Aires Federal Grant for 'Project English' Is Given to University Eugene - University of Ore gon President Arthur S. Fle.n ming announced this week the university has received a $250,000 federal grant to ac tivate a half - million - dollar "Project English" center. The grant from the U.S. Office of Education of the De partment of Health, Educa tion, and Welfare is for the establishment of a Curriculum Study Center in English at the university. The center will be financed with the quarter-of-a-million-dollar grant, supplemented with funds and services from the university and from Ore gon public schools. "Project English" is a na tional program for the im provement of the study of English in the United States. With the grant, Oregon be comes one of four universi ties and the only western uni versity in "Project English" up to now. Grants were made last year, under the program, to the University of Nebras ka, Carneigie Institute of Technology, and Northwest ern university. Oregon's new study center will be involved in "A Five Year Study of Sequential Cur riculum in Language, Read ing and Composition" under the direction of Dr. Albert R. Kitzhaer, according to Dr. Kester Svendsen, head of the university's English depart ment. The five-year program of the Center will be directed to ward major revision and im provement of the curriculum in language, literature, and written and oral composition in grades seven through twelve. A major aspect in revision will be that the curriculum will be conceived on a broad base to take account of the needs and limitations of all students except the slowest. Clarification of the aims and content of the English curriculum in language, liter ature, and oral and written composition will be an ob- THE j DANMOORE ! HOTEL 1 217 SW. Mormon Sf. j PORTLAND, OREGON All rrln!int jueM. AM rhoM "he : come, return. Rjrei not high, not low. Free giragc, TV's ind rjdios. ' Reputition tor cleanliness. ) Children Under j Seven No Charge fa W& fcfe- 4 jective of the Center, which will endeavor to develop a sequential pattern of instruc tion and bring the content of the curriculum into harmony with the current state of knowledge about languages, writing, the relation of speech to writing, and other relevant subjects. Development of tests and measures for achievement of students in the new curricu lum also is an objective. Means of training compe tent teachers for presentation of the revised curriculum also will be a phase of the Center program. Summer institutes and in-service programs dur ing (he school year will be in cluded in this part of the program. The House of Personal Service 4th and Fir Phone 772-7315 VlCnSfS Nebergall'AIIMeat lb. 39 Corned BeeL 0. ,69c Round Steak 79c VealShould'rSleak.59c Veal Round Steak fc 95c 13 LOCKER SPECIAL Klamath Fed LOCKER BEEF H.lf or Whole.. 25 lbs. BEEF Family Order. .. S1 298 MEDKORD MAIL TRIBUNE. Deficit ,lW ' from the ' villa miscna ' or "misery town ' of Lacarra. Two hundred metal quonset homes have been built and sold to former misery town dwellers. This picture was taken earlier this month. (UPI) like an ugly necklace. This picture, taken earlier this month, shows main street of Lacarra on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. The man in the background is selling bread and soup bones door to door. (UPI) to use. Landlords could charge only the given price set by the rent administration for their dwellings. To make up for the loss they charged ex horbitant under-the-table flat payments - key money. Relaxed Law When Peron was tossed out, the government relaxed the rent laws. Landlords can now charge as much as they want for new apartments or dwellings newly vacated. But old tenants can be charged no more than they paid the day they moved in, with slight in creases for things like upkeep. The misery villages and their occupants present anoth er problem. The villages started to be a serious problem right after the war when people stream ed from the farms and small towns to urban centers. These people invariably were unlearned, unskilled and unprepared for any but the most menial tasks. They came from the interior where con- YSTAL MEATS CUT - WRAPPED - QUICK MEDFOHD. OREGON Estimated About 1.5 ' r . i&t If veniences were unknown, so it was nothing new to have the nearest running water five blocks away at a public faucet. Kerosene