On this day in Arlington history, October 28, 1944, the Arlington Sun reported that housing was needed for war workers NOW!
The article stated that “housing accommodations for war workers and military personnel in the Washington area are desperately needed, according to the National House Agency in Washington and owners and managers of apartment and private dwellings are urged to list any available space immediately.”
The newspaper went on to say that “illustrative of the acute need for houses and apartments in the Washington area, the National Housing Agency said that during September 6,301 applications were received for only 1,125 units available. Fairlington alone has a waiting list of more than 1300.”
The federal government had been planning for an influx of wartime workers years before the US officially entered World War II. In late 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a law to move the Department of Agriculture’s Experimental Farm from Arlington to Beltsville, Maryland to allow for an expansion of military housing.
This area became Arlington Farms, a housing complex of ten dormitories for female civil servants and service members. These were built in 1942–1943 and opened in October of 1943, but this didn’t begin to answer the need for housing in the region.
The housing at Arlington Farms, otherwise known as 28 acres of girls, was segregated and designated for select government workers with yearly salaries of $1,260 to $1,620. Four of the dorms housed military servicewomen and six were for civilian women.
But there was still not enough housing to match the sharp increase of federal employees looking to settle in Arlington. A 1942 survey found that 650 family housing units received 4,300 applicants. The federal government stepped in with multiple programs and initiatives to build houses in Arlington. These programs included Fairlington for white workers to the hastily built Green Valley trailer camp for African-American workers.
