The National Housing Act of 1934, Pub.L. 84–345, 48 Stat. 847, enacted June 28, 1934, also called the Capehart Act, was part of the New Deal passed during the Great Depression in order to make housing and home mortgages more affordable. It created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC).
The Act was designed to stop the tide of bank foreclosures on family homes during the Great Depression. Both the FHA and the FSLIC worked to create the backbone of the mortgage and home building industries, until the 1980s. (See Savings and loan crisis and Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 that ended the FSLIC, whose activities were moved to the FDIC.)
The Housing Act of 1937 built on this legislation.