HOUSING IN WAR TIME: NEW BRITISH MOVES

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23808, 30 November 1942, Page 4

HOUSING IN WAR TIME: NEW BRITISH MOVES

WAR WORKERS

Two distinct housing problems have been created in Britain by industrial developments during the war. Intne one case work has been concentrated in towns where war industries already had their home; factories have been duplicated, and shifts doubled. The foreseeable result has been an acute congestion of population and crowding of houses, to the exclusion of comfort, and finally to the hindrance of increasing factory output through lacK of living room for an increased number of factory workers. In the other case factories have been located in the recesses of the country, where there were neither houses nor work people, and both had to be supPl *The Ministry of Supply, which was building these rural factories buiU great hostels as well, and the Ministry of Aircraft Production likewise built hostels in the neighbourhood of some of its expanding factories. When all the requirements were examined by the Factory Welfare Board of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, they were found to be much larger than had been contemplated, and a great additional building programme had to be prepared. Hostels require management and complete canteen and housekeeping staffs. The management of the first hostels of the Ministry of Supply was undertaken by voluntary societies, and the first hostels of the Ministry of Aircraft Production were left m charge of caterers. When the larger building plans began to mature, the hands or the voluntary societies were already fUll ‘ A Social Experiment

The Minister of Labour, therefore, set up a National Service Hostels Corporation—a company with a limited guarantee and not trading for profit—to undertake direct management. As now planned, the corporation will control 58 industrial hostels to accommodate 40,000 people; 17 temporary hostels (for persons made homeless by enemy action), to accommodate 5Z,000, five constructional hostels (for building trade workers) to accommodate 3300; five residential seamens hostels to accommodate 300; and five non-resi-dential seamen’s hostels. ' Industrial hostels are a new social experiment, and the corporation is a pioneer institution. Its management policy rests on the assumption that the hostels can be made so attractive by the quality and price of the accommodation, the catering and general amenities, including ’entertainments and sports, that they will be fully occupied and that they will, through their comfort, contribute to the contentment of the workpeople. . . There is no power to direct a worKman or a workwoman to live in a prescribed place. He can be “directed to a particular place of work but not, in the same sense of the word, to a lodging. The Ministry accepted the obligation to assist transferred workers to suitable lodgings; and it was a corollary of this service, wheri lodgings fell short of needs, to make provision in hostels. , , , . , The actual building of the, hostels was undertaken by the Ministry of Works and Building. When the corporation took them over it set out to make them cheerful and comfortable and “to furnish all the amenities of home life on a communal basis.” So far as possible the hostel community will be self-disciplined and in the arrangement of its social life self-direct-ing. but with the assistance of sports and entertainment officers. According to the general - plan a house committee acts as a vigilance committee and the entertainments and sports also have their several committees. The hostels have libraries, simple shopping facilities when circumstances require them, and postal facilities at week-ends when there are letters and remittances to send home and savings certificates to buy. Help for the Lonely A group of hostels planted among green fields will house a population equal to that of a small town. Eight hostels on the outskirts of one overcrowded town, with seven others still to be begun, will provide living room for fully 13,500 people. A large hostel consists of a score or more of single-storey buildings and may have a thousand residents. The main block of buildings normally contains the administrative offices in the centre, with the canteen, the kitchen, and the storerooms in one wing, and an assembly hall for dancing, cinema shows, and concerts, a lounge, a library, and a writing-room in the other. Detached from the main building, the dormitories contain 48 individual cubicles built in two wings, with an

[By a Special Correspondent of "The Times.”]

ablution block between them, . dormitory blocks are under supervision of a house warden Jir is an assistant housekeeper- , dormitories have male house stewS* All the work of the dormitorTpJ ■ done by the staff. Tire house warrii! combines with supervision of the dn mitories just so much the women residents as will ensH her to offer help in circumstances personal difficulty or loneliness “ In the ablution blocks there bathrooms and shower baths. jjJ: as well as women have need for, laundry where they can wash cloth ing, and washing, drying, and iron?, equipment is provided in a washhonS where it is also desirable to-Jjwye 5? or two women who will 5 washing of small articles™*/a fa! charge. The main washing goes to 1 laundry. 1 Special Facilities For women there is a hairdressfe. room. Where a few hundred womS have been brought together for work it is possible that one may be a professional hairdresser who willingly undertake hairdressing as 1 leisure occupation, and probably a are expertly, if not professionally able to do the trimming and setting which their friends require. There is a part, time medical service, and for minor ill. nesses a sick bay in charge of > matron, who has a nurse and one or more assistant nurses, on her staff For the food and lodging of the hostel (not including the midday taeal which is taken in the works canteen) a man pays 27s 6d and a woman 22i 6d. These charges were fixed by the Minister of Labour on the recommej. dation of an advisory committee, and may perhaps be sufficient in a fully occupied hostel, thoroughly efficient and economically managed, to meet the running costs. It is, however doubtful if they will do so. The buK ing and equipment costs, which have been heavy, were ignored in the fixing of the charges. Treated as an industrial necessity for war workers the whole of the capital cost has been accepted as a liability of the country, and the board and lodging are pro-* vided at prices that are certainly generous. The question of the relative merits of mixed hostels or separate hostels for the sexes has not been decided. In original intention there were to bi hostels for men and hostels for worm but circumstances made it convenient to admit men and women to the same hostel. The practice is likely to extend and to become the settled policy, ' Personal Recognition First impressions are apt to impart a bias which, if unfavourable, will be hard to change. Particular care it therefore needed to make the arrival of new residents agreeable. They may be coming, tired and hungry after a long journey, to a strange part of the country to live among strangers, and possibly to work in unaccustomed conditions. A cold and formal reception for a young woman already inclined to homesickness would be disheartening. The reception is personal and cordial. The formal procedure is that of a hotel where the guest registers name and address, but here it must be a little more elaborate, and include the name of the firm by whom the guest is to be employed and an authorisation to deduct the hostel charges regularly from the week's wages. That done, the manager, or one of his immediate staff, shows the new arrival round the place, and a hot and refreshing meal is always served. If many arrive together, as in a'hosiers early days, they are introduced W-their new surroundings in small parti«,ank much is done to prevent a loneliness or isolation, Good management ,is vitaljf T/ff Hostels Corporation will entrust fc* management of a mixed hostel If either ia man or a woman with the essential qualifications of ability and force of character. A remarkable experiment has been made in Cumberland, where a spick and span hostel, all newly painted and clean, was made over to navvies engaged on work an hour’s journey away. It « in beautiful country, and the manager, a woman who was formerly a.hospital matron, decorated it with wild flowers for the men’s arrival and made them welcome. . These men are living as they have never lived before, well housed and well cared for. Never, perhaps, has the influence of environment been more swift or more noticeable, in* men’s pride in the hostel, cleanb ness and good order, was. immediate, and their vigilance committee set up a high standard of behaviour.