888, enacted September 1, 1937), formally the "United States Housing Act of 1937" and sometimes called the Wagner–Steagall Act, provided for subsidies to be paid from the United States federal government to local public housing agencies (LHAs) to improve living conditions for low-income families.

Bauer drafted much of this legislation and served as a Director in the United States Housing Authority, the agency created by the 1937 Act to control the payment of subsidies, for two years.

The Housing Act of 1937 sought to eliminate what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt described as "habitations which not only fail to provide the physical benefits of modern civilization but breed disease and impair the health of future generations.

"[1] The legislation outlined four goals: providing housing, renewing existing living areas, decreasing density and the construction of sustainable communities.

[2] In order to deflect accusations of socialism and to protect private developers from competition, the act required the demolition of the same number of units of housing as would be built.

[8] In 1998, the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act (QHWRA) was passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton.