Any housing authority may undertake the development or administration, or both, of projects to assure the availability of safe and sanitary dwellings for persons engaged in national defense activities whom the housing authority determines would not otherwise be able to secure safe and sanitary dwellings within the vicinity thereof, but no housing authority shall initiate the development of any such project pursuant to this chapter except during a period of war or national emergency declared by the President or the Congress of the United States.
S.C. Code § 31-11-20