Flat Provision Urged

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31225, 24 November 1966, Page 3

Flat Provision Urged

(N.z. Press Association) Patriotic Council, that the

WELLINGTON, Nov. 23. The Patriotic Fund Board was today asked to consider the provision of flats for former servicemen pensioners unable to afford homes of their own.

question should b.e referred to the joint standing committee of the Patriotic Fund Board and the Canteen Fund Board was adopted at the fund’s annual meeting today. Mr B. O. Peterson, of Wellington, quoted the case of a man on social security who was paying £4 10s for accommodation without the provision of food and who had very little left for clothing. “They are not Isolated instances in Wellington. There are quite a number of them,” he said. The Wellington Provincial Patriotic Council felt that a property in Willis street belonging to the Patriotic Fund Board was suited for the erection of flats for former servicemen pensioners at a reasonable rental. Supporting the jnotion, Mr H. Mitchell, Dominion president of the R.S.A., said that Tauranga R.S.A. had very successfully operated a pen-

A motion by Mr R. C. Major of Whangarei, on behalf of the Northland Provincial

sioners’ flats settlement for a number of years, Christchurch R.S.A. had opened another series of pensioner flats, and Wellington R.S.A. was discussing with the city council the question of making a contribution to a city council housing scheme with priority for a portion of it being reserved for former servicemen. He understood that one of the difficulties was that the council had laid down a stipulation that the former servicemen must be citizens of Wellington, which restricted the area of the applications. Mr Mitchell said the Auckland R.S.A. was considering the establishment of pensioners’ flats.

Mills Due.—The Antarctic picket vessel, U.S.S. Mills, is due at Lyttelton from her ocean station tomorrow and after refuelling and storing, will sail for Dunedin, probably on Friday.