ACUTE DISTRESS MEN IN WASHHOUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 132, 7 June 1939, Page 12

ACUTE DISTRESS

MEN IN WASHHOUSE

CITY WANDERERS

SHELTER NEEDED

Inquiries made today reveal that the remarks made by the Rev. N. F. E. Robertshawe at the annual meeting of the City Mission last night regarding distress in the city only gave part of the story, the Rev. O. E. Burton, of the Webb Street Metho, dist Church, stating that there were probably about thirty men homeless in Wellington every night. There was great need for some form of provision for these men, he said, and if the State would supply them with shelter it would be more economical in the end because they had to be provided for by someone.

During the last three weeks, said Mr. Burton, he had had up to ten men sleeping in his washhouse every night. It was only an ordinary size building, and he had equipped it with two bunks but there was insufficient room and insufficient blankets for the men. All he could do was to give them a roof over their heads and a cup of tea in the morning. The men who came to him had been turned away from the City Mission and the Salvation Army because they had no accommodation for them, and while some of them were derelicts others were quite decent fellows. "WORST FOR SOME YEARS." "It seems to me," said Mr. Burton, "that we are in for the worst winter we have experienced for some years. Men are coming into the city from seasonal occupations such as freezing works, and some of them have been so improvident that they have no money for the winter." There would always be a certain number of improvident persons, Mr. Burton said, and if the Social Security Department would provide some form of accommodation for them it would prove more economical in the end. He believed there were about thirty homeless men in Wellington every night. Ten of them were sleeping in his washhouse and he had been told that others were camped in odd corners. It was known that some got into railway carriages and parked cars, while others spent a good deal of time in the railway station waiting-room. The officer in charge of the Salvation Army Samaritan Relief Office said that distress had increased very considerably during recent weeks and her office had been called upon to assist people who had never come there before. The main difficulty appeared to be with labourers on casual work. One case she had dealt with concerned a man who had been out of work for a fortnight before he secured a job on the Hutt Road at £4 a week. By the -time he was paid the £4, less tax,, his family had been four weeks without an income, and in any case it was impossible for him to make full provision for his wife and four children on £3 16s a week. Pier office had to give assistance in many cases of that nature. SUSTENANCE INSUFFICIENT. Then there were the men on the sustenance payment of £1 a week who now had to pay a levy of 5s per quarter instead of Is. These men could not pay board and live on what they received. The Salvation Army hostel and the Men's Shelter at Miramar were both overcrowded and had shakedowns everywhere. They still had to turn men away every night. That condition existed although the Army had struck all old age pensioners off the assistance list since they received the 30s a week. The only help given to old age pensioners was in cases of sickness. The real difficulty appeared to be the gap between one job and another.

The Rev. Percy Paris, of the Taranaki Street Methodist Church, said that he was receiving fewer appeals than he did a few years ago, but the majority of the men in his district went to Mr. Burton. CATHOLIC RELIEF. "We are experiencing a great number of unemployed looking for relief in the way of food, clothing, and shelter," said Mr. P. D. Hoskins, president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Wellington. He quoted from the society's report for the year ended December last, which showed that 422 families comprising 4511 individuals were helped by the society, which gave out 1324 grocery orders, 615 coal orders, and 5581 garments. In addition 2868 visits were made to the poor in their own homes. Those were the figures for last year, said Mr. Hoskins, but the society's work had not slackened since. Most of the cases dealt with by the society were genuine ones, said Mr. Hoskins, especially where families were concerned, as members of the society could visit them in their homes. Occasionally, however, some casual applicants for relief might, not be in genuine need of it, especially when | they were single men drifting in from other towns in search of work. In those cases the society had to use its discretion according to the appearance, and conduct of the men.