HOUSING PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 48, 25 August 1945, Page 9

HOUSING PROBLEM

"POSITION DESPERATE"

PLEA FOR RETURNED MEM

A strong plea for the building of additional houses for returned servicemen was made in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon by Mr. A. S. Sutherland (National, HauraM) when he was speaking in the Budget debate. Mr. Sutherland said he had recently asked the Minister of Finance to increase the allocation of State houses from 50 per cent, to 75 per cent., but he would go further and suggest that 80 per cent, of the State houses built should be reserved for servicemen. He found that people who had not lifted a finger to assist the war effort were getting State houses.

"The position is desperate, said Mr, Sutherland. "I think the time has arrived when priority in building material and man-power should be extended to the building of homes.' He •had noticed that the Invercargill Licensing Trust was spending £30,000 in alterations to the Grand Hotel for the accommodation of 20 or 30 additional guests. There was also a building going up for the Trust in South Invercargill. Surely the spending of £100,000 in this way should be stopped and the money devoted to the building of homes for servicemen. He could not understand Cabinet authorising expenditure of the amount involved in the Invercargill Licensing Trusts building programme. It was time something was done about it —and done quickly. The - money, material, and labour involved represented the construction of 70 homes for soldiers. Mr. Sutherland instanced the case of a demobilised airman with five years' service who had rehabilitated j himself in a good position in Wellington, but was unable to get a house and his wife had to live in the South' Island with relatives after a five years separation from her husband. It was as necessary to build houses today as it was to build camps and other requirements for the defence forces during the war period. At some of the camps although the war was over building was still going on. Mr, Sutherland said that military defaulters were being released and going to their homes. He considered that none of those men should be allowed to go to a home until the returned men were all housed, and in addition they should be deprived of their civil rights for ten years. Any defaulter who had gone into a home of his own should be sent back to camp and a serviceman placed in his home.