lamps for light were an improvement they didn't enjoy in the coun try. In short, a ramshackle tarpaper and packing crate shanty was an improvement over the dirt floors and thatched roofs they had known. Peron and his wife Eva were responsible for many of today's villas miserias. The Perons brought thousands of country folk into Buenos Aires to take part in their demagogic mass rallies. Once here they never returned. Another cause of the misery villages' growth were econom ic or political crises in other Latin American countries. In times of strife or poverty, thousands of Paraguayans, Chileans and Bolivians pour into Argentina. They too usu ally ended up in a misery vil lage. Mud Knee Deep Pedro Gontangelo, 43, lives in a villa miseria called La carra. Not far from his home 33 cniidren were Killed re cently when a train hit their school bus. Gontangelo's own three children take turns fetching water in converted fo please any cat all tuna liver 'n meat chicken tish meaty mix kidney n meat 47' lb. FROZEN li cooking oil cans from a public faucet two blocks away. Gon tangelo's wife washes her clothes in a concrete tub in stalled near the same faucet. When it rains the trails be tween the houses get knee deep In mud. Gontangclo l.n t from the Interior. He used to work on the railroad and his family lived well. But he ran into a string of bad luck. "When you live here, ' he told a reporter and you wade in the mud and you watch your children run barefoot, and you know you've done everything you can and it isn't enough, you lose hope. You get so you just don't care." A couple of miles away MADE WITH LIQUID V r" 4L i " "Lu- """ CV T'"V ( JfJP Si 1 VEMTABIE Oil. HHSH IN itiJL ' TKK 1 ' 7i I fjF $11 vl i i kflS Vk I .n'ToVlp V JUST MAIL IN A LABEL FROM A Here's all you do to get your 3Q cash! Send in the major part of the lahel from a quart (or 2 pints) of Miracle Whip Salarl Dressing plus your name and address. Use the handy blank at the right or a plain sheet of paper. Kraft will send you 30 cash to use for any fresh fruit or vegetables you choose. So treat your family today to the world's most famous salad dressing. Enjoy Miracle Whip and a big bargain, toot from Lacarra is a project which might help people in the misery villages start eat ing again. Two hundred me tal quonset homes have been built and sold to former Mis ery Village dwellers. There are a few hundred more in other parts of the city. Outsiders call the houses "Tin Pipes" and say they'd never live in one. But those who have a floor for the first lime, and a dry ceiling, don't knock the quonsets. Plans have been marie to build 10, 000 of them. They cost 70,000 pesos (roughly S600 dollars) and are sold with no down payment and $6 dollars a month rent. It Example THURSDAY. AUGUST 30. 1962 ilislion An example of the problem of the homeless middle class is Pablo Casal, 23, a Para guayan university student. He is married and has a one-year-old son. A reporter accompanied him in his search for a home. For two weeks Casal haunt ed the rental agencies. Usual ly he'd pay a fee (up to S4 dollars) for a list of prospects. Typical of these "listings" was one found in a rundown area called Villa Ballester outside Bueons Aires. The house was an hour and a half by train and bus from downtown. Located on the corner of two unpaved streets, the house was unfinished both in side and out. The apartment CLIP THIS! (or use a plain sheet of paper) j MIRACLE WHIP SALAD DRESSING, Box 6, San Francisco 1, Calif, j Enclosed is marnr portion ol the label from a quart ar j (or 2 ptnts) ol Miracle Whip. Please send me 30i cash to ! use lor Iresh fruit or vegetables. j (ej Address Cny GHr tipir$ 0cmbtr 3tt C 3 Units for rent consisted of two un plastered rooms, a three foot wide bath and a small patio. A naked bulb dangling from the ceiling in each room pro vided the only light and run ning water was "conditional." That is, you got water when it wasn't all used up by peo ple further up the line. The owner - who lived in the other half of the house -wanted 2000 pesos (about $20 dollars) rent. Casal was heart ened. Such a rent was within his budget. He earned about 9000 a month. "But of course you have to pay me 36,000 key money," said the owner. Casal finally packed up his family and went back to Para guay. QUART OF PI prtnt) -Zone State-, t99?. Utnlt 3flt to Umlly.
