HUNDREDS WAIT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 41, 18 February 1944, Page 4

HUNDREDS WAIT

NO HOMES TO GO TO

EX-SERVICEMEN'S PLIGHT

There are 715 applications from ex-servicemen in the preference class for homes, and most of them are hardship cases, said Mr. A. P. Postlewaite, chairman, at a meeting of the executive of the R.S.A. last night. He added that he had been confronted with pitiful cases of distress, and a number of the wives of men who had served had produced medical certificates showing the urgency and genuineness of their cases. It was extremely difficult, he continued, to know what steps could now be taken in the matter. The association had explored practically every avenue that might' provide some amelioration of the present deplorable circumstances. Several Ministers, and the Prime Minister, had been approached, but there still did not appear to be any practical scheme to meet the position. Some ex-servicemen and their wives were living under deplorable conditions. Some had washhouses as places of abode, and children were being born in surroundings that were a disgrace to the community. Many of the men had no houses to go to. . Mr. E. J. L. Hogwood stated that at a former military installation on the North Shore there was accommodation for perhaps 100 families and it was going to waste. He considered that it should be used. He moved that the Minister of Rehabilitation be urged to make the first essential of rehabilitation the provision of houses for returned men and their families, and that the matter be treated as one of vital urgency. Mr. Hartley, Wilson stated that the authorities should be asked to hand over some of the vacant hutments from military establishments that were not in use. It would be only a temporary arrangement, but would be better than the present conditions in regard to housing. Mr. Hogwood's motion was carried unanimously.