HOUSING PROBLEMS

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 76, 29 March 1924, Page 11

HOUSING PROBLEMS

NEED FOR LOWER RENTALS. FOR THE NEEDY AGED. Speaking yesterday in reference to the relief work carried on by the Hospital Board, the chairman, Mr. W. Wallace, said that one of the great problems they had to face was the housing problem and the ever-soaring increasing rents. The board had little power to deal with ouch matters, save to sometimes help those who were in distress by helping them with their rents. He firmly believed, however, that if the board hud puwer to launch out on a particular line of housing scheme to fill the wants of many people who wanted little in the way of accommodation, save a roof to cover their heads and conveniences at a low rental, it would be a good thing.

There were many people of an independent turn of mind who had small annuities, nnd others with old-age pensions who had few, if any, friends who would like to be able to rent a couple of rooms nt a very low rental, so that they could have a placi> they could call tlieir own. \\itho"t having to go to our large institutions. It used to be quite ft common tiling a few years ago for elderly people to be able to get suitable rooms for six or seven shillings a ■neck, but that day was gone. The result of this was that many of these people not able to pay the high rents asked were compelled to go to the Costley Home, and that institution had never had a bigger waiting list than now. Xot enough effort was being made to provide suitable houses at a moderate rent, and the outlook in that respect could not by any stretch of the imagination be called very bright. In former times, too, fuel was cheaper and housekeeping expenses were less. A good deal of cooking had to be done nowadays by gas, as in dividing up their houses for letting and sub-letting people found it easier to put in gas cooking conveniences than brick chimneys. The figures supplied by the officers of the board, showing what it cost people in poor circumstances for cooking, had to put it mildly, simply surprised him, for in many cases it far exceeded what many of the members were paying in their own homes. How to meet such things was indeed a problem.