DEGREES OF CROWDING

Evening Post, Issue 28, 1 August 1936, Page 8

DEGREES OF CROWDING

In England and Wales, it is cabled, 341,554 families are "overcrowded." What does "overcrowded" mean? Recently "Focus" (monthly publication of the New Zealand Local Bodies' Officers Guild) analysed the British overcrowding regulations, and came to the conclusion that, subject to certain room measurements, five persons living in three rooms would not bo "overcrowding." What sort of a home would it be? It could consist of two 11 x 10 iooms, and one 10 x 7 room, plus bathroom and a small scullery; but the scullery would not be an eating-room, and therefore the five people would use one of the other rooms as a sitting-room and meal-room besides its being probably a bedroom. If this is not overcrowding, then it seems to be clear that real overcrowding under the British regulations means a high degree of crowding.. A New Zealand definition of overcrowding would probably have to insist on more room per person, and perhaps be different in other ways.

The cablegram speaks of units. A child aged from one to ten years is a half-unit; any other human being is a unit, except babies under one year, who are not counted in the scale. Therefore the five persons in the three rooms could be accompanied by unrecorded babies. Down below the level of three rooms housing five persons plus babies, come other tenements that contain still more people and are therefore officially overcrowded; and there are 341,554 such families, who average 5.6 units per family. Compare this with the 3.11 units per. family of those families which are not officially overcrowded—slill remembering that babies do not count in the unit computation. According to "Focus," two units can be in one room, three units in two/rooms, five units in three rooms, seven and a half units in four rooms, and ten units in five rooms, without being "overcrowded." "Focus" suggests that a New Zealand overcrowding definition would need to insist on one room per family being for kitchen and meal purposes, not sleeping. A definition would enable overcrowding statistics to be compiled here as in Britain, but it would not be the British definition.