John Ihlder was the executive officer of the Washington D.C. Alley Dwelling Authority and its successor agency the National Capital Housing Authority. Prior to those positions, Ihlder was a reporter for the New York Evening Sun, and he also served for a short time on the Municipal Affairs Committee of the Grand Rapids, Michigan

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...

 Board of Trade.

Ihlder was a strong supporter of public housing

Public housing

Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...

, and while directing the Alley Dwelling Authority, he refused to demolish slum

Slum

A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...

 residences until adequate public housing units were available for displaced persons. He also took a stand against white residents of Washington who sought to reserve public housing units for themselves, and ensured that the St. Mary's Court development in Foggy Bottom

Foggy Bottom

Foggy Bottom is one of the oldest late 18th and 19th-century neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. The area is thought to have received the name because its riverside location made it susceptible to concentrations of fog and industrial smoke, an atmospheric trait that did not prevent the neighborhood...

 would be available for black residents. Later, during the slum clearance and redevelopment of southwest Washington D.C. in the 1950s, he staunchly opposed plans to reduce the number of affordable housing units in the redevelopment plan.

Part of the John Ihlder Papers are at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York

Hyde Park, New York

Hyde Park is a town located in the northwest part of Dutchess County, New York, United States, just north of the city of Poughkeepsie. The town is most famous for being the hometown of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt....

.