REHABILITATING THE TRAMP.I

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 76, 29 March 1924, Page 19

REHABILITATING THE TRAMP.I

FREE MEALS AND BATHROOMS.

Metropolitan Asylums Board has established a hostel for the rehabilitation o[ tramps.

The hostel, off Gray's Inn Road, Is like a free boarding-house where guests art entertained for a week or bo, and provided with facilities for obtaining employment.

There Is acconimodatton for about 100 men, each of whom is provided with a little sleeping cabin which is furnished comfortably, even to a spring bed with good quality sheets and an attractive bed-spread.

In the dining ball tbc guests gatbcr three times a day for meals at tables, each of which has accommodation for a party of eigbt or nine, while In the day room newspapers are provided so that the men may keep In touch with advertisements. The hostel has bathrooms, with hot and cold water, and a special ablution room with basins similarly equipped.

Should a man be taken ill be receives medical attendance and is removed to hospital.

The guests' day commences at 7 a.m. In winter. Then coincs a moat breakfast, with a pint of cocoa. Dinner at one o'clock consists of eight ounces of freshly-cooked meat, with vegetables and practically unlimited bread. For tea, there is a pini of tea, bread, margarine, and cheese. The only restriction on liberty is that men must

be in bed by 11 p.m. aud smoking is not permitted In their rooms, which they keep dead themselves.

The guests are selected by the ward superintendents from men wuo pa e s through the casual wards of the board. In tliis wfly Rome hundreds of "onsun.ls" lmv«? been given a clianee to rehabilitate themselves.

One wbo. having passed through the hostel, supplied the foregoing particulars, writes: " I can never be too grateful to the Asylums Board and Its officers for giving mc another chance to become a decent member of society. My strength was built up by generons feeding, and now I am in work again."