AUCKLAND SLUMS

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27675, 3 June 1955, Page 3

AUCKLAND SLUMS

20 CLOSING ORDERS SOUGHT HOUSING COMMITTEE’S INSPECTION (New Zealand Press Association) m x AUCKLAND, June 2. Twenty closing orders under the Health Act to force the immediate vacating and demolition of slum dwellings are to be sought by the housing committee of the Auckland City Council. Five city councillors were nauseated at what they saw today when they m ade a brief inspection of slum areas with the chief city sanitary inspector (Mr C. F. Pauli). They disqussed the problem in the street, and decided on d more positive approach by invoking the Health Act in place of the Housing Act, which imposes, on the council the obligation of finding alternative accommodation. The Health Act places no such responsibility on the council.

The chairman of the housing committee (Mr D. M. Robinson) said he would ask the council to serve closing orders under the Health Act in 20 specific cases where the committee was satisfied that family incomes were adequate to allow the tenants to find somewhere else to live. The trouble in these instances, it was considered, lay in excessive drinking, abuse of property, and misuse and waste of income. Mounds of discarded liquor bottles were seen under some of the worst houses inspected today. . The councillors spoke of the “cold disinterest” shown in the problem by the Minister of Maori Affairs (Mr E. B. Corbett). It was a Government matter, they said, and it called for a courageous approach. .ir To s a y Robinson is sending to Mr Corbett a letter giving a list of the houses where the council proposes taking action to remove a health menace. He will tell the Minister there is no alternative accommodation for these persons, who will be put on the street, and that the Government “will have to face up to the facts.”