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fire hazards. Before 1892, all government involvement in housing was at a local level. In 1892, however, the Federal Government passed a resolution authorizing investigation of slum conditions in cities containing 200,000 or more inhabitants. At that time these included the cities of Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Washington. Much controversy surrounded the involvement of the Federal Government in housing. The Commissioner of Labor was forced to write an extensive legal opinion concerning the constitutionality of expenditures by the Federal Government in this area. The result was that Congress appropriated only $20,000 to cover the expenses of this project. The lack of funds limited actual investigations to Baltimore, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia and did not cover housing conditions in toto within these cities. Facts obtained from the investigation were very broad, covering items such as the number of arrests, distribution of males and females, proportion of foreign-born inhabitants, degree of illiteracy, kinds of occupations of the residents, conditions of their health, their earnings, and the number of voters. The 20th century started off rather poorly in the area of housing. No significant housing legislation was passed until 1929 when the New York State legislature passed its Multiple Dwelling Law. This law continued the Tenement Act of New York City but replaced man provisions of the 1901 law with less strict requirements. Other cities and states followed New York State's example and permitted less strict requirements in their codes. This decreased what little emphasis there was in enforcement of building laws so that during the 1920's the cities had worked themselves into a very poor state of housing. Conditions of America declined to such a state by the 30's that President Franklin D. Roosevelt's shocking report to the people was "that one-third of the nation is ill-fed, ill-housed, and ill- clothed." With this the Federal Government launched itself extensively into the field of housing. The first Federal housing law was passed in 1934. One of the purposes of this act was to create a sounder mortgage system through the provision of a permanent system of government insurance for residential mortgages. The Federal Housing Administration was created to carry out the objectives of this act. Many other Federal laws followed: the Veterans Administration becoming involved in guaranteeing of loans, the Home Loan Bank Board, Federal National Mortgage Association. Communities Facilities Administration, Public Housing Administration, and the Public Works Administration. With the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, the Federal Government entered the area of slum clearance and urban renewal, requiring one slum dwelling to be eliminated for every new unit built under the Housing Administration program. It was not until the passage of the Housing Act of 1949 that the Federal Government entered into slum clearance on a comprehensive basis. The many responsibilities in housing administered by various agencies within the Federal Government proved to be unwieldy. Hence, in 1966 the Department of Housing and Urban Development was created to have prime responsibilities for the Federal Government's 4