RELIEF TO BE GIVEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 167, 17 July 1931, Page 3

RELIEF TO BE GIVEN.

UNEMPLOYED SINGLE MEN. - - MONEY FOR RATIONS. MISSION SHELTER DEFENDED. Provided they can show satisfactory evidence that they have rooms to which they can go/ the Auckland Hospital Board will allow single unemployed men 6/ worth of stores weekly while they are not working. A decision to this effect was.come to by the relief commit, tee of the board yesterday afternoon, after representations on the subject had been made to it by six men who claimed that they represented the single unemployed of the city, who were forced to go to the-doss house against their will. . . . The principal speaker of the deputation said he did not wish the committee, to believe that the men who appeared before it. were growlers or Communists. They were workers who had been refused sustenance. Another member of the deputation said that if he could not get sustenance he would have to go to the dose house, and added: "I could not lower myself^to go to such a damnable place as that." Speaker Rebuked. The chairman of the board (Mr. William Wallace): Any more language like that, and I will close the deputation. We are not going to have more reflections cast on the doss house. i; The Rev. Jasper Calder is doing his best," added Mr. Wallace, "and you are killing a man who is trying to help you. You are not playing the game. We ask you as men to meet the position, but if you are going to bluff and bully the board, we are not going to assist you.. I would also ask you to remember there in a lady present. , ' The speaker who made the statement to which Mr. Wallace objected, said he was sorry if his statement was objectionable. The deputation was not trying to bully the board, but he was simply stating the case. The last time he applied for sustenance he was refused and told he had to go to the men's shelter. "It would be better if the board could give us a small amount of sustenance, enabling us to live much more decently than is possible in the environment of the shelter," he said. Questioned by Mr. W. K. Howitt, he admitted that the place where he lived had been raided by the police. It was the headquarters of the C.P. Mr. Howitt: What is the C.P.? The .Speaker: The Communist party. A further speaker, who said he had been in New Zealand nine months, said he knew that condtions at the doss house were far from being what they should be. A fourth member of the deputation contended that the food provided at the doss house was such that it did not enable a man to do a day's work. If the board could see ite way to provide rations to single men with rooms, he was sure they would be grateful. Mr. Wallace said that men who were working should not be at the doss house at all. Mr. Howitt wanted to know how men were going to succeed if they received only ration?. How were they going to meet their rent? A member of the deputation said that they could "make a do of it" where they had rooms supplied them by friende. Unfulfilled Promises. Mr. Howitt pointed out that the board had to receive the relief it gave by way of rations from the Government.- All the committee could do with the resources at its disposal was to provide for married men and women, and let the single meu go to the shelter. The committee should approach the Government. A reply was given to the effect that promise* had been made by the Govvernmont and nut fulfilled. The speaker argued that the single men paid their levy and paid towards charitable aid, and yet they were being forced into the do<s house. That was detrimental to the physical make-up of the youth of Auckland. Mr. Howitt said that if the men did not go to the doss hou*e. the committee could not force them there, but the committee was paying £45 a week towards it. It single men were given rations how were they going to pay the rent? "Chaps a re" doing all sorts of things these days."' was the reply. Mr. Howitt: Yes. and we know it. The rca-i'ii we subsidised the doss house was became we were t r dd that men could not pay their rent. The thing is preposterous. We cannot pay your rent and we cannot give you sustenance. The Government is allowing us £46.000 and we could do with £100.000. Shelter Becoming Overcrowded. The Rev. W. C. Wood said there was no doubt that the shelter was becoming overcrowded with 200 men patronising it. "We are reaching the stage when we are no longer justified in telling men to go to the shelter. Where men can show they have rooms in a respectable house it may be advisable to allow them rations." It was explained that all the members of the deputation had rooms, but the representations were made on behalf of many who had to go to the shelter. Mr. Wallace agreed that, providing men had a room with friends, it would be better to have them there than at the do>* house. After the deputation had retired, it was-decided to grant 6/ worth of stores weekly to single, men who had satisfactory rooms during such time as they were not working. The board, however, would not pay rent.