PATRIOTIC FUND BOARD

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25933, 13 October 1949, Page 4

PATRIOTIC FUND BOARD

BIGGER EXPENDITURE: FORECAST HOMES FOR WAR VETERANS (New Zealand Press Association.) WELLINGTON, October 12. The Governor-General, who is chairman of the New Zealand Patriotic Fund Board, sounded a note of caution at a board meeting to-day. Next year’s balance-sheet, he forecast, would look very different from the satisfac-] tory balance-sheet shown this year. , His Excellency said cash . payments would be made in the coming year in connexion with new servicemen's homes at Christchurch and Three Kings and the establishment of a communal war veterans’ village at Okoroire. near Auckland. His Excellency congratulated board members on what had been achieved in the last year and thanked the board’s sub-committecs for the tremendous progress they had made. Al' the projects undertaken at the last annual meeting were now well in hand. Expenditure on projects during the next year would cost the. board a lot of money.

The board decided to go ahead with the establishment of the £250.000 war veterans’ communal village at Okoroire. Accommodation for aged and semi-convalescent veterans of the 193945 war will be eventually contained in the settlement, which the board named Okoroire Park. An architectural competition among war veteran members of' the New Zealand Institute of Architects was decided on for planning the village. The board dcc’ded to allocate £60.000 for starting the work. Applications for Assistance

Twenty-one applications for assistance from former servicemen were declined on investigation by the welfare committee of the board, it was reported. During the year 103 grants and loans totalling £12.396 were made to former servicemen for various purposes. Twenty-eight of the applications were for assistance to enable permanently disabled discharged servicemen to buy cars. The welfare committee reported that these men required transport to assist in they- rehabilitation or because they were so badly disabled that they needed a car to move round. Grants for cars amounted to £4507. Welfare funds also had been used to send the son of a discharged serviceman to the United States for a spinal operation aijd to help children of former servicemen who had contracted infantile paralysis. During the year £5OOO from the estate of the late Mrs Helen Ross, of Wellington, was spent on special grants to former servicemen needing help